In the many, many megabytes of memory used to scrawl thoughts about the Jaguar rebrand from last year, only one thing was clear: everybody seemed to have different and very strong opinions on it. As it turns out, it wasn’t just the press and public with thoughts, either. According to a story from Autocar India, Jaguar’s own design team were frustrated with the project. Though you may be surprised to learn that the team that gave us the F-Type wasn’t just upset about the final result, but the process that led to it.
Jaguar
- Founded
- September 1935
- Founder
- Sir William Lyons, SS Cars
- Headquarters
- Coventry, United Kingdom
- Owned By
- Jaguar Land Rover (JLR)
- Current CEO
- Adrian Mardell
The Design Team Was Left Out
Autocar India got its info from a letter that was apparently sent to Jaguar’s Chief Creative Officer Gerry McGovern, and it was signed by at least 25 members of Jaguar’s design team. One of the primary complaints was how the rebrand was handled. The company that went about the rebrand was Accenture Interactive, an outside consulting company that bought out Spark44, the company that used to work closely with Jaguar’s internal teams for its projects. It sounds as though Accenture didn’t really work at all with the Jaguar teams, and that left the designers feeling that they weren’t able to have input and were overlooked for an important part of the brand’s operation. They still had complaints about the final product, though, too, such as the designs being “too rounded and playful” and having “close similarities with other brands.”
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It Did Get People Talking
If any part of the rebrand was successful, it was in getting the public talking about Jaguar. It’s hard to say when there was more talk about the brand in recent memory, except for perhaps that excellent Super Bowl ad about villains driving Jags. Unfortunately, much of the conversation was quite negative. Some of it was legitimate, such as critiquing the font choices and badging. Some of it was gross, thinly-veiled bigotry regarding the people shown in the ads. Sometimes it wasn’t even thinly veiled.
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As for us, our real criticism is simply that, more than a rebrand, Jaguar needs product. Words and concepts are great, but they don’t mean much if it doesn’t translate to reality. The Jaguar line right now is full of really tired kitties. The last actually new or majorly redesigned model was the electric I-Pace, and that was released as a 2019 model. Everything else is a refreshed version of even older cars. Much of what remains in the Jaguar line-up is also reportedly on the way out. Certainly Jaguar has said new electric models, three of them, are coming soon, and one of them will apparently look similar to the bold concept. But we haven’t seen them yet. All we’ve seen is a flashy ad campaign and a concept. The brand needs real, striking cars, otherwise it’s just a paper Jaguar.
Source:
Autocar India
News Summary:
- Jaguar’s Design Team Upset About Rebrand
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