Jaguar has rebranded. Is it brilliant or just a little bit too weird? Welcome to The Marketing Accelerator Podcast, featuring three insights in about three minutes. I'm Drew Dinkelacker, and I ask really good questions that get to the truth. If you have a marketing conundrum, hey, let's talk. Today, I'm speaking with Jim Heininger. He's the Principal at Rebranding Experts. Jim, the Jag rebrand has a lot of people scratching their heads on what are they doing at Jaguar. The imagery, the message, just overall, it doesn't even look like a car promotion.
Jim Heininger: Yeah, it's one of the most talked about and criticized rebranding since Elon Musk kind of disastrously rebranded Twitter to X. We personally believe it's a master class in rebranding. Now, people may not personally like the colors and the car design and the videos and the advertising and so forth, but it really teaches us three important lessons about why rebranding can be a strategic growth accelerator, starting with the single most important point, which is your rebranding aligns and is fuel behind a business strategy.
Jim: Jaguar faced shrinking sales, declining profits, market share was tanking. They needed to do something dramatically different. And the research I'm sure they had around the table as they were deciding showed that they needed a new customer base that was different than the one that they had previously had, and they needed to do something dramatically different than the past. And the rebranding helped bring that to life.
Drew: I understand the need for the rebrand to perfectly align with the business strategy, but what's up with these androgynous crayon-like people?
Jim: You gotta go bold. You know, if you're gonna differentiate yourself, you gotta go bold. So, their creative pivot point was this inspiration from their founder saying, “Copy nothing.” And they did just that. You know, they chose a creative visualization that leaned more into the future than into their heritage, but to differentiate themselves to this new customer base that they had identified. So, rebranding presents a really rare opportunity to reinvent yourself. You want to take advantage of that.
Drew: Jim, you've been a lone voice in describing the brilliance of the Jaguar rebrand. There's a lot of negative noise out there.
Jim: Yeah, and ignore the noise. Focus on your customer. You know, criticism of a rebranding is inevitable. There's lots of armchair marketers out there who are going to take advantage of your decisions to gain visibility for themselves by critiquing it. They aren't your customer. So, explain to that customer what you're doing, why you're making this decision, your new vision, your business strategy, and how it benefits them. And don't let the critics derail your momentum. So, I really think that the approach that Jaguar has showed is how rebranding can really spur growth, how it can be that jet-pack to your success. And now we're watching to see what the business results will be.
Drew: You know, during the big reveal event, the president of the company said, "We don't make Jaguars for everyone." It will be interesting to see who the someones are that will buy them. The Marketing Accelerator Podcast is a production of MarketingAccelerator.com, where business leaders gain confidence in their marketing efforts and marketers turn into high performing leaders. If you have a marketing challenge keeping you awake at night, let's talk. I'm Drew Dinkelacker.