Jag rebranding leaves customers in the dust

It was yellow. And it cost R11 000. It came after the Valiant Regal, with a missing “g” on the left, which meant it read “Re-al”. My parents claimed that the reason that it was never repaired was because it would provide a foolproof way to identify the car if it were to be stolen. Which it was. It was also never recovered, which taught me at a young age that smart planning doesn’t always ensure outcome.

Yellow was an unusual colour for a Jaguar. Matched with suspiciously brown seats, it might not have been the most stylish car of the 70s, but for us, that hardly mattered. Because it wasn’t about the details but more about the brand.

For as long as I can remember, my late grandfather drove a Jaguar. He had come to South Africa before the war as he fled an already smouldering Germany. He arrived penniless, alone, and unable to speak the language. Soon after arriving, he met my grandmother, she, too, a German refugee, got married, and they forged a life together.

His financial success wasn’t purely about money but about belonging, recognition that they had endured, and about security. His home, lined wall to wall with Persian carpets, his ability to buy Chivas Regal on the weekend, and his Jag were his reminders that he no longer was the scared teenager who boarded a vessel in Marseilles headed for anywhere that wasn’t Europe.

Many of these factors were true of their son-in-law, my father, who grew up in poverty. He worked hard, funded his own education, and slowly built a life that could provide security for his family. He remained one of the least materialistic people I have ever known, aside from his love for cars. A love that began with a yellow Jag with brown leather seats.

There were a series of strange coloured Jags that followed. Some of them designed to look as much like the one before so that people wouldn’t notice. Proving that for my father, it was about proving every day as he opened the door to his car, that he was safe, that his family were being looked after, and that he was no longer that shoeless little boy who arrived from Pilgrim’s Rest with only himself to rely on.

The rebranding of Jaguar to look like a product available on Temu has had a massive and negative response. So much so that Managing Director Rawdon Glover has had to defend the relaunch, saying he was disappointed by the “level of vile hatred and intolerance” shown in social media towards the models in the video.

By accusing his customers of “intolerance”, Glover proves the very point he tries to deny. After all, whereas tolerance, inclusion, and acceptance might be aspirational, to demand that response to an advertising campaign indicates that Jag has forgotten that it doesn’t exist but for those who choose to align with its brand.

Jaguar will hardly be the first or the last company to make this error. Kodak famously invented the digital camera, conducted research that indicated that it had 10 years to transition, but chose to focus on paper and chemicals, and forgot that the reason it existed was to provide a mechanism to store memories.

It is tempting to roll our eyes at these obvious errors. But before we do so, it is worth considering if there are areas in our own lives where we might have forgotten about the customer. That we might have turned inward to such an extent that we have lost the essence of the brand. Perhaps it’s as parent in relation to our children, in our community in relation to those around us, in religion in relation to G-d, and to His expectation of us.

The failure of the Jag rebrand should serve as a crucial lesson. It reminds us to connect with the lonely immigrant and scared young man who once stood barefoot. It’s a call to reaffirm the reason for our existence, and a reminder that there’s way more to a car than yellow paint and brown leather seats.