A group of models in oddly shaped, solid-colored, blocky clothing struts out of a yellow elevator. The words “create exuberant” fill the screen.
A model wearing a structured red dress and silver eye makeup spins. “Live vivid” appears.
An older male model channeling 1990s Iggy Pop in solid red paints the camera lens white. “Delete ordinary.”
This…this…is a car commercial?
Jaguar made news (and social media mockery) yesterday with a new ad campaign that immediately made viewers wonder if “Zoolander 3” was coming at last and if Kirkland brand Willem Dafoe was Derek Zoolander’s new rival. It isn’t. He isn’t.
The ad is the first step in the reinvention of a nearly 90-year-old car company. The ad ends with “copy nothing” in a font that, one KBB editor notes, looks copied from the GM logo.
We can explain. Well, we can describe.
Trying to Move Upscale
Jaguar, industry publication Automotive News explains, hopes to transform itself to serve “a more exclusive and dramatically smaller customer base.”
Over the summer, plans leaked indicating Jaguar would scuttle most of its lineup entirely and try to move upscale into Aston Martin and Bentley territory.
The publication reports that the F-Pace SUV is the only new Jaguar still in production, though other vehicles such as the XF sedan, F-Type sports car, E-Pace compact crossover, and I-Pace are likely still on dealer lots.
Moving forward, Jaguar is preparing a new lineup of electric vehicles (EVs) aimed at wealthier buyers.
First Actual Car Coming Soon…Sort Of
Now, AN reports, the effort will see something more than dancing models and the odd aesthetics of the high-fashion world.
The company will reveal a 2-door concept car in Miami in early December “as part of Jaguar’s sponsorship of Art Week.” Concept cars are generally not intended for sale. They’re design studies that hint at a brand’s future plans.
Miami’s Art Week event often “draws nearly 100,000 art collectors, dealers, and artists to various locations throughout the city’s eclectic array of art deco, pastel-colored hotels, and museums,” AN says. They’re “a moneyed niche of customers who often view ultraluxury cars as an art form.”
That explains the elevator crowd and their blank expressions.
The brand will later unveil a new lineup of actual cars it plans to sell, AN reports. All “will be at least twice the price of those on sale now, all will look completely different from anything in Jag’s past and from other brands’ vehicles, and all are intended to be second or third cars for upscale families with stables of vehicles.”
The automotive press has hints on just one of them. Jaguar test drivers have been spotted in a heavily camouflaged full-size sedan with boxy proportions. It’s hard to tell under all the wrapping, but the car looks almost like a rival to the Cadillac Celestiq – another high-dollar super-sedan built by a brand aiming for wealthier buyers than it’s used to.
AN says a 3-row SUV and “possibly a limousine-sized sedan for royalty” will follow.
New Leaper, No Growler
In the meantime, the brand has revealed a remodel of its famous logos. Jaguar vehicles have traditionally worn one or both of two stylized cats. The “leaper” shows a jaguar in profile, leaping off its hind legs. The “growler” shows the big cat’s face, snarling.
The growler, which adorned the legendary E-Type some purists consider history’s most beautiful car, is gone. In its place will appear a more conventional script badge showing a lowercase j and r.
The leaper returns, but more angular – a mechanical mecha-leaper of sorts. It will now appear against horizontal lines Jaguar calls a “strikethrough.”
The new logos are all we have to go on, for now. Well, and fake Iggy.
This Might Make Sense in the End
It’s a bold change for a brand approaching a century old, and not many automakers can succeed by making their products unattainable to most people.
But, over its history, Jaguar has been everything from a racing team that built sports cars for a select few to a division of Ford lowering prices to compete for the masses. In recent years, it has styled itself a luxury alternative to BMW and Mercedes, with limited success.
In its E-Type heyday, Jags were relatively rare sights. That was part of their mystique. We can’t be sure that’s the wrong approach for the storied brand.
“Jaguar was always at its best when challenging convention,” says Jaguar Managing Director Rowan Glower.