Jaguar advert backlash: ‘There’s a crisis of confidence in Britain’, ad expert says
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Nigel Farage and Elon Musk have led online attacks on a new Jaguar advert, with the Reform UK boss saying the major UK employer “deserves” to go bust.
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In brief…
- Jaguar UK is facing online backlash to a new advert featuring a diverse cast of performers – and no car – in new social media outrage.
- A top UK advertising exec tells The News Agents it isn’t even an advert, but instead evidence of its new CEO displaying a clear understanding of the brand’s future.
- He says the most important thing for British brands is to make products people around the world want to buy, not “flying the flag” to impress people like Farage.
What’s the story?
No one was expecting Jaguar to be the latest victim of the culture wars but the iconic British car manufacturer has taken quite the battering online lately.
On 19 November, it shared a new advert featuring no car, instead focusing on a diverse group of performers, walking around in brightly coloured clothes with slogans such as “copy nothing”, “break moulds” and “live vivid” flashing on the screen.
Jaguar | Copy Nothing
Just a few weeks prior, the target for trolls was Boots, enraged at the sight of a black Mrs. Claus and a drag queen elf packing toiletries for Christmas.
Nigel Farage, Brexit champion and defender of all things British, was so incensed by what he saw in the Jaguar advert, he believes the company “deserves” to go bust.
Jaguar UK employs 11,000 people in the UK, and has been based in this country since it was established in 1935.
In his attack, Farage referred to the company as “owned by the Indians”, and said the people in the advert looked like “almost non-human figures”. Jaguar was acquired by Tata Motors, a Mumbai-based company, in 2008.
“Jaguar’s reinvention has got a lot of people really hot under the collar,” says Emily Maitlis.
“They don't like what they're seeing. They're calling it woke capitalism.”
Journalists have penned furious columns about the advert, and even Elon Musk (because of course he has) waded into the discussion as well, asking the company on X: ‘Do you sell cars?’
Car adverts without cars have been around for decades, so why has this video upset so many people – and can it all be traced back to Liz Truss and the lettuce?
What the expert says
Richard Huntington, chief strategy officer at Saatchi & Saatchi (one of the biggest advertising agencies in the UK), tells The News Agents he's confused about the backlash.
Not because he thinks it's a good advert, but because he doesn't think it's an advert at all.
"We're judging it as an advert, and I don't understand why," he says. "It seems to me to be a 'mood film' that sets the mood for the brand that Rowan Glover [Jaguar managing director since February 2023] wants to build at Jaguar."
Huntington describes the messaging in the 30 second clip (which was widely mocked online) as "really powerful", and praises Rawdon Glover for displaying a "very clear understanding of his business strategy".
Photos shared by Farage in his outrage video included images of TV detective Inspector Morse as an example of Jaguar advertising he approved of, a TV show that ended 24 years ago.
"Radical works in cars – retro never works," Huntington says.
"They're really drawing a line under what Jaguar has been, and produced, over the last 20 years.”
He says that while the majority of people buying Jaguar cars will be older, there are now “very wealthy” younger people the manufacturer wants to target.
Huntington estimates there are around 2.5 million luxury car buyers across the world, describing anyone wealthy enough to spend so much on a car as "an extraordinary and unusual person", and not someone who would be “pushed away” from their purchase by a 30-second clip on social media.
Sales of Jaguar cars grew by 4.2% in 2023, shifting 64,241 luxury vehicles last year, up from 61,661 in 2022.
But this is a much smaller percentage than rivals Mercedes or BMW are selling each year.
“They're figuring out that they're on a hiding to nothing unless they reinvent,” says Emily.
What has Jaguar said?
Rawdon Glover has described the backlash as "vile hatred and intolerance", saying overall the response to the advert has been "very positive".
"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," he said in a statement.
Speaking to The Times, Rawdon Glover explained why Jaguar was attempting to appeal to a younger audience.
“People love us for our history and our heritage, but that has not led to huge commercial success,” he said.
“The average age of the Jaguar client is quite old and getting older. We’ve got to access a completely different audience.
“That audience isn’t centred around people of the demographic of Mr Farage.”
Why the backlash?
Huntington also suggests the negative response is partly due to sensitivity over Britain’s current standing on the world stage – diminished since Brexit and certain political goings-on in recent years.
“I think there's a crisis in confidence in Britain,” he says. “We're worried about whether there's anything about this country to be proud of.
“We got to the point where we were a laughing stock around the world when our prime minister lasted less time than a lettuce.
“These things pile up on us, and so when an icon of Britishness looks like it's lost the plot, then people get extremely worried, and I think that's okay.”
He says the priority for British business shouldn’t be “flying the flag”, but ensuring they are making products people across the world want to buy. That’s especially relevant in this case, where most people able to spend upwards of £100k on a car don’t live in the UK.
“They will be in China, in the US,” he adds.
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