- Jaguar’s new CEO has no plans to backtrack on its reinvention program.
- PB Balaji claimed Jag received an ‘exciting response’ to its EV concept.
- Balaji replaced Adrian Mardell who retires after 35 years this November.
A change at the top at JLR and savage criticism from America’s man at the top, Donald Trump, won’t change Jaguar’s controversial rebranding plans. That’s according to the company’s new CEO, who claims the customers it is targeting love the new Type 00 EV concept.
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“We have put our plans together, the cars are being revealed, they’re getting exciting response from the customers on the ground,” incoming Jaguar boss PB Balaji told reporters, according to Auto News. “Therefore that’s what the strategy is.”
Related: Trump Rips Jaguar’s ‘Stupid Woke’ Rebrand Just As New Boss Steps Into The Fire
PB Balaji, previously finance chief at JLR parent company Tata, made his comments only days after President Trump singled out Jaguar’s recent marketing campaign as an example of terrible ‘woke’ advertising, and claimed the company was in “absolute turmoil.” Trump even suggested, without proof, that former CEO Adrian Mardell had resigned from his post in disgrace. Mardell, 65, retires this fall after 35 years with JLR.
Jaguar revealed a daring electric concept car at Miami Art Week last December previewing an upcoming four-door luxury sedan that will move the brand upmarket and into Bentley territory. But before that debut the automaker endured widespread ridicule for a fashion-style campaign that didn’t feature a single car and was meant to prepare us for the brand’s rebirth.
Balaji also hit back at Trump’s claim that Jag was in turmoil, saying JLR’s current performance should be considered in the context of struggles being endured across the industry.
“You need to compare our numbers vis-à-vis how others are delivering,” Balaji said, per Bloomberg.
This isn’t the first time JLR’s most senior people have responded to criticism of the “copy nothing” marketing campaign.
“We definitely weren’t saying ‘we’re about diversity’,” Jaguar MD Rawdon Glover told Auto Express earlier this year, denying the brand was trying to be ‘woke.’
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“The creative concepts and the individuals were chosen because they were very modern, striking, and bold. And we presented a car that was very exuberant, bold, and modern.”
But Glover conceded that it expected to alienate some older, conservative customers in the transition, so the fact that Trump revealed he wasn’t a fan probably didn’t surprise Jag too much.
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