Iconic automotive brand Jaguar is coming under fire this week for a controversial new campaign in which it unveils a refreshed brand identity with a vibrant new ad – that doesn’t feature a single car.

Branded as ‘woke’ and ‘out of touch’ by much of the tabloid press, the brand’s 30-second clip is more akin to avant-garde haute couture ads than traditional car spots.

Featuring a stylised new Jaguar logo (written as JaGUar), the campaign is centred around bold straplines such as “copy nothing” and “delete the ordinary”.

“Jaguar has its roots in originality. Sir William Lyons, our founder, believed that ‘a Jaguar should be a copy of nothing. Our vision for Jaguar today is informed by this philosophy. New Jaguar is a brand built around Exuberant Modernism,” Jaguar Land Rover chief creative officer, Gerry McGovern said.

Subscribe to Marketing Beat for free

Sign up here to get the latest agency-related news sent straight to your inbox each morning

“It is imaginative, bold and artistic at every touchpoint. It is unique and fearless. We are creating Jaguar for the future, restoring its status as a brand that enriches the lives of our clients and the Jaguar community.”

The ad will be accompanied by a wider redesign, including a new ‘leaping cat’ motif set to a background of horizontal lines, as well as a circular logo featuring two opposing ‘Js’.

Adding that up to 800 people had worked on the re-brand, McGovern stressed that staff “have not been sniffing the white stuff”, but did concede that the new visual identity would not appeal to the vast majority of the brand’s existing core audience.

The bizarre campaign even drew the ire of Tesla-owner turned-Trump’s right-hand-man, Elon Musk who asked on X: “Do you sell cars?”