Fed move or expensive mistake?

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Jaguar’s recent Rebrand has people to speak, but not in the way most marketers hope for.

Gone are the classic signals of British elegance. In their place is minimalism and “modernist overflow.” Their rebrand campaigns involve cryptic videos, high-fashion models and a new mantra: “Copy nothing. Delete commonly. “

Reactions are mixed. Marketing legend Mark Ritson called it “F — ing Lunacy,” while Rory Sutherland reserves the verdict and said, “It’s too early to call.”

So what is Jaguar’s playing?

What has Jaguar done?

The historic British car manufacturer has gone for a new look. The leaping cat is removed from the logo. Instead is a minimalist word mark that is now reading “Jaguar.” Yes … with the random activation.

Jaguar launched this rebrand by wiping their social media profiles clean and replacing their branding with car -free visuals. This caused Elon Musk to ask, “Do you sell cars?”.

But the change is part of a wider strategy. Jaguar’s sales have fallen and there is a real fear that the brand cannot rely on its existing customer base.

To tackle the Jaguar as a £ 100k+ luxury EV brand to compete with Porsche and Bentley. Instead of targeting an older generation that loves its British roots, Jaguar is planning to target “cash -rich, time -poor” millennia and Gen Z.

But will it work?

The tropicana effect

Most marketers can tell a long list of failed rebrands. Usually the top of the list is Tropicana in 2009. They ditched their iconic orange-with-a-straw logo for a slim redesign.

The result was ABYSMAL. Sales fell 20% in two months. The company lost £ 30 million before encrypting back to the original design.

Jaguar’s gamble feels awkwardly alike: to grab the familiar in favor of “modern.” But here’s the thing: Cars are not juice.

Buying Tropicana is a quick, emotional and intuitive decision (what Daniel Kahneman would call “System 1”). Car purchases are deliberate, logical and bound to identity (“System 2”).

So you can argue that the cutting of Jaguar from its roots is unproblematic. After all, buyers will rationally assess Jaguar’s car based on its quality, not its historic marketing.

But we lack an important part of the puzzle: mental availability.

Jaguar’s mental accessibility problem

Byron Sharp, author of how brands are growing, highlights the power of memory structures. Jaguar’s Arv-Le Mans wins, the E-Type and “Jaaaag” factor-is its mental assets.

Sharp claims that one of the only goals of advertising is to update mental availability. This keeps consciousness high and increases purchases.

Huge brands such as McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Apple and Audi incorporate characteristic brand elements into each of their ads. This repeated exposure builds mental availability in the customer’s mind.

In his book, Sharp notes how ads that successfully link to existing fire assets are 60% more effective in running sales than generic ads with weak fire associations.

In other words, Coca-Cola sells more by creating familiar, albeit maybe boring, ads of young friends drinking coke on a hot day than they would do by creating an ad that is characteristic, yet unknown.

Jaguar ditched all their recognized assets for abstract visuals risk losing everything that makes the brand memorable.

Lessons from Australian wine

Bryon Sharp shares an example of Queen Adelaide, a well -known wine brand in Australia that had lost the market relevance and shelf.

Seppelt, the company behind Queen Adelaide, saw an opportunity to relaunch the brand rather than create a new one. Unlike Jaguar, Queen Adelaide focused on maintaining confidentiality. They retained the recognizable name and design elements to trigger existing memory structures in the consumer’s mind.

Within a short period of time, Queen Adelaide became the largest selling chardonnay in Australia. Sales rose due to the brand’s ability to connect again with its established mental availability.

The example emphasizes that doubling mental accessibility can create sales for a fighting brand.

The sensible opportunity for Jaguar

The safe and sensible opportunity for the iconic brand would have been to marry the old and the new.

Take the assets that Jaguar fans are familiar with and build on them to highlight their new electronic era.

They could have reinvented the logo, but kept clearer nodding to Jaguar’s heritage. Mental availability thrives on confidentiality, and Jaguar’s rebrand leaves them as weak as a new brand that comes into an extremely competitive market.

By adding the strong brand, Jaguar could have preserved the strong associations that millions around the world had with the brand instead of interrupting them.

But that’s the sure opportunity. Although it is undoubtedly less risky and far less likely to lead to a disastrous decline in sales, it also has less potential for the upside.

The big question

Is Jaguar’s rebrand a smart movement to secure its place in the EV market, or will it end up as another tropicana-like disaster?

Mark Ritson claims that they should have modernized with their inheritance and not deleted it. Rory Sutherland? He holds an open mind.

What is certain is this: Jaguar has risked billions in mental availability. If they cannot build new associations quickly enough, this bold effort costs more than they can afford.

This blog is part of Phill agnew ‘S. Marketing cheating series Where he reveals the scientifically proven tips to help you improve your marketing. To learn more you need to listen to his podcast PushA proud member of HubSpot Podcast Network.