A few months ago, Jaguar began a campaign to rebrand itself as a luxury electric brand of the future. It gave itself a new logo, revealed the Type 00 concept car, and put out a video of models in brightly colored clothing (with the Type 00 nowhere to be found). It certainly communicated a different message than the company’s previous ad campaigns featuring gorgeous cars ripping through European streets, with gruff-sounding British narrators. The media and enthusiast backlash was endless. But they weren’t the only ones upset by the rebranding, as a leaked internal letter from Jaguar’s design team suggests it was just as unhappy.
The Drive reached out to Jaguar for comment and will update this story when we get one.
The leaked letter, obtained by Autocar India, reportedly comes from Jag’s own design team and was sent to the brand’s Chief Creative Officer, Gerry McGovern. Much of the department’s frustrations appear to originate from Jaguar’s outsourcing the rebranding project to Accenture Interactive, a third-party marketing agency that was hired in 2021. The letter was reportedly signed by 25-30 members of the team and given to McGovern in September 2022, almost two years before the Type 00’s debut.
“We truly believe in an open and collaborative approach between all creative parties. Influencing and being influenced by each other. An essential environment to create one unique identity, which transcends holistically,” the letter said, per Autocar India.
Two years before Jaguar went full fashion week with its new concept car, the company announced that it was going to become a fully electric automaker with three all-new cars built on a single EV platform—Panthera. At the time, Jaguar said that it developed the platform based on the design direction it wanted to go in. “The proportions are crucial to get what we want from Jaguar,” JLR CEO Thierry Bolloré told Autocar in 2022. “The platform is a consequence of proportions we’ve decided on. They’re absolutely bespoke.”
Bolloré also said that Jag’s designs would be “really modern luxury cars that are the copy of nothing in style or design, the top of technology and refinement, but not looking backwards.” As the letter explains, Jaguar’s designers believed that the new logotype, with its rounded and partially lowercase motif, failed to live by that philosophy.
“We felt that the logo disconnects from the narrative and the visual identity of the Panthera products. On product, it feels too rounded and playful, which does not speak to us the feeling of ‘Exuberance,'” the letter said. The brand’s new visual identity was also called out for being generic and too similar to other automakers’, when Jag’s whole guiding motif for the future is supposed to be that its products are a “Copy of Nothing.”
In a statement about this letter, Jaguar didn’t refute Autocar India’s report and told the outlet, “The creative process encompasses various stages of developing new ideas and tackling challenges. Given that creativity naturally involves a level of subjectivity, our priority is to foster an environment that nurtures the growth of these creative ideas. As we navigate this significant transformation, we naturally engage in numerous discussions and debates to refine and evolve our thinking. Together, we embrace these opportunities for growth and innovation, ensuring that our collective efforts lead to meaningful and impactful outcomes.”
This is far from the only time Jaguar has revolutionized the design and marketing of its portfolio. A similar transformation happened in the late 2000s, when designer Ian Callum’s modern influence shone through in new products like the XF. Change isn’t new for Jaguar. But the way the company appears to be handling this one has evidently frustrated its own employees, to say nothing of its fans. Let’s hope they can pull it together, because the automotive world is better when Jaguar is healthy.
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