Luxury automaker Jaguar recently came under fire for an overtly woke advertisement, which didn’t even feature a car. Instead of highlighting a premium sports car that prospective Jaguar buyers might be enticed by, the company chose to feature an assortment of strange, avant-garde-looking individuals that one would expect to find in a modern art display.
As a result, critics are comparing the move from Jaguar to that of Bud Light’s 2023 marketing disaster with transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney. Sharing a clip of the ad on X, one user wrote, “‘Bud Light’ level re-branding. Last couple of years have been the worst I have ever seen in marketing. Just awful and delusional. In case someone is wondering, this is a new commercial for ‘Jaguar’. They make cars.”
One user suggested that car companies should take a cue from Elon Musk and return to focusing on building quality vehicles that people will want to drive. “Just do as Elon does ! Build a car the world wants to buy. Dont bother with a marketing director or a marketing department. Give all the money to Engineers and Designers who you trust,” one person said.
Many have wondered how companies could possible continue to be woke with their advertising after observing the Bud Light fiasco. Another user said, “It’s incredible how ignorant these marketing people are. You would think they would’ve learned from someone else’s mistakes (Bud Light). Instead they look to get new customers by abandoning their current customers. I wish them good luck. I think they just made a big mistake.”
The American Tribune previously commented on the ad, writing, “In what might go down as a Bud Light-tier bad move, British car manufacturer Jaguar released a horribly out of touch, woke ad that horrified viewers on X (formerly Twitter), and led to immense backlash in the comments section, with the carmaker savaged for what critics contended was an obscenely woke and weird ad.”
“The ad, “Copy Nothing,” features no cars. Instead, it consists entirely of an ensemble of oddly attired individuals with shocking makeup and haircuts. Like many woke advertisements, it appears to be meant to stun normal people as a way of building more social cache for the brand. It just led to much anger and mockery online, however,” The Tribune continued.
Furthermore, Jaguar managing director Rawdon Glover recently doubled down and defended the ad while speaking with the Financial Times. Glover blamed the backlash to the ad on a “blaze of intolerance from those on social media. “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 added.
Glover added, “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.” He didn’t specify how the ad shows the new price point of the vehicles. Watch the controversial Jaguar ad below:
Note: The featured image is a screenshot from the embedded video.
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