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We're being too hard on Jaguar
Can we save the hot takes until we see the new cars?
Jack Appleby
November 25, 2024
In partnership with
When I see groupthink on the interwebs, especially when it’s a brutal pile-on, I go full Ted Lasso on the situation. “Be curious, not judgmental.” And with the amount of hate heaved towards Jaguar the last week? I had to take a beat, avoid everyone’s takes, then read every take, before penning out my own thoughts.
Today’s Future Social has goodies like:
Why everyone should relax about Jaguar
Data on how TikTok scrollers decide who to follow
Why you need to learn about Twitch again.
—Jack Appleby
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We’re being too hard on Jaguar (and why the campaign will succeed)
Boy, people have some takes on the Jaguar rebrand.
I’ve got bunches of thoughts, and thoughts on everyone’s thoughts, like
Why I think everyone’s very much overreacting
Why this level of virality guarantees some level success
Some tips on running teaser-based social campaigns
What Jaguar has in common with IHOP
But I think what’s craziest to me: Jaguar’s doing the kind of bold strategy we all claim we want more of, all while we rip it to shreds, and worse, basically suggest they be more boring.
It’s wayyy too early for anyone to judge the rebrand, or call it unsuccessful, or claim to know Jaguar’s plan.
It’s been wild to watch the majority of marketers torch what’s essentially a tone piece, that doesn’t show new product, that is clearly a teaser, that gives more questions than answers about a legendary (but currently failing) car brand’s future.
Friends. This is a teaser spot. It’s tonal. And yes, it’s a very loud, vibrant, & different tone than we’ve seen from luxury auto. And sure, you can have opinions on a teaser!
It’s extraordinarily odd to me how quickly seasoned marketers are dismissing a brand pivot based on a teaser spot. I’m reading brand identity reviews and articles on the campaign, when there is no brand identity or campaign yet! We don’t know their new target audience, or their new price point, or even what the new car looks like—and you can’t judge a brand identity or advertising campaign until you know those things.
Jaguar even told us that we’d get the full reveal on December 2nd, but I guess us dopamine junkies couldn’t possibly wait to find out if the juice is worth the squeeze.
Do you remember when IHOP changed their name to sell some burgers?
The pancake chain launched a big teaser campaign in 2018, claiming they were changing their name to IHOB… but they didn’t tell us what the B stood for. We were asked to speculate, and boy, did we: there were 1.2 million tweets about IHOB in the week before the reveal.
Was there a bit of a collective groan when we found out B was for Burgers? Sure. But the brand said they sold 4x the burgers from that mostly-social campaign, peaking at 500,000 burgers a weak.
That’s a syrupy anecdote on how sometimes volume of conversation is a better indicator of sales than sentiment. And I think that’s very much gonna be the case with Jaguar.
No one was talking about Jaguar before. Look at their Google Trends data. This is the most Jaguar has ever been searched.
If the new Jaguar voice & tone don’t resonate with you, fine—sounds like you’re not their target audience, then! And I’m very sure that the Jaguar teaser didn’t deter someone who was going to be a purchaser of their new car. But make no mistake—this ad going hyper viral certainly ensured it hit the eyeballs of their new target market, however they might define them.
But no, not all publicity is good publicity.
I think everyone’s overreacting, but when this many people are confused or annoyed by your brand’s content, that’s never a good thing. Not all press is good press.
If this many people think it’s a bad teaser… it’s a bad teaser.
To me, it’s creatively guilty of exactly what it claims to avoid. This new “Copy Nothing” tagline is great within the context of luxury auto, but it doesn’t live in a vacuum, and supporting lines like “create exuberant” and “live vivid” couldn’t be more similar to many modern marketing campaigns. Or hey, maybe it’s brilliant satire on both auto and Apple-adjacent brands?
Per my last email, we can’t know because it’s only a teaser, but I do think Jaguar could’ve made a few tactical plan adjustments that would’ve helped a lot.
We now know that Jaguar is revealing their new car on December 2nd… but that info isn’t anywhere in the viral teaser video. Not in the video itself, and not even in the captions. That’s a big tactical mistake, and I believe would’ve encouraged more curiosity for the reveal instead of everyone jumping the gun.
A teaser campaign’s gotta make sure we know when the teasing will be paid off.
Hell, I hadn’t heard that Jaguar committed to only making electric cars, or that there won’t even be new Jaguars for the entirety of 2025 in preparation for their big shift. Those are huge, fascinating pieces of info! And give more context to this big shift! Don’t muddy your spot’s visuals with those details, but at least put them in the YouTube and Instagram captions so we can learn a little more.
A two-week teaser campaign is too long, too. The Copy Nothing spot dropped 5 days ago, yet I already feel like I missed the primary conversation window. Like that IHOB campaign, cutting down to one week would’ve ensured that conversation stayed high and speculative instead of viewing as a stand-alone.
My guess? Jaguar decided they wanted to tie the reveal to Art Basel in Miami, but someone said “we can’t start a teaser campaign Thanksgiving week while people are off,” so they extended the tease phase an extra week. Which I think’s gonna bite them a bit.
Isn’t Jaguar doing what we all say we wish we could do?
Listen, I wouldn’t have done things the way Jaguar is doing them, but I’m really happy to see something different, and I’m really curious to see what’s in store for them. Because if this works? It becomes an incredible proof point to new marketing approaches, especially in the ultra luxury category.
But it feels like the same marketers who want to do more creative work seem to hate this creative work. The posts that are slowly killing me: the “here’s how I would’ve rebranded Jaguar” LinkedIn posts, especially the ones from agency owners. 99% of those are the most boring, expected, unoriginal advertising ideas. My personal favorite: “all you need to do is build a dope care and make commercials of a jaguar running next to it.”
Did you catch the movie Sorry To Bother You? It’s flawed, but I enjoyed it and remember telling people “I’m glad it got made. We need more movies like that.”
I’m glad Jaguar’s doing this work. We need more original approaches to marketing.
All that matters is if the new cars are cool.
Everyone was up in arms when Instagram went to their new gradient logo. Same thing happened with that Uber logo refresh in 2016. And… nothing happened, we kept on ‘grammin’ and ride-sharin’.
We’ll see next week if Jaguar’s got a car to pay off the hype.
There are so many social big thinkers out there, writing all kinds of amazing strategies, analysis, and breakdowns. All ships rise with the tide, so here are a few reads from other places I think you could learn from.
A bunch of interesting data points on what sort of people we follow on TikTok, news consumption on TikTok vs. other platforms, and general account following behavior. You’ll wanna save and reference this one for awhile.
You might know I worked at Twitch for two years, so I’ve got a special affection for livestreaming platforms. They’re often the red-headed step-child of social media, so here, take another great explainer piece with some new data on growth.
There’s plenty of election dissection out there, and I’m no political strategy expert, but I do think there are a lot of learnings to be had from both campaigns, namely on the importance of top-line messaging strategy, when and where to roll out memes, and creating a brand based on the values of your intended audience.
Social Cues