Gentlemen, what do you think of when you hear the word, “JAGUAR”? Specifically, what do you think when you hear the word in connection with motoring? If you are anything like me – or most red-blooded men – you think of classic British car manufacturing, with sweeping curves, beautiful lines, a growling monster under the bonnet (yes, my American friends, that IS the correct term, not “hood”), and, most importantly, just a slight sense of absolute power, corrupting absolutely.

Jaguar cars are, in other words, rakish, raffish, rogueish, and just a wee bit bad. That was precisely the brand image JAAAAAAGs of the past tried to convey – and, for the most part, they succeeded.

Just look at this legendary “Good to be Bad” set of adverts from about 10 years ago:

That was what JAAAAAAG adverts used to be like – stylish, suave, classy, with just a hint of understated menace, with sharp lines delivered by masculine British actors possessed of superb elocution.

Simply put, they did their damn job – they made you WANT to buy a JAAAAAAG.

If I remember it right, Jaguars also used to be marketed at a somewhat lower price point than their German equivalents, and with good reason. The idea was that owning an XJ (or, in modern terms, XE or XF), should be a little bit less costly than owning the equivalent BMW 5- or 7-series, or the Mercedes E- or S-class, but the buyer should get a lot more value for money in the process.

The problem is, Jaguar (unlike Land Rover) has been a consistent money-loser for many years, and has seen consistently falling sales for roughly a decade. Based on a conversation I had with one of their people some time ago, their problems stem from having too many platforms, and high production costs, as well as a somewhat confused and confusing brand identity.

So, in recent times, they have tried to rebrand themselves (unsuccessfully, as far as I can tell).

Jaguar announced a few years ago that they will switch to producing purely electric cars, and extremely expensive ones, too. That is a shoulder-sagging moment for people like me, who have always dreamed of driving and owning Jaguar cars.

And, make no mistake, Jaguars are (well, WERE) beautiful to own and drive. I rode in a friend’s F-type once, about 5.5 years back, and it was absolutely EPIC. You really have to hear and feel the roar of that supercharged engine – whether in the V6 or V8 configurations – to understand those things I mentioned up top, that make up the identity of the Jaguar brand.

And now we see the end result of that rebranding. THIS is what Jaguar adverts look like today:

Copy nothing. #Jaguar pic.twitter.com/BfVhc3l09B

— Jaguar (@Jaguar) November 19, 2024

If you watch that, the first thing you will ask yourself – which is precisely what thousands upon thousands of commenters asked – is, “where the heck is the CAR?!?!?!”.

Honestly, it looks like some sort of weird psychedelic acid trip mashed up with an advert for a gay strip club. In other words, it is designed specifically to alienate the very market that loves and buys Jaguar cars.

This is basically Jaguar’s “Gillette moment”, where the brand completely shits the bed. And, as with Gillette’s infamous “Best a Man Can Be” adverts, which absolutely DESTROYED the brand’s value and resulted in a colossal US$8B write-down for Procter & Gamble 5 years ago, and a further US$2.5B write-down just a year ago – this ad is likely to destroy Jaguar’s brand value for the combined entity, Jaguar Land Rover, owned today by the Tata conglomerate in India.

His Nigelness had a view thoughts about the new Jagvert too, and they are not kind:

(Fun fact: I once stayed at the same hotel he did, and encountered him at breakfast. I didn’t speak to him personally – I don’t like bothering celebrities or famous people – but my company’s boss did. Seems like a solid chap – despite his support for the poison death shots, lockdowns, and other assorted Scamdemic idiocy, back in the day.)

Jaguar still has a chance to save itself from this abominable stupidity – a VERY slim chance, but one that exists nonetheless. If their intention is to say that they “copy nothing”, then they should focus on all the innovations they are putting into their all-electric platform – regardless of how men like me feel about the fact that JAAAAAGs are just going to become stupidly expensive electric shavers.

If their target market is now “people with more money than sense”, who want to buy idiotically overpriced electric junk that can be hacked, spontaneously combusts, constantly gives you range anxiety, and is woefully unreliable, then Tesla has already proven there is a big market for such dumbassery. You could sell MILLIONS of these stupid things if you market to places like Dubai, Monaco, Cheshire, Moscow (well, maybe not now), New York F***ing Shitty, Hollywood, and so on and so forth.

Plenty of footballists, adult pretenders, and oil sheikhs (all basically a different type of dumbshit, really) in those places who would love to snap your arm off for a ridiculously priced electric thingy.

But at least make it look and feel interesting – rather than the aftermath of a drug-induced gay orgy.

Suffice to say, then, that I do not think this new JAAAAAAG advert is going to do the company any favours. And, in all honesty, if this results in the collapse of the company, I, for one, will not miss it.

I want the Jags of yore – the ones that made you feel just a bit like a villain, the ones that were beautifully styled for luxury and comfort that rivalled and in some cases exceeded that of their German competitors, and that conveyed “Britishness” in a way that only a Jag or an Aston Martin could.

Let us bid farewell to Jaguar, then, with a collection of clips from the glory days of the Three Wazzateers, who knew and understood perfectly well what Jaguar was really all about:

And, let us never forget, the legendary, magnificent, beautiful, incredible, wonderful, glorious, gorgeous, never-to-be-beaten, JAGUAR E-TYPE:

UPDATE: As noted by LRFotS RobertW, and picked up by PJW as well, the new Porsche advert does not give us much hope for the auto industry either…

Introducing the Aimé Leon Dore Porsche 993 Turbo. pic.twitter.com/oBLR1eJjPO

— Porsche (@Porsche) November 20, 2024

The video breakdown from PJW on both ads, points out that the Porsche one is, in some ways, even more insidious, evil, and sulphuric than the Jaguar one: