Double down or move?
This is probably one of the single key strategic questions that a brand or even corporation can face. What are the consistent, true pillars of our current and future success?
You may decide that your current combination of brand, products and customer service is not broke and does not need fixing. If so, that’s perfectly valid and you should just redouble your efforts to take advantage.
Alternatively, do you look over the fence at some grass that either looks, or perhaps is, decidedly greener? And decide to move, morph or at least ‘reach out’?
With a single customer facing brand, the greener-pastures option will require change. How many of those pillars will you retain? What new ones need creating?
A modest response would be Aston Martin’s decision, several years back, to make some adjustments to their language and positioning.
They doubled down on performance messaging and related sponsorship. And they refined the famous “wing” logo, using talent from Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter (good local PR call). This was a Google-logo level of change, not a Gap ‘baby/bathwater’ job.
Change basically stemmed from a strategic decision to add to – not abandon – established Aston Martin brand associations. In other words British-ness, sophistication and, er, James Bond.
Of course the question is: was this the correct decision? Why would they do it?
Aston Martin brand spokespeople claimed “60% of customers” globally were already new to the Aston Martin brand, hence the assumption that they needed to evolve a little.
Fair enough. Although, reading this in 2025, you will already be thinking of a different luxury car brand. We’ll get onto them in a minute.
At the time, Aston Martin provoked what we thought was quite the debate. I made this point in a post – there was no evidence they need to change anything, even though they had. As affluence became more global, logically more people would be buying any given, established supercar brand for the first time, almost independent of what those brands said about themselves.
So, ‘new customers’ didn’t necessarily imply that Aston Martin itself needed to change in any particular fashion.
Indeed, as marketing guru Byron Sharp has repeatedly proven, what’s most important is just to be known and have something distinctive (even if it is a meerkat) that is associated with your brand.
Which neatly brings up the subject of Jaguar.
Two years after AM evolved, just a smidge, Jaguar performed the branding equivalent of inducing a nuclear winter and beginning evolution again from scratch.
I suggested this question earlier. “You may decide that your current combination of brand, products and customer service is not broke and does not need fixing”.
Jaguar management, as has become apparent, clearly decided their brand was grazing on a very arid patch of turf. Everything needed fixing and everything was going to be broken.
There’s been a lot of hate for the rebrand, new logo, advertisement with androgynous hipster types carrying hammers around and so on. And the new concept car strongly resembles the minimalist Batmobile from the Fox Kids cartoon series, 30 years ago. So much for “copy nothing”.
Jaguar’s business strategy rationale is however certainly logical and reflects their position, rather than that of an Aston Martin or similar. They have in recent years produced a succession of frequently well-reviewed, electric, affluent-middle-class cars including SUVs.
This range, combined with the traditional Jaguar brand iconography and positioning, has unfortunately just not sold enough.
So the positioning strategy was: take the brand strongly upmarket, aiming at a better defined, sophisticated international audience of genuinely wealthy individuals. Produce vehicles costing three times as much with far more distinction.
The rationale appears to be that, to signal this step change, it’s necessary to retain the name and little else. Even the classic leaping cat on the bonnet, and the flat ‘jaguar-face’ badge with its rather unfortunate nickname, are gone.
It is hard to remember a more extreme example of a company and brand leaping the fence onto the greener pastures beyond.
I’d love to see the market research that seemingly supported this. Because Jaguar are gambling that, in Prof. Sharp terms, their name alone has salience enough to carry a totally new set of clothes into the 2030s.
Before we write off the logic, however, let’s remember they think the overall business strategy relies upon the brand being seen in very different terms very quickly.
Not easy. Ultimately you don’t dictate what is your brand image, the marketplace does. The more opportunity you give people to bring their existing perceptions to your brand, the more likely they are to ‘see the status quo’. In which case, your evolution fails.
Guess which brand I learned this lesson from? Jaguar.
The new S Type Jaguar, in the late 1990s, was a very retro-looking and distinctive, beautiful car clearly echoing the classic Type II. That’s the Inspector Morse car, from the popular detective series starring John Thaw.
Even in those days Jaguar was looking forwards. Which made this design choice rather questionable. Yet, the vehicle was actually superb, featuring one of the greatest performance diesel engines ever built. Helping it appeal to younger, eco-conscious customers (who had all been told by Greenpeace to buy diesel. Whoops.)
The Jaguar agency team I was on suggested that launch marketing needed, at all costs, to avoid S Type simply reinforcing an outdated brand image. A beautiful, elegant car with its roots somewhat in the past and an old posh guy at the wheel.
Confidentiality forbids, even after so long, describing the edgy, 30-something targeted plans we developed. It was irrelevant anyway. On launch, one major UK newspaper predictably ran a prominent article showing ‘Morse’ with the new car, and the tone of much coverage followed on from that.
The apparent lesson? Brand salience is stubborn. If you don’t want your brand to remain exactly where it is right now, you need to try twice as hard as you think you do, to change it.
Jaguar clearly understands that. Did they need to try 10 times as hard? We shall see.
