Another Jaguar opinion piece
In 2000 you sold 180k golf balls, now you sell 66k.
So you change tack. You swap to making Pickle Balls, you do an ad that’s all colourful and weird to get people’s attention and let them know you’ve changed. That all sounds like a rational marketing ploy to arrest a collapse in sales.
But you’re Jaguar, you sell cars and you’re ridiculed.
Create controversy
You got people talking about you* which is more than they were doing before. You’ve broken with your failing past, which is good. You revealed a cool looking resprayed Batmobile, proclaimed yourself zealously all electric and unapologetically modern. Tick, tick, tick.
*They’re talking about your marketing, not your cars, but still.
BUT
Well, the world isn’t quite as progressive as we marketing folk hope it is. About 80% of the all important US car market is still hooked on their cheap petrol. Electric vehicle sales made up a pitiful 9%.
Plus, amidst all the brouhaha, Jaguar quietly doubled their prices ($70,000 to between $125,000-$150,000). Which means they have shrunk their market (that they were losing) to a tiny niche. The plan seems to be that if you can’t sell more, sell less, for more.
Manipulation
What Jaguar are doing will (intentionally) annoy some, but it does seem to be a plan that is going to plan. It feels like they weren’t surprised by any of the backlash, as though they intentionally baited ad viewers to cry out “Where’s the car?” and then revealed their concept car. It’s almost as if they knew that a carefully crafted press release about Jaguar going electric would have been boring and ignored.
And anyway, isn’t it nice when the futuristic car is matched by a futuristic brand? It worked for Tesla (48% share of US Electric vehicle market).
Image Source & Credits:
- Forbes
- BBC
- Car Edge