Pro-choice Jaguar vs Pro-life Volvo
What a difference ten years make.
Ten years ago, this was the video advertisement that epitomized what Jaguar once meant for so many:
Ten years later, the century-old motor vehicle company has been rebranded into fleeting notoriety.
The 2014 ad, titled “The Art of Villainy,” was banned by the British Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) following “a complaint” (presumably single) that it “encouraged unsafe driving and was therefore socially irresponsible,” in the words of the left-wing Guardian. The ad was part of Jaguar’s “Good to be Bad” campaign, and the company protested the censure, pointing out that the speed limit was not breached throughout the film and that police had been present throughout to confirm this.
To no avail — the advertisement was pulled, with the ASA stating:
We considered that the second part of the ad suggested that the car was being driven at excessive speeds and that the ad therefore encouraged irresponsible driving. We told Jaguar Land Rover not to portray speed of driving behavior that might encourage motorists to drive irresponsibly in future.
Go electric, go mad
What does Jaguar’s 2024 ad encourage motorists to do (other than steer clear of the company)?
Its latest offering is reportedly the brainchild of a team of no less than 800 people who came to the conclusion that everything to date should be thrown out of the window (the baby together with the bathwater, given that a car does not appear in the video at all). Admittedly, sales of Jaguar have been stagnating over the past few years; furthermore, the characteristic roar of its powerful engines is destined to be replaced by a super-soft purring as the company transitions to electric in advance of 2030 when the UK’s ban on fossil-fuel-only vehicles comes into force.
However, instead of wooing back Jaguar’s traditional base, the company has resolved to swerve in an entirely different direction, hoping that as many as 85 percent of its cars’ new purchasers will be first-time Jaguar buyers. This is why they are (at least publicly) displaying contempt for those who criticize their new ad, dismissing predictions that they will be the next once-great brand to “go woke, go broke.”
Most notorious ad of all time, shame it won't sell any cars
The new ad has by now garnered close to 200 million views on X and hundreds of thousands of comments. Some would consider that a success regardless of the nature of the comments posted underneath. One PR expert who spoke to the Mail Online disagrees:
Jaguar are being very ambitious. Maybe they knew what they were doing. But I think it’s a shame because it’s losing their history, the legacy of the brand.
It’s too much. People say there’s no such thing as bad publicity, but this will be a test of that.
Indeed, many of the comments are written by people who declare that they will now never consider buying a Jaguar. What does Jaguar respond? We don’t want you anyway.
Woke is the future?
According to Jaguar’s managing director, Rawdon Glover, the rebranding was a necessary move given that their traditional client base is aging and, by implication, dying out.
People love us for our history and our heritage, but that has not led to huge commercial success.
The average age of the Jaguar client is quite old and getting older. We’ve got to access a completely different audience.
As for trying to attract younger generations, Glover appears to think that the more conservative types that traditional advertising (featuring cars) might attract can no longer afford a Jaguar’s price tag:
We need to re-establish our brand and at a completely different price point so we need to act differently. We wanted to move away from traditional automotive stereotypes.
Glover also condemned the “level of vile hatred and intolerance” of those who criticized the video.
We wanted to make you cringe
By contrast, Jaguar’s head of design, Gerry McGovern, welcomed the strong reactions, telling media that he had actively sought out a “jaw-dropping” design that would “shock, surprise, and polarize.”
It will make you feel uncomfortable. That’s fine. The world is not standing still.
Jaguar’s UK Brand Director is Santino Pietrosanti. He joined the company about seven years ago with the intention of “shifting it to a whole new space.” Pietrosanti is a proud member of the so-called LGBT+ “community” and has made a display of his support of BLM as well. Speaking at the Virgin Atlantic Attitude Awards last month, he predicted that Jaguar’s rebranding would “set the benchmark for the auto industry.”
We're not just talking about new cars. We are talking about all new ways of thinking and embracing the full spectrum of human potential and creativity. Because Jaguar has always stood for fearless originality, striving to be a copy of nothing. And we believe that every person has the potential to be something unique, something original, and that's what makes us strong.
He also described how Jaguar has no less than 15 DEI groups, including one for “women in engineering” and another focused on “neurodiversity.”
"At Jaguar we proudly stand with the LGBTQ+ community because we know that originality and creativity thrives in spaces where people are free to be themselves," he stressed.
Polarizing the public is 'marketing genius'
Far from being discouraged at the backlash against the “exuberant” video advertisement, leftist-progressives seem to welcome the outpouring of dismay. Darren Styles, publisher of “Attitude,” believes that people like him should “be thankful” for the “hate and homophobia [which] made a genius of Jaguar’s rebrand."
According to Styles, having Elon Musk, Tommy Robinson, and Andrew Tate against you is not just good in general — it’s good for business too:
This seems like excellent news for anyone selling Jaguars.
Styles also insisted the new Jaguar model about to be released isn’t “gay or woke.”
In fact, one sometime GQ writer accosted the Jaguar team [after the showing of the new brand] and suggested that they’d created a car “so masculine that no woman would ever want to drive one.”
If that were true, Jaguar might be in some trouble given that women greatly outnumber men in ultra-progressive circles. Styles himself dismissed the idea that the car was “masculine” as “palpable nonsense,” but it was notable that he viewed “so masculine” as most definitely not “woke” (or gay).
A car — and ad — that's pro-Life
What is certainly neither woke nor gay is another advertisement for a car, also recently released:
Volvo’s latest ad features a young couple, not yet married, letting their parents know that they’re about to become grandparents and that they’re thinking of getting married now that there's a baby girl on the way.
She might just be the reason we tie the knot.
The advertisement continues for another four long minutes as the parents visualize their daughter being born and growing up... until the shocking moment when, as a young woman, she crosses the street at a crosswalk and a driver whose concentration lapsed for a moment is just inches away from propelling her into tragedy.
The driver — of a Volvo — realizes that only the car’s safety features have saved this girl’s life. The ad concludes:
Designed to be the safest Volvo car ever made. For life.
Normal is now revolutionary
Comments on the video contrast the joyous celebration of normalcy with the absurd and grim-faced extravaganza produced by Jaguar:
Volvo responds to Jaguar's insane ad by creating the most beautiful ad I've ever seen. Enjoy.
Jaguar is focusing on DEI, gender-bending, and telling their consumers they’re “deleting ordinary.” Volvo leans into the ordinary. The ordinary is beautiful and authentic. It’s unique, yet universal. Woke ideas and made-up identities are not. I hate ads, but there’s something here.
Others focused on the lack of vitality in Jaguar’s models, and suggested that far from progressivism being a rebellion against the status quo, the tables have now turned and simply being sane is now revolutionary:
Simple, traditional, normal things are now the act of rebellion.
At the end of the day, Jaguar’s branding executives are of course right that the world has changed over the past ten years. The more pertinent question is what the future has in store. Will it belong to the ultra-woke with their glaring primary colors and grim visages, stomping through a barren landscape, or those whose future includes getting married and having children (and buying Volvos)?
