Car rebrands are always big news in design circles, particularly when they involve brand new logos. So when Jaguar yesterday debuted not one, but three new designs, comprising a wordmark, monogram and tweaked version of its famous leaping animal, it certainly made a splash. And, as you might expect, the reactions have been strong with this one.
With a minimal wordmark featuring a mixture of upper and lowercase letters, and cyperpunk-esque marketing imagery, this isn’t what people expected from the luxury sports car brand. While others are opting for a heritage look, Jaguar is leaning into ‘modern’. And it’s proving too much for many, with commentators across the whole of social media sharing their thoughts – including Elon Musk.
Taste aside — from a purely strategic perspective, this brand marketing is disastrous for Jaguar.For context, Jaguar sales have been plummeting (down 70% in the US in five years). It’s a crisis. Their #1 strategic imperative for comms and marketing should be to sell cars. So… https://t.co/5E59IleGVlNovember 19, 2024
To get a quick sense of how customers are feeling about a brand, one only needs to take a look at its Reddit page. Currently, the Jaguar subreddit is awash with swipes at the ‘glossy’ new look.
And even the bastion of taste that is Elon Musk has had something to say about the rebrand – and to be fair, he’s reiterating what seems to be the main complaint among the Jaguar community, which is that the new branding doesn’t seem to represent a car brand, with people variously suggesting it resembles that of a vegan smoothie company, or trendy underwear brand.
(Image credit: Future)
Still, time will tell whether the dust will settle on this one – after all, some of the most hated rebrands of all time, such as Airbnb’s controversial 2014 refresh, have proven to have impressive staying power.
