Fascist Fops

Ever go to a party, and realize you go there so late half the guests had already left? Ever have a grand idea, and then figure out that the idea had been had before - and discarded? Those were my reactions to Jaguar's rather odd and ill-timed venture into woke marketing.

The accompanying tag line reads:

We're here to delete ordinary. To go bold. To copy nothing.

In the ineffable words of Pepper Brooks,

That this response referenced a forfeit drives the point home.

The great cachet of Jaguar lies in its classic history, in particular the many, including Enzo Ferrari himself, who believe that the E-Type was "the most beautiful car ever made."

Indeed, it is that cachet that drew me to fulfill a bucket list item and get a Jag, obviously in the also-iconic British Racing Green, a few years ago. Sexy looking cars for men of a certain age.

It was a good car and I enjoyed it for the three years I had it. Not the best car I've owned, and not a keeper, but certainly satisfying enough for a 36 month interlude.

That "not the best" turned out to be a consensus. People weren't buying as much, because they could reportedly get more car for less money. So, time to shake things up.

The plan?

The emphasis now will not be on selling vehicles to upscale buyers in the mass market, but rather to truly wealthy customers who are less interested in transportation and more interested in having a shiny new bauble to add to their charm bracelet lives. That means a total rebranding, starting with a slick new marketing campaign.

They're revamping the entire product line, taking a year plus off building new cars, selling down existing inventory, and debuting an all-electric in 2026. So, yeah, it's a bold strategy. Perhaps a necessary one given their lagging sales and fading brand.

And, in another “bold strategy,” abandoning their iconic cat logo with some post-modernist head-scratcher.

Only time will tell if they manage to put out a product that will compete in the niche that is high-end electric vehicles (EVs) for wealthy "keeping up with the Joneses" types.

Are there enough neighborhoods in America where people flex their wealth via the cars they drive?

I know of one where everyone who wants to be someone drives a Mercedes G-Wagon.

For now, at least. Fads tend to be replaced by other fads.

As a student of business, I will watch how this move unfolds. But, as a student of culture, I cannot help but cringe at the terrible timing and lack of awareness the ad campaign exhibits.

Recall another moribund brand and a young-and-excited marketing department's misguided effort to revive via re-targeting. I write, of course, about Bud Light. Woke didn't sell then, and after the Great Rejection that was messaged by this past Election Day in the US, only a tone-deaf echo chamber dweller could count on it selling this time.

Of course, there is no shortage of tone-deaf echo chamber dwellers out there, so we have a 2024 update of a Benetton ad, trying to sell high-priced "shiny new baubles" to an new audience while back-of-the-handing the existing customer base.

Again, I watch and wait, with a caveat. Sometimes, big moves pay off, and corporate executives get paid big bucks to make consequential decisions. The caveat lies in trying something that has failed before, and in this case trying it when cultural signals point in the opposite direction.

Go Woke-guar, go broke-guar.

The always brilliant and endlessly quotable Thomas Sowell offered us this:

The joke is that Jaguar’s “copy nothing” ad is a by-now tired retread of a zillion faux-edgy woke marketing campaigns, campaigns that have not only failed to wokeify the world, but have actually set woke goals back.

Where I cross from "curious" to "scold" lies in the response from Jaguar brass to the backlash and mockery the ad generated. One exec barked about the "level of vile hatred and intolerance," and in doing so exhibited the standard ‘call your detractors racists and bigots’ tactic the modern Left uses whenever someone doesn't bend the knee to their outlandishness.

The ad itself has a whiff of "better than thou" condescension, as most woke messaging does. The "break moulds" line is part of the progressive attitude that everything old is presumptively Bad. The fixation on gender-fluidity visuals is a similar message. That this throws out Jaguar's greatest asset - its cachet as an epitome of classic style - is also telling. Classic style survives across generations for a reason.

The ad also carries more than a whiff of telling us how to think, and the exec's accusation of intolerance reinforces that whiff. That we once again are witnessing the Best-and-Brightest informing us of how awful we are for not seeing the world as they demand.

To which I choose to reply, in appropriate British idiom,

Sod off, you fascist fop.

Which is pretty much what this last election signaled to our Best-and-Brightest. There is obvious and long-running irony in the people who are most fascistic in their behaviors calling those who aren’t of the woke-Left “fascists.”

I say throw it back at them. Often.

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A footnote. The Internet alway delivers. Just a few of the mocking parodies I’ve seen.