Jaguar explains its radical rebranding: the old strategy ‘didn’t work’

Jaguar’s future will not resemble its past, and that is on purpose. Until recently, the British brand focused on competing with German carmakers in the premium segment with a range of luxury sedans, SUVs and sports cars. Unfortunately, that strategy never worked, as the company failed to keep pace with its counterparts in Europe and Asia.

In 2019, before the pandemic-induced shortages and global economic fallout, Jaguar sold just 31,051 vehicles in the United States, up 2.0 percent from 30,483 in 2018. But that pales in comparison to its rivals from Germany and Japan — and things have only gotten worse.

That same year, BMW sold 324,000 vehicles, while Mercedes-Benz took the top spot as America’s best-selling luxury brand in 2019 with more than 357,000 sales. Lexus was the country’s third best-selling luxury brand with nearly 300,000 cars sold, all ten times as many cars as Jaguar.

Even Audi surpassed the struggling brand, selling more than 210,000 vehicles in 2019.

The automaker’s great experiment to take on the Germans and compete in volume premium with BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Lexus failed. Rawdon Glover, director of Jaguar, recently admitted this in an interview with Top equipment that the previous version of Jaguar “didn’t work commercially” as a BMW and Mercedes fighter. He said:

‘It didn’t work. Jaguar did not work commercially. So we were at a crossroads because continuing as we were and saying ‘let’s just do what we do and sell more’ doesn’t work.”

Jaguar sales have continued to decline, falling to the low five figures before the brand ceases production. When the company announced its strategy last year, former Jaguar CEO Adrian Mardell told investors that the current lineup was generating “near-zero profitability,” and no company can operate like that over the long term.

So Jaguar is leaving the volume luxury segment behind for – hopefully – more profitable pastures upmarket, led by the Type 00 concept. Glover said the brand sees space for itself between volume luxury players such as BMW and higher-end brands such as Rolls-Royce.

The company aims to operate at the lower end of the six-figure price range. The launch edition of Jaguar’s next car should cost £140,000 in the UK, with Jaguar targeting an average brand price of around £120,00. That translates to $187,000 and $160,000 in the US, respectively.

Jaguar’s bold bet on the future comes with big risks, but the brand has little to lose at this point. It is no longer producing its old lineup and is instead focusing on bringing a new production vehicle to market with new ambitions.