Jaguar’s pheonix moment

No need to read to the bottom for my opinion: The Jaguar rebrand = smart

I wrote this as a first post on my Bluesky to little (no) fanfare, but I want to give it a permanent home. In a year, when the hype has faded I want to see what kind of fool I was.

…in fact, forget a year, by the time I finish my blog redesign the hype will have faded.

Background

Jaguar is pivoting to EV. Their ICE sales were flagging, and rather than a slow drawn out death or taking a chance on a soft rebrand, they’ve seen the writing on the wall and killed it. It’s a bold strategy.

November

From the ashes, so to speak, of the dead ICE brand ‘Jaguar’ they are making an entirely new EV brand; ‘jaguar’ — and the only capital this “new” brand has is its name recognition.

From what I could read, they plan on only selling 50k cars/year. If you’re only selling 50k cars — how do you find those 50k people?

Rather than launch a completely new brand, they’ve taken a hard public pivot. They spent their capital J Jaguar brand capital finding their audience for the new lowercase j jaguar.

The critics whinge about brand heritage, but that Jaguar is gone. jaguar doesn’t need to be a brand for all, it needs to be a brand for the right people. They don’t even have a car yet — but they have carved out their new segment, and are finding 50k customers to take on a ride.

Between draft and proofread they have released some new details about their car- it is not your step-dad’s Jaguar.

This is the birth of a new brand we’re watching.

Most takes I’ve read — from the non-thinking “go woke go broke”, to the people complaining that Jaguar is shunning its old loyal (dying) base — have missed this. Grab some popcorn and forget about what Jaguar was.

Jaguar is dead, long live jaguar.

For anyone curious, I have a bluesky and I do intend on checking/posting more often than I do on x/twitter (never). Come join me, let’s see if it sticks.

Images from jaguar media centre.