I just want to see content relevant to me.
Get more exciting content
Follow us on socials to keep up to date with our newest content. Alternatively, sign up for our mailer below to get personalised TCC content, straight to your inbox.
This week saw two car brands trending, with people talking, posting, and sharing in droves. Both Volvo and Jaguar saw engagement rates spike recently, but for very different reasons, and centred around very different public sentiment.
The rebrand debacle
I’m sure by this point, everyone has seen the news that Jaguar has rebranded. Though posts vary slightly in their content, the general sentiment is the same: disappointment and bafflement from consumers, horror from marketers and sales professionals. But is it all bad?
To start, the modernisation and simplification of the Jaguar logo echoes a wider theme of modern minimalism that so many luxury brands are adopting (see Burberry, Balmain, and Rimowa). But does the new logo work for the Jaguar brand?
Where the previous logo was instantly recognisable and echoed the brand’s iconic heritage, this new logo is, in our view, nondescript and soulless. As an agency, we are in agreement with the large majority of social media voices on this.
The new look and feel of their brand was unveiled in a video—which didn’t feature any cars—depicting a group of people wearing bold, colourful, and extravagant fashion. The burst of colour and contemporary shapes seem to be a complete abandonment of the classic limited colour palette the brand once stuck to.
One thing’s for sure – it has people talking, and the search term ‘Jaguar’ has seen an exponential spike in the last week. But is all publicity good publicity in the marketing and branding world?
Our thoughts
We always come back to the storytelling, and that’s exactly what has us so puzzled about Jaguar’s decision.
As a creative marketing agency that crafts, solidifies, and promotes iconism and heritage for brands, we were pretty disappointed to see Jaguar abandon all of that in the pursuit of freshness and new generational appeal. We know, because we live it, that heritage, resonance, and iconism doesn’t have to go hand-in-hand with stagnation. There are so many ways of refreshing a brand without losing touch of its identity and without alienating a huge tranche of its audience.
It’s sad to see a homogenous and uninspiring logo replacing what was an instantly-recognisable, historic symbol of luxury. For a brand that positioned itself as timeless, this feels as though they have climbed up on the table, turned on a megaphone, and shouted “we were dated and irrelevant!”
The Jaguar brand story was strong and repeatable, which made it memorable. What is their new brand story? It’s not clear to us, nor is it clear to audiences yet. We’re willing to give Jaguar the benefit of the doubt, though we will be watching with piqued interest to see where the brand story goes from here.
So, is it a miss, or is it a stroke of genius?
Two sayings come to mind in possible defence of the Jaguar rebrand:
- If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it
- All publicity is good publicity
Many people have been questioning Jaguar’s move, wondering why the brand stepped away from its previous iconic branding. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, said multiple social media posts. But the question is: was the brand broken? According to their sales numbers across the past two years, things weren’t looking so peachy. Perhaps a dramatic stunt was exactly what the brand needed to revive the numbers.
It’s a hotly debated topic among PR and marketing professionals, but the idea that ‘all publicity is good publicity’ certainly plays a role in the dialogue around this rebrand, too. Though, of course, this has limitations (*most* publicity is good publicity), an inoffensive stunt that ruffles feathers can often revive flatlining brands, so long as it generates enough curiosity.
Was this rebrand worth the risk? That remains to be seen.
Why did we love it?
The ad gets it right on so many levels. Aside from being a touching display of fatherly (and motherly) love, the ad is so perfectly aligned with the Volvo brand identity and story. Volvo is known and recognised for its safety features (the brand actually invented the three-point seat belt in 1959), which is why the video works so well.
It also taps into the emotions of the viewer—everybody can relate to the ad because everybody has people in their lives that they love and want to protect.
The Volvo story
Volvo has made headlines for the opposite reason this week, having unveiled an advert for the new EX90 model. It has been widely praised on social media, going near-viral.
The advert depicts a young couple finding out that they are expecting a baby. Through the voice of the father narrating his daughter’s life from birth to teenagehood, the visuals of her growing up are interspersed with visuals of the expectant mother walking down the street. The touching footage of the baby shows all the human rites of passage growing up: tantrums, rule-breaking, first love, heartbreak, and so on. The crescendo of the ad shows the mother crossing the road, with a Volvo EX90 speeding towards her. Just when you think the car will crash into her, the camera turns to a hospital room with the mother holding her baby. The conclusion: sometimes what matters most are the things that don’t happen.
So what’s the common link?
It seems to us that exactly what Jaguar got wrong, Volvo got right.
Forging emotional connections to audiences is so crucial for marketing and advertising, and recognition and identity plays a key part in this.
Brands who have created a strong identity within their market have their own unique opportunity to create emotional ties with their potential customers—customers know who the brand is, what the story is, and how it relates to their lives.
Where the Jaguar rebrand seems to have walked away from their story of ‘timeless luxury’, Volvo have leaned in further to their ‘safe, reliable family car’ story.
How Jaguar will bounce back from this remains to be seen, but one thing is for sure: the emotional connection with their audience has been severed, and will need to be rebuilt quickly. We look forward to seeing how.
Enjoyed this article? Consider following us on socials! We post articles about all things marketing weekly.
