I decided to wait and see the car before sharing my point of view on the recent Jaguar rebrand. Well, I’ve just seen the concept car, and … it hasn’t changed my point of view.

The Jaguar rebrand so far

Let’s quickly recap what’s happened so far (in case you somehow avoided seeing it). On November 19, Jaguar unveiled a 30-second video titled “Copy Nothing,” which featured a group of wildly dressed people traversing a psychedelic futurescape, overlaid by a series of verb-adjective, all-lowercase headlines: create exuberant. live vivid. delete ordinary.

The spot ends on a new Jaguar wordmark written in a tracked out, rounded, sans-serif typeface. The logo blends upper and lowercase letters and does not include a leaping cat (at least, not locked up with the name). Along with the video and new logo, Jaguar announced an “exuberant” color palette, a reimagined Jaguar “leaper” (the cat), and a symmetrical JR monogram.

Cue the hot takes. These changes to the Jaguar brand were either “absolute genius” (Forbes) or the “worst brand move of 2024” (marketing professor Scott Galloway). Most kneejerk reactions failed to mention the fact that Jaguar sales had been in a freefall, and that these design elements were a manifestation of a radically new brand strategy targeting “younger and wealthier [consumers who are] more connected and more urban” and aiming to “sell fewer cars at higher prices.”

Then, today (December 2), the new concept car was revealed. In some ways, it feels like a physical manifestation of that 30-second video—colorful, futuristic, and emblazoned with that tracked out, rounded wordmark. In other words, the concept car has reinforced the brand trajectory signaled by the video and new visual identity elements.

This is all just a “trailer” for a more complete rebrand

Here’s my purposely lukewarm take: What Jaguar has released so far is bad. Bad work (video, logo, etc.) that does not bode well for future work (remaining elements of a rebrand, brand management going forward, etc.). But it’s far from determinative. In other words, let’s not overstate the case.

Brian Collins, founder and Chief Creative Officer of COLLINS, wrote that assessing what we’ve seen so far as a rebrand “is like thinking a trailer is a movie.” And the concept car revealed today is so speculative (Jaguar calls it a “Design Vision Concept”) that I think it can also be considered part of the trailer.

I agree with Collins. Let’s wait and see what else Jaguar has in store for us—including, critically, a more finished lineup of cars—before equating their November 19 announcements with Fonzie’s infamous shark jump (or, on the positive side, comparing it to the resurgence of Burberry in the early 2000s).

But the trailer sucks

On the other hand, as a branding professional, I see no reason to hold off on judging the trailer itself (not just the short video, but also the logo and other design elements). And, in my opinion, this trailer is comically bad. To quote marketing professor Mark Ritson, “this was possibly the most stupid marketing thing I’d seen … [it] seems overblown, curiously disconnected from automotive customers and almost entirely filled with bollocks.” I’m guessing the concept car revealed today will not change Professor Ritson’s opinion.

Sure, assessing this preview is more subjective and ultimately less important than assessing the full “movie.” A killer final product can make even a bollocks-filled visual identity, launch video, and Design Vision Concept all but irrelevant. But the work itself is not good. Even if you’re on board with the aesthetic—and I’ll acknowledge that I’m neither young nor wealthy enough to fit into Jaguar’s target audience—it fails to live up to its own demands. It claims to “copy nothing” (a line from Jaguar’s founder, Sir William Lyons) while copying just about everything. The banal, verb-adjective headlines are reminiscent of Apple’s 1997 “Think Different” (and every campaign that’s copied it since). The typography is not exactly groundbreaking; it’s already been compared to the logos of Motorola, Dyson, and others. The symmetrical JR monogram copies—almost to the point of parody—a luxury fashion trope employed by Chanel, Gucci, Givenchy, Giorgio Armani, Tory Burch, and Fendi.

As online magazine Yanko Design puts it, “it’s somewhat ironic that Jaguar brings up … [“copy nothing”] when the logo instantly appears generic or ‘seen before.’ … by boldly eschewing the branding styles of automotive companies … [the wordmark] falls into the trap of feeling familiar.”

And no, it’s not three-dimensional chess

The other popular take on Jaguar’s move is that it’s brilliant simply because it’s gone viral (whether or not that’s because people are “hate-sharing” it). According to a Forbes contributor, “the point is that everyone is now looking at Jaguar.” It reminds me of similar statements describing Elon Musk’s rebrand of Twitter to X as brilliant—now that he’s got your attention, some claimed, you just have to wait and see the rest of his genius plan roll out. Well, it’s been about a year and a half, and the Twitter rebrand doesn’t look any less dumb. (And, for the record, it was catastrophically dumb.)

Besides, this “ends justify the means” approach of branding and marketing is nonsense. It’s the logic of an eight-year old boy picking on a girl because he likes her: If it got her attention, it was a good idea. Not always. Two things can be true: The work has damaged the brand, and the brand could succeed in spite of it. I hope Jaguar makes better decisions from here on out and turns things around. But we’ll just have to wait and see.

Rob Meyerson is a brand consultant, author of Brand Naming, and co-author of the sixth edition of Designing Brand Identity. He runs Heirloom, a brand strategy and identity firm, and hosts the podcast How Brands Are Built.