What do Asda and Jaguar have in common?
The simple answer is that they are both sensemakers, innovative and not frightened to try a new approach.
Asda was formed in 1965 as a merger of the Asquith family’s butchery and supermarket business with Associated Dairies, a dairy, bakery, and butchery. Asda is an abbreviation of Asquith and Dairies. Asda was highly innovative. It was the first food store in 1966 to offer general merchandise and the first in 1967 to introduce discounted petrol filling stations. It modelled its supermarkets after the innovative retail approach of American Walmart (who acquired it from 1999 to 2020). Asda understood that it had to change to survive and profit. It understood trends within its markets.
Jaguar car sales have declined steeply, from 180,000 in 2018 to 67,000 in 2023. Jaguar is viewed as a British icon with a strong traditional racing history. They are loved by 50 and 60-year-old men with some money. But these people are not buying the cars anymore. Jaguar needed to innovate and change to survive against BMW and Mercedes Benz. Masterminded by Gerry McGovern, the chief creative officer of JLR (Jaguar Land Rover), they plan to be both provocative and innovative. They stopped the production of cars in Solihull so that they could focus on designing and building an entirely new range of 100% EV vehicles. The new cars will probably be twice the price of their present vehicles - £100,000 instead of the present £50,000 price tag. JLR has rebranded Jaguar for a completely different audience: rich, younger people who want a statement vehicle that says something about them. Jaguar expects less than 10% of its loyal customers to buy their new cars. The company intends to sell fewer, more expensive cars. The car industry is going through some turbulence over the transition to electric vehicles. Jaguar sensed that.
With a year's delay from stopping production and the first new cars being ready in late 2025, Jaguar needed to remain in car enthusiasts’ minds and prepare to accept the new brand. A teaser social media post about diversity and Jaguar wound up the Daily Mail and right-wing commentators and keyboard warriors, who accused Jaguar of ‘going woke’ and published homophobic misinformation. Competitors like Tesla got worried. Elon Musk was posting derogatory comments on X (is that a modern badge of honour?). As a comms approach, it made people think about Jaguar and what it was doing. The post’s ‘copy nothing’ message invoked Jaguar’s founder, William Lyons, while projecting a diverse image through the short video. An image more in tune with a younger international audience’s values of sustainability and diversity. The 30-second video got 160m views in a few days. Expect more of this social media first comms strategy. The Jaguar logo has lost the cat and gained a modern font.
At the launch of Jaguar’s electric concept car on 2 December in Miami, Gerry McGovern said, “Some may love it now, some may love it later, and some may never love it. That is what fearless creativity does.” The launch of the Type 00 (zero zero) car in London Blue and Miami Pink paintwork, to the backdrop of grime DJ Skepta, was a further element in this slow, unconventional, and provocative approach.
Despite the 50-year difference, what Asda did in the 1960s is what Jaguar are doing now. Watch out for the comms. It will be interesting to observe.
[Image: Grahame Jenkins on Unsplash]
