- Jaguar defended its rebranding campaign after online critics roasted a promotional video.
- Jaguar's boss said the rebranding message was lost "in a blaze of intolerance."
- The campaign, featuring models and no cars, faced criticism for being "woke."
Jaguar's managing director is defending the British luxury carmaker's new rebranding campaign — calling out some of its online critics for their "vile hatred" and "intolerance."
In an interview with the Financial Times, Rawdon Glover said the campaign's intended message was lost "in a blaze of intolerance" and that the controversial promotional video was not meant to be a "woke" statement, as some critics have argued.
The video, which featured sleek models in brightly colored clothes, didn't feature any cars — notable, the critics said, for a car brand.
The backlash began earlier this week after Jag unveiled a new brand strategy ahead of its all-electric vehicle launch, which is expected sometime in 2026.
As part of the rebrand, the iconic 90-year-old company — a favorite of British royalty and prime ministers — debuted a modernized typeface for its logo, a new leaping jaguar mark, and a video ad that showed models doing things like painting a wall, holding a sledgehammer, and gathering in a pink desert without any cars in sight.
The video generated a rash of criticism on social media with some right-leaning personalities accusing the company of abandoning its history and leaning into "woke" politics.
Glover told the FT he was disappointed by "the level of vile hatred and intolerance" that the video garnered online, particularly against the models it featured, adding that the campaign had received overall "positive" buzz.
He said Jag's intent was to be different from other automakers.
"If we play in the same way that everybody else does, we'll just get drowned out. So we shouldn't turn up like an auto brand," Glover said in the interview.
"We need to re-establish our brand and at a completely different price point so we need to act differently," he said. "We wanted to move away from traditional automotive stereotypes."
As part of the brand's new elevated positioning, the newly announced Jags are expected to be significantly more upmarket than the ones that are being phased out, Car and Driver previously reported, citing a Range Rover from the brand's corporate cousin that costs around $400,000 as where the brand wants to be. (Most 2024 Jaguar models have list prices of around $50,000 to $80,000.)
Jaguar, which is part of the Jaguar Land Rover group and is owned by India's Tata Motors, announced earlier this fall that it would end production of all its current models this year before debuting its new all-electric lineup.
Meanwhile, high-profile critics of this week's rebranding video — which has already been viewed nearly 160 million times on X — included Tesla CEO Elon Musk, influencer brothers Andrew and Tristan Tate, and conservative personality Ian Miles Cheong.
In response to the video posted on X by Jaguar, Musk wrote: "Do you sell cars?" And Nick Freitas, a Republican member of the Virginia House of Delegates, replied to Jaguar on X: "Well … we know where the advertising team for Bud Light went," referring to the backlash to a Bud Light ad in 2023 that featured a transgender influencer.
Some critics said they would boycott the brand based on their assumption that it had gone "woke," while others, including some marketing professionals, mocked the video as confusing and stylistically outdated.
Jaguar said it would announce more details about its new branding strategy in December, though it's not clear if that will include specifics about any of its forthcoming electric vehicles.
Without commenting specifically on the backlash, Jaguar said in a statement to Business Insider: "The brand reveal is only the first step in this exciting new era, and we look forward to sharing more on Jaguar's transformation in the coming days and weeks."