Go Woke, Go Broke

Jaguar Goes Full 'Bud Light'

Ah… woke capitalism. I know, it’s almost a cliché at this point, but here we are again.

I’ve covered the escapades of woke companies plenty of times in these pages before, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a company so willingly toss out its entire brand identity to appease a loud, increasingly irrelevant minority of DEI zealots—until Jaguar came along.

If you’ve been lucky enough to miss it, the century-old British carmaker recently dropped an ad that sums up everything wrong with modern corporate virtue signaling. Feast your eyes…

Yes, this is actually a commercial for Jaguar. Yes, that Jaguar—the luxury car company.

By the way, did you spot any cars in it?

Neither did I. All I saw was a parade of androgynous, "body-positive," LGBTQ-friendly models prancing around to electronic music while meaningless phrases flashed across the screen.

This whole spectacle brings to mind a much-shared Stonetoss cartoon that perfectly captures our current corporate zeitgeist. I've taken the liberty of replacing "Burgers" with "Cars" to illustrate my point...

I'll get to that in a moment, but suffice it to say, the public reaction was brutal. And of course, what makes this advertising disaster even worse is that it’s not happening in isolation. It’s part of Jaguar’s broader “transformation,” which includes ditching their iconic leaping cat logo—a symbol of power and grace that perfectly embodied the brand’s heritage—for a minimalist lowercase wordmark. Here, feast your eyes again…

I don't know about you, but to me this looks more appropriate for a boutique rosé wine label favored by bored housewives during their afternoon "me time" than a luxury car manufacturer.

And who did Jaguar choose to pioneer this woke rebrand? Exactly who you'd expect: meet Santino Pietrosanti, UK Brand Director for Jaguar. Watch him below as he rattles off a perfect checklist of woke talking points to appeal to... honestly, I'm not sure who exactly.

Santino Pietrosanti: At Jaguar, we're passionate about our people, and we're committed to fostering a diverse, inclusive, and unified culture that is representative not only of the people who use our products but in a society in which we all live.

A culture where our employees can bring their authentic selves to work.

And we're on a transformative journey of our own, driven by a belief in diversity, inclusion, creativity, policy, and most importantly, action.

We've established over 15 DEI groups such as Pride, who are here tonight in the back—thank you guys for coming—Women in Engineering, and Neurodiversity Matters.

We've launched major policy revisions, such as transitioning at work, to drive equity and support for our communities, embracing individuality as our superpower.

I mean, who else could it possibly be? Naturally, the guy checks all the boxes: pronouns in bio, LGBT activist, BLM supporter...

Ideology Over Customers

But before we pin the blame on one person, let’s not forget that multiple Jaguar executives sat in a room, watched this ad, and collectively nodded: “Yes! A troupe of discount, diverse David Bowies having seizures in a pink wasteland. This will definitely appeal to our wealthy clientele!”

...And then they actually signed off on it.

And here you were thinking these people from the video were just hired actors for the ad? Nope. That's actually Jaguar's staff. (Okay, I made that last part up—but would you even be surprised at this point?)

Look no further than their managing director, aptly named Rawdon Glover, who explained Jaguar's position with these words (and yes, one of the top executives at Jaguar—the company that just put out the gayest car ad of all time—is actually named Raw-dong-lover... I'll let you process that for a moment):

Jaguar needs to stand out. If we play in the same way that everybody else does, we just get drowned out. So, we shouldn’t try to turn up like an auto brand. We need to reestablish our brand at a completely different price point, so we need to act differently.

“We’d prefer to be loved by a distinct group of people rather than liked by lots of people,” he added.

Riiight. So your strategy is to be loved by a tiny minority of alphabet people while alienating the vast majority of customers who actually buy your cars? Spectacular business acumen there.

It's the same brilliant thinking that led them to go all-in on electric vehicles—just as global EV demand hits a wall.

And wait—did I read this right? They want to "reestablish their brand at a completely different price point," meaning higher? So much for the Equality and Inclusion, I guess. I mean, if you were really all about what that guy in the video is preaching, you wouldn't be in the luxury car business at all. You'd be selling... I don't know, Kias or something.

Do these people even know who their customer is?

I mean, they could always ask ChatGPT, like I did. Here's what it told me:

I should also mention that their customer base is overwhelmingly male.

Does anyone at Jaguar honestly believe this demographic will watch their ad and think, “Golly, do I need to get myself a Jaguar!”

But maybe they're aiming for a younger, more "modern" crowd?

Well, they’d do well to remember, then, what happened to Anheuser-Busch (BUD) and their Bud Light brand when they signed up Dylan Mulvaney—the transgender TikToker—as a spokesperson.

Bud Light was so desperate to shake off its “fratty” image that they fooled themselves into thinking their customers shared left-wing woke talking points. They didn’t. Severe backlash and boycotts soon followed, with sales plummeting by nearly 30%.

It never occurred to anyone at Anheuser-Busch that trying to market beer to men with a transgender woman might not be the brightest idea. They’d swallowed the woke hype hook, line, and sinker.

I have a feeling the same thing is happening at Jaguar.

The difference, though, is that Jaguar doesn’t have the same moat as Anheuser-Busch. Just take a look at their dismal U.S. sales over the past eight years.

In fact, car sales are at their lowest level in decades. The situation is so bad that another dip in (global) sales could put the company on the ropes—and you know what? They totally deserve to be there.

Doubling Down

As I already mentioned, the new ad, along with the entire redesign, has been roundly mocked.

At the time of writing, the YouTube video has over two million views, and the Instagram reel has been seen about 7 million times. Commenter sentiment across all social media channels is overwhelmingly negative.

So negative, in fact, that the ad was ratioed into oblivion, with a margin of around 15,000 negative responses on YouTube. People on X weren’t much kinder either. Go check out the comments section yourself, and let me know if you can find even one positive response.

So, how did Jaguar respond to the backlash?

Did they realize their mistake and issue something apologetic?

Not by a long shot.

MyLondon.com reports:

Jaguar’s managing director, Rawdon Glover, has expressed his disappointment over the “vile hatred and intolerance” seen in reactions to a new advert from the luxury car maker.

Meanwhile, their official Instagram and X accounts have been responding to stunned viewers with pure sass and name-calling.

This is so typical of woke companies like Jaguar, Disney, and the like. Their playbook is always the same: they make a bad product you hate, you tell them you don’t like it, and they turn themselves into victims—labeling you with all sorts of “-isms” for not liking their product.

No apologies. No acknowledgment. Just doubling down.

Now, I’ll admit, no one was talking about Jaguar last month—or even last week. They are now, and quite a lot of them are shouting.

But I don’t buy into the maxim that all publicity is good publicity. You shouldn’t either. (And if you do, you might want to revisit the Bud Light debacle—some people thought that was good publicity at first too.)

Yes, Jaguar doesn’t sell enough cars. It also hasn’t been consistently profitable for years—decades, even. But does anyone actually think this rebrand is going to bring back its former glory?

I have a broken-down (but renewed for modern audiences) Jaguar to sell you if you think it will. My money’s on this one going belly-up within two years, only to be snapped up by some Chinese conglomerate that’ll restore the old brand and introduce the efficiencies needed to make it viable.

Final thought? Steer clear of woke companies if you value your money.

Regards,

Lau Vegys