Ever since I covered the new Jaguar XK in Lucire’s print edition about three months ago, I have been in love with the car. Ian Callum’s styling is impressive, especially as it’s the culmination of a dream he has held since he was a boy: to create his own Jaguar from concept to release.
   It’s getting plenty of below-the-line coverage (such as in Lucire’s recent ‘The Car to Be Seen in’, which I chair), which is why I think its latest campaign, covered by Frederik Samuel at the Advertising/Design Goodness blog, is a clever one. The ads focus on the word gorgeous and hardly show the product. Frederik doesn’t like them, but I do.
   They make sense to me: consumers are more cynical and sophisticated. They don’t need to be shown a product that is already getting a lot of attention (with more to come as it is released, market by market). If anything, showing the product makes it all duller. Most western car buyers surf to get more info. And, finally, a car is a fashion item, especially when it comes to XK Jags. People buy into a lifestyle, and Jaguar needed to define that as more future-looking than the image it presently holds (with the likes of Arthur Daley and John ‘Two Jags’ Prescott being its proponents).
   At least it isn’t that ‘new Jag generation’ campaign which had Sting flogging X-types, a car that appealed mainly to the ‘old Jag generation’.
   Too-thin supermodel types and the Jaguar leaper have their place, and they work together beautifully here. Buying a Jaguar XK is about an image, so why not play on the fantasy first, provide the setting, and allow the customer to fill in the gaps with his or her own little adventures?
   The campaign is at this link, including videos. posted by Jack Yan, 10:55 PM  permalink