Progress?

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Just a brief observation on the ongoing Jaguar rebrand. They're going all-electric: positive. They're going for a slice of the premium executive market, lower priced and less desirable than the likes of Ferrari and Bentley/Rolls Royce, but still up around the hundred grand sterling level: advisable? I'm not so sure. Jaguar's absolute heyday was the 1950s and '60s, exploiting a strong and successful connection with motorsport to sell itself as a brand. They added in an element of luxury and focussed on the sports/grand tourer sector with great success: none more so than when they launched the Jaguar E-Type in 1961. Routinely regarded as the most beautiful car of its type - in my eyes of all time - it remains the only British motor car to have a place in the New York Museum of Modern Art.

When it went on sale it was half the price of its direct competitors from the likes of Aston Martin and Ferrari, competing easily in terms of performance and fit and finish. Neither was this 'affordable' to the masses or priced at the 'premium' level of the time, a fact that, had the car not been as beautiful, performative - it was bloody quick for the time - or frankly as downright cool as it was, could have sunk it without trace through the sheer monetary snobbery of the high-net-worth sector. Au contraire, though: it sold in bucketloads to the rich and famous: rock stars and movie stars all wanted one to go alongside the other, more exotic cars in their collections.

The current exercise to resurrect Jaguars ailing brand: new logo, losing the familiar leaping Jaguar, going electric with truck-sized vehicles that will not be suitable for the UK market - five metre long 'car' in the leafy suburbs of Surrey, anyone? - and most importantly, hitting the £100,000 price median, putting it out of reach of even the moderately well-off, its staple market of the last few decades; leaving it short of the kind of performance and exclusivity expectations of the seriously wealthy, raises questions yet again of the business acumen of Jaguar's succession of owners and managers over the decades since the glory days of the XK120 and the E-Type. Just a thought, but good brand management seems to be in short supply here. Hope I'm wrong, but I don't think I am...

Comments

  1. Anonymous15 December 2024 at 06:50

    British Management=CRAP! Class-ridden, stupid people who don't work Friday afternoons cos they're "at their club" T-Wats one and all and do NOT get me started on the criminally pathetic MBAs peddled by ALL & Sundry and a source of our "bottom line culture"!
    Money should not be the metric it's just a tool!!!
    ATB
    Joe

    ReplyDelete

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