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Tuesday, November 19, 2024

See it here before it makes AdAge: the Jaguar fiasco

If you're in marketing but announced to the world that you have left X, you would not see this latest randing disaster as it unfold. There's something meta (not the company) about reception happening in real-time to the "Copy Nothing" Jaguar video copied from YouTube below.  It wasn't greeted warmly on that channel either.


In fact, I predict that the comments will be closed there because this is the gist of the top ones on YouTube:
How to destroy your brand in 30 seconds.
103
This will go on as the worst new Jaguar logo ever.
150
Jaguar died.
97
Is this an ad for a car company or a discount fashion store for 12 year old girls?
70
Fire everyone in marketing responsible for this.
73
"Are you sure this will help us sell more cars?" "Cars?"
145
This marketing agency is completely out of touch.
61
Dear Jaguar, sack your advertising firm. This is aiming for an audience who will never buy a car. Also, why wasn't there a car in the advert?
176
I think the marketing department took the term "it's good to be bad" wayy too seriously 😐
55
Shocking. An automotive marque with +100 years of tradition in making world record breaking, elegant cars degraded to weird fashion house like branding with the sloppiest logotype I've seen in a long time.
141
To use a phrase that only an actual Jaguar owner would use: “What the hell is this tripe?”
49
I drive a Jag, I film adverts, this is deeply upsetting. I've seen this type of advert a thousand times before, there is nothing original about it..?
59
But back to the meta observation on virtue-signalling that you're leaving X and how it parallels this off-the-mark marketing: If you close yourself off from those who have different views and expectations than your own, and those people happen to also overlap with your primary customer base, you're marketing is likely to miss the mark.

On X there are now thousands of comments in response to this video, , and not a single one of them seems to say, "You've piqued my interest." Instead they say things like this:

@pixel_preet: "Umm where are the cars in this ad? Is this for fashion?"

The poor intern in charge of the X account for Jaguar then responds:
"Think of this as a declaration of intent."

And is slammed by @dave_watches retort: "To go bankrupt? Got it"

Another exchange: @SwitcherB: "What the actual hell is this?"
Jaguar intern reaches for what has long ago become a cliche to answer: "The future."


This comment ( and others like it) got 3K likes: @LodgieFromLanza "Oh... That is bad, very bad. You will lose your core clientel [sic] and fail to attract any person who wants to purchase a quality product. If you were seeking woke under 30's who are serially unemployed then you've hit the mark."

That's the thing: staying within your own bubble and deliberately closing off your ears to the voices of other points of view means you'll be convinced that your idea is brilliant with no reality check until after you've unveiled it to the world and  fallen flat on your face.

Remember the Apple Crush crash? This is the same kind of mistake. 


P.S. added on November 20th: Don't think that this is only a problem for fuddy-duddy conservatives. John Aziz considers himself Th liberal, and this is what he posted:
Millions of people who were never going to buy a Jaguar in the first place are now really mad at Jaguar. This is a bizarre advert for a car as it doesn't involve any cars, but the vast majority of the people who are getting mad weren't even potential customers.

. 
P.P.S. Did the "Where are the cars?" comments remind anyone here of the famous "Where's the beef?" Wendy's commercials? That was a memorable and effective ad campaign. This Jaguar one is only memorable the way the introduction of  New Coke is memorable -- as a bad idea for most people. (Yes, I know some people still buy and enjoy the New Coke formula, though they're far from the majority.)


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