Noam Chomsky
Mark Kingwell Charles Tayler
Naomi Klein
Arundhati Roy
Evelyn Lau
Stephen Lewis
Robert Fisk
Margaret Somerville
Mona Eltahawy
Michael Moore
Julius Grey
Irshad Manji
Richard Rodriguez Navi Pillay
Ernesto Zedillo
Pico Iyer
Edward Said
Jean Baudrillard
Bill Moyers
Barbara Ehrenreich
Leon Wieseltier
Nayan Chanda
Charles Lewis
John Lavery
Tariq Ali
Michael Albert
Rochelle Gurstein
Alex Waterhouse-Hayward
Hey,
what’s wrong? Bad day? Well, sorry, but it could
be worse. A lot worse. You could be Jaguar’s head
of brand strategy.
You’ve
probably heard by now that its recent “Copy Nothing”
campaign has been a huge fail with a glaring red ‘X’
across it, followed by a loud buzzer sound.
According
to its press, the company is on a ‘transformative
journey.’ Then, over night, the whole thing transformed
into ‘marketing debacle to be studied as a worst-case
scenario in business schools for generations.’
ICYMI,
the new spot is a pastiche of hostile, self-satisfied
intersectionals striking poses in monochrome costumes,
against a dusty pink, Mad Max apocalyptic backdrop. It
exhorts us to “copy nothing,” while glibly
referencing every clichéd virtue-signaling diversity
ad from the last decade—and then some.
What
does it reference? What doesn’t it reference? X’s
armchair semioticians noticed dashes of Zoolander, Devo,
the Muppets, Teletubbies, United Colours of Benetton and
Power Rangers. Some drew comparisons to Apple’s
legendary “1984” ad and the opening ceremony
of the Paris Olympics.
Needless
to say, everyone hates it. The two most common complaints
are ‘read the room’ and ‘2000-and-late,’
meaning it’s both out of sync with the times and
might have been edgy a decade ago. One Twitter user said
it best: “It’s like it was made in an alternate
timeline in which Kamala won and somehow entered a porthole
into ours.” An alternate timeline, I assume, in
which Bud Lite’s collaboration with Dylan Mulvaney
was a huge hit.
I
won’t lie—all the ridicule and hilarious memes
have been a guilty pleasure. But beneath the laughter,
there’s a twinge of sadness to see the mighty fall.
Once upon a time, Britain ruled supreme over automotive,
aerospace, fashion and furniture design. Seeing an iconically
British brand like Jaguar stumble so spectacularly strikes
me as a grim reminder that Great Britain ain’t so
great anymore.
I
also hate to pile on, since Jaguar’s troubles have
been steadily mounting over the years. Trying to navigate
a turbulent, rapidly evolving industry while feeling trapped
between its luxury heritage and the pressure to embrace
an EV future, can’t be easy. Little wonder this
new marketing direction feels like the manifestation of
an identity crisis.
In
search of itself, Jaguar channeled the wrong sources of
inspiration. It went in for grim, joyless dystopian sci-fi
when it should have tapped into Austin Powers: International
Man of Mystery, Mike Myers’ 1997 masterpiece. Why?
Because not only is it joyful, not grim and hilarious,
it absolutely percolates with affection for Britain’s
creative immensity. It joyfully distills everything iconic
about British film, music, and fashion, just in the two-minute
opening sequence. If I know one thing, it’s that
people love joyful distillations.
Of
all the dazzling automotive eye candy Britain ever produced,
Myers chose the Jaguar E-Type as Austin’s shagmobile.
Because no car in history has been more closely associated
with lust. Instead of tapping into its mojo, Jaguar delivered
a rebrand about as sexy as a Toyota Camry. They even transed
the old logo.
It can’t be overstated what a downgrade it is to
swap out that dynamic, muscular typeface for something
neutered and Comic Sans-ish. Visually, it’s a total
surrender, like George Costanza wearing sweatpants in
public.
Perhaps,
in the grim neoliberal technocrat fantasy of ‘Copy
Nothing,’ sex is a nuisance that could potentially
lead to reproduction. Kids? Eww. Come to think of It …
Cars. Eww. The target audience is Zoomers and they won’t
even get a driver’s license. Hence, an ad that does
not include an actual car, leaving us all to wonder if
Jaguar had quietly pivoted to unisex cologne, or an avant-garde
Dutch fashion line or maybe vape pens. This rather pithy
cartoon sums it up perfectly.
As I was saying earlier, it’s all a little sad,
so allow me to wrap up on an optimistic note directed
at Jaguar: you can fix this! You can reverse course! Just
pretend this whole “Copy Nothing” thing was
‘Phase I’ of a masterful, satirical plan—that
you anticipated the backlash and will soon follow up in
grand style with Austin Powers’ ‘shaguar’
smashing through that lineup of brightly-clad automatons,
cartoon-style, followed by the words “just kidding.”