Thoughts from experts in design and branding about what went wrong to create such a negative backlash and what we can learn from it.
Jaguar (the car, not the animal) has been making waves in the car world — and the design world.
In November they unveiled a new branding — new logo, icon, messaging, the works — all in advance of a new shift in company focus to electric cars and a last ditch effort to improve declining sales.
Images source
You can view it in their own words on their website.
The result?
Pandemonium online.
Scott Galloway, professor of marketing at NYU, succinctly put it as the “worst brand move of 2024.” (Source)
Elon Musk subtly roasted them on X by commenting “Do you sell cars?”
Many people felt that the branding was a major miss, disconnected from the reality of their consumers’ needs and wants.
Current Jaguar owners are older and more conservative, people with old money. Instead of talking to their brand loyalists, Jaguar did a pivot towards a new audience of younger wealth by hitting hard on the woke vibes.
But it was more like the generic wokeness you expect from someone who has never actually seen a liberal before. It took the cliche and then ramped it up to an extreme, alienating even those who they were trying to reach.
One journalist at the launch event described the whole experience as being like a “hallucinogenic sci-fi movie.” (Source)
Bud Light made a similar error recently, costing them billions of dollars, when they hired a transgender influencer to represent their brand. Not realizing that the majority of Bud Light drinkers are highly conservative (think redneck in the Midwest US grabbing a beer at the pub after a day of physical labor on the farm). Needless to say, this majorly hurt their brand image and their sales are still recovering from the experience.
Rob Enderle, who was involved in IBM’s rebrand, put it:
“Their approach was to make the brand, which would now be associated with electric cars rather than gas cars, more attractive to young liberal buyers, who tended to buy more electric vehicles than conservative buyers who make up Jaguar’s existing customer base.
So, they hit hard on diversity, inclusion, and concepts that implied rebellion from conservative values to capture the interest of younger, more liberal buyers. Their approach alienated their existing base so badly that most appear to be planning to abandon the brand. It didn’t touch on why liberal younger buyers were buying electric cars, which was for conservation purposes and performance.
The campaign doesn’t hit on either the brand attributes that Jaguar’s existing base has or the brand attributes that the base they want to attract wants on automobiles.
Now, that doesn’t mean that liberal buyers don’t consider diversity, equity, and inclusion when choosing a company to buy from; these just aren’t attributed they use to choose a vehicle type in the first place; they are secondary considerations, and often these considerations are subordinate to their primary drivers of being green and high performance.” (Source)
Some of the comments online point to how out of touch with reality their new image is - both the reality of their current customer base and their new theoretical one.
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Was there anyone who thought this was a smart move?
The most people could defend it was - at least they tried something new rather than dying a quiet death of declining sales.
Video source
“That said, Jaguar is breaking the playbook and challenging convention—something branding critics, myself included, aren’t always quick to embrace. (Cue hot takes.)
Jaguar is taking a chance, evolving, and attempting to redefine luxury and performance—not appease nostalgic critics.” (Jacob Cass)
But it did make some good fodder for jokes!
For now, let’s see what we can learn.
What design considerations do we need to keep in mind in order to avoid such a flop in public perception?
Fonts, colors, and messaging all work hand in hand to create a brand. Each affect a brand’s personality and perception. (You can read more about how fonts influence branding in this article).
Jaguar’s new visuals feel disconnected from its messaging, rather than working together to reinforce each other.
“The high-fashionesque logo and generic typography feel ironic for a brand touting “Copy Nothing.”
They’re forgettable, derivative, and lacks the distinctiveness Jaguar needs to make this claim successful. That said, I do appreciate how the mark works in the context of the wheels.” (Jacob Cass)
These two designers walk through why the new branding is a miss for Jaguar’s audience:
Alina Voy, Source
Allan Peters, Source
Anneli Hansson listed questions you should be asking yourself when doing a rebrand in order to ensure that you’re hitting the mark:
How do you want your visual identity to make people feel?
Does it evoke the energy and emotion your brand promises?
If someone removed your name, would they still know it’s you?
What makes your design unmistakably yours?
Are you following a trend, or setting one?
Does your visual identity help you stand out in your category, or does it blend in?
Are you playing to fit in—or to lead? What’s your ultimate ambition, and how does your client, as a brand, express that?
My take (if I may insert my humble opinion among these experts) is that the dramatic shift from their previous brand to the new look and tone is so jarring that it loses the brand equity Jaguar had built up over the decades. People have lost trust in their brand. And we all know that people buy from those they “know, like, and TRUST.”
Something we always need to keep in mind when doing a rebrand is finding a way to bring in or make nods to the brand’s history. Whether that’s by using similar fonts or colors, or a modified version of the old icon, or a pattern using elements from the previous designs.
Rebrands usually work best on the human psyche and perception when you make a soft transition rather than a hard left turn.
Perhaps the reaction to Jaguar’s rebrand wouldn’t have been quite so negative if there had been a significant amount of lead-up and teasers before dropping this new look. 🤔
Rebrand takeaways
Take the time to understand your audience as a real person, not a generic conglomerate. Speaking to one person instead of a generic crowd makes your message more real and relatable.
Make sure your visuals align with your messaging and support it rather than giving off a mixed message.
Take your customers along the journey with you through big changes. Surprising them may create noise and drama, but it also loses trust which is more important than the temporary fame your dramatic reveal might create.
How will this play out?
In a year or two, will they declare bankruptcy or will all this chatter about them, bringing them back to the forefront of conversations, turn into sales and turn their company around?
“The ultimate goal of rebranding is to raise awareness, build legacy, and drive sales. If the public shows up, then Jaguar will have succeeded—no matter how unorthodox the approach.
In the end, rebranding isn’t just about following the rules; it’s about creating something that resonates with people. If Jaguar can pull that off, it will have redefined what it means to be a luxury brand in 2025.”
- Fumi James (Watanabe), Sr. Director, Global Foods Brand Design at PepsiCo (Source)
Although Rob Meyerson pulls up a comparison to Twitter’s rebrand to X:
“It reminds me of similar statements describing Elon Musk’s rebrand of Twitter to X as brilliant—now that he’s got your attention, some claimed, you just have to wait and see the rest of his genius plan roll out. Well, it’s been about a year and a half, and the Twitter rebrand doesn’t look any less dumb. (And, for the record, it was catastrophically dumb.)” (Source)
Time will tell if this was a major brand faux pas or an expert PR move.
