The boss of struggling carmaker Jaguar has again defended the dramatic rebrand that sparked an online backlash when he launched his new car in Miami.
The 89-year-old British car brand unveiled a sleek new electric model on Monday, ending weeks of unprecedented anticipation for a Jaguar launch, albeit arguably for the wrong reasons.
The Type 00, launched in neon colors that Jaguar calls “Miami Pink” and “London Blue”, marks the most aggressive rebrand in Jaguar history. The cars, which will start at just under £100,000, are designed to appeal to a new, younger audience.
However, the bold new design is unlikely to placate conservative critics who have slammed the automaker in the past two weeks.
Jaguar’s controversial rebrand
Jaguar announced the rebrand in November, two weeks before it was set to debut its latest models at Miami Art Week. The criticism summed up the ongoing culture war taking place on social media between the right and left political spectrum.
In its advertising, Jaguar used models from a diverse, young background in a clear sign of its turn away from its older customer base. However, there was no car to go along with the bold advertising campaign.
The rebrand received harsh criticism on the Internet, which often spilled over into homophobia and transphobia. X owner and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, a critic of what he calls the “awakened mind virus,” wrote on his platform to his 206 million followers: “Do you sell cars?”
Jaguar’s rebrand has been compared to Bud Light’s social media campaign with Dylan Mulvaney, which sparked a boycott of the beer and wiped nearly $30 billion from owner ABInBev’s market value. That backlash was also laced with homophobic and transphobic rhetoric, with Mulvaney later speaking she did not feel supported by ABInBev amid the online vitriol.
There is apparently no such thing as bad publicity for Jaguars boss Rawdon Glover, however.
“We want to be bold and disruptive … We’re clearly in the conversation,” Glover said Sky News.
“More people have been talking about Jaguar in the last two weeks than – for God’s sake, so much longer. Car companies are constantly discovering new cars and they go completely unnoticed.”
Nigel Farage, leader of the right-wing Reform UK party, said: “I predict that Jaguar will now fail. And you know what? They deserve it.”
Glover’s reply to Farage in time confirms expectations among CEOs that only 15% of his Jaguar customers will accept the rebrand, and Farage is not among them.
“The average age of a Jaguar customer is quite old and getting older. We need to approach a completely different audience. That audience is not focused on people in Mr Farage’s demographic,” Glover told the time.
Speaking to Sky News after the car’s launch, Glover didn’t seem to buy into this statement.
“We want to take as many of our current fans as possible with us on that journey… We need to attract new audiences as well. That’s what we need to do.”
