Marketing genius or PR disaster? After Jaguar’s ‘Copy Nothing’ controversy we look at the BEST and WORST car rebrands of recent times

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll not only have seen Jaguar’s latest advert for its all-electric new direction, but also the social media controversy the ad and brand overhaul has caused.

Though perhaps the strongest tester of ‘all publicity is good publicity’ in recent times, Jaguar is not alone in undergoing a rebrand in recent years – and in many cases reactions have been about as divisive as they come.

Car brands are some of the most powerful global players that have established themselves as household names.

With history comes legacy, and with legacy comes strong public opinion, which means car maker rebrands can go either way… and quickly.

So which car rebrands have hit the spot and which have been very unpopular flops? 

Let’s take a look…

Car rebrands that have been wide of the mark

– Jaguar goes all-electric and reveals its ‘Copy Nothing’ ad

On November 18, Jaguar launched its 30-second ‘Copy Nothing’ advert in a bid to ‘move away from traditional automotive stereotypes’ and ‘attract a new customer base’.

The ad, which doesn’t actually feature a car, has probably created the most opinion and backlash of any advert since Pepsi’s infamous ‘Live for Now’ commercial starring Kendall Jenner was pulled in 2017 or Bud-Light’s 2023 debacle.

The ad showcased Jags ditching of its universally-recognised big cat ‘growler’ logo and all-caps typeface to be replaced by a small ‘device’ mark and bespoke ‘Jaguar Exuberant’ typeface logo ‘JaGUar’ which ‘seamlessly blends upper- and lower-case characters in visual harmony’.

In just a week the advert’s racked up two million views on YouTube, 164m views and 127k comments on X and 56.7k comments under the video on Jaguar’s Instagram too.

In response to the colourful – carless – ad, one person simply asked: ‘Has this account been hacked or something?’

And across the board sentiments range from ‘confusion’ about whether Jaguar is ‘still making cars’ to calling the ad and rebrand a ‘massacre’.

Even Elon Musk spared the time from dancing with Donald Trump to cheekily comment ‘do you sell cars?’

Yet other people have commented that they ‘love it’ and are ‘looking forward to seeing more’.

And in Forbes, James Morris said the advert is ‘absolute genius’: ‘I can’t remember any auto-making launch or rebrand getting this much attention in all my years writing about the car industry.’

In an interview with the Financial Times, Jag’s managing director Rawdon Glover slammed the ‘vile hatred and intolerance’ to the ad.

The rebrand continued with teaser images of the ‘Design Vision Concept’ – Jaguar’s first of three new EVs – which show an enormous electric car with a flat body and bulging rear wheel arches that draw comparisons with Tesla’s Cybertruck and the unveiling of the concept in Miami. 

The ‘Concept’ features pop-out cameras and no rear window, taking after the Polestar 4. 

But the ad and teaser images, which Jaguar design chief Gerry McGovern said would ‘shock, surprise and polarise’, are just the tip of the iceberg of the British marque’s rebrand.

In 2021, Jaguar – which began life in 1922 as the Swallow Sidecar Company and then produced its first Jaguar car in 1935 – announced it would become an all-electric manufacturer by the middle of the decade.

Since then it has culled off its fuel cars, with November marking the moment from which you can’t buy any new Jaguar models until the first new EV arrives in 2026.

With a 12-month hiatus without a single new car for sale, Jaguar has also announced it will slash its dealer network by about 75 per cent.

– Ford brings back the Capri (sort of)…

Ford marketing must be delighted that Jaguar has managed to pull all the heat off the Capri rebrand controversy that marred its summer.

After the nameplate’s near 40-year hiatus, the US car giant took the daring decision to bring back one of its most loved UK commodoties as a new electric SUV.

‘It has the soul of the classic Capri, reinvented with a new, modern design,’ Ford said about the new Capri.

Despite enlisting former Manchester United footballer Eric Cantona to be the face of the campaign, with his now infamous tag line ‘the legend is back’ part of a media blitz of bogus ads, viral social media clips of the Frenchman strolling down the high street with a goat, and product placement at Glastonbury Festival, social media and mainstream press was awash with indignation.

Because the ‘new Capri’ isn’t a low-slung, two-door sport coupe with svelte looks like the original, it’s a 2.1-tonne electric SUV that costs from £42,075.

‘Using the Capri nameplate for this is blasphemy and disrespectful to the original Capri,’ one social media user vented on an official Ford social media channel.

Another user commented: ‘Imagine previously making good cars for years, the cars of the everyday person, then getting rid of great vehicle lines for soulless and costly electrification and now producing this and calling it a Capri somehow? A fall from grace.’

A few wishy-washy positive comments were along the lines of: ‘I kind of like it.’

Even Ford’s director of marketing, Peter Zillig, said during the Capri launch in Marseille that he’d seen someone write that the brand’s ‘really stress-testing the notion of all publicity is good publicity’ with the new Capri.

While the Capri has since been launched and been reviewed as ‘a good electric car’ which is spacious and practical, no one has suddenly declared it a Capri.

Ford’s new marketing push is to bring back the old nameplates and pull on the historic and emotional heartstrings that you can only do when you’ve got 120 years of heritage and respect under your belt.

While this was accepted for the American-born Explorer nameplate that’s now on a £50k electric family SUV (because UK drivers weren’t emotionally attached) it remains to be seen if Ford’s new direction will work with the forthcoming Puma Gen-E…

Car rebrands that have been wildly successful

– Volvo’s transition from dreadfully dull to dead cool 

Perhaps one of the greatest car-related rebrands in history: Volvo is now cool.

Somehow, the Swedish car company has gone from being the maker of safe and sensible, boxy, practical and boring motors to the middle-class car to have parked on your driveway.

There’s even a four-month waiting list to get your hand on a Volvo – that’s some turnaround.

A more gradual transformation, Volvo’s success largely started when Geely stepped in as owner over a decade-and-a-half ago: Ford’s sale of Volvo Cars to Geely in 2010 saw a major investment and strategy shift with new bosses fixating on the German marque dominated luxury segment and the SUV market.

Then Volvo poached German designer Thomas Ingenlath from Volkswagen in 2012.

Credited with spearheading the popular new look of Volvo’s cars, he and his team displayed three concept models between 2013 and 2014 that were a huge departure from Volvo’s box-shaped convention.

‘Future Volvos will be characterised by the distinctive iron mark in the floating grille, flanked by the T-shaped (often referred to as Thor’s hammer-shaped) daytime running lights’, Ingenlath said.

New topography, exterior simplicity and decluttered interiors gave Volvo a ‘stronger connection to the Scandinavian lifestyle’.

And while traditions of practicality and safety remain, Volvo in recent years has repositioned itself to become one of the leading players in the switch to EVs, which has made it a trendy option for eco-conscious younger drivers.

The Ingenlath-designed Concept Coupe was so cool it became the £140,000 limited-edition Polestar 1 performance plug-in hybrid car which launched the sporty spin-off brand of Volvo.

Now people seriously debate between buying the new Volvo EX90 or the forthcoming Range Rover Electric.

– Renault brings back icons as EVs with French ‘je ne sais quois’

We’ve had how not to do car reincarnation; and now the French have shown us just how to knock it out of the park.

Renault has brought back not one but two icons of old and reinvented them for the modern electric era to praise and admiration.

Car brands the world over should take note of how effortlessly and effectively the French brand has demonstrated the correct way to twist heritage to fit today’s EV-focused car design – we idolise how chic the French are for a reason. 

Instead of uproar there was such excitement when Renault debuted its electric concept based on the Renault 5 in 2021 that the brand subsequently confirmed the concept would be turned into a production car much to the happiness of fans.

By popular demand, the retro-themed Renault 5 E-tech EV is now launched and will soon be delivered to buyers at the start of 2025.

The all-electric ‘super-modern retro-istic pop icon’ starts from £23,000 – the third cheapest EV you can buy in the UK – and comes with nearly 250 miles of range, making it one of the most drooled-over affordable new EVs on the market.

It’s even cool enough to have had an early starring role in the hit Netflix series Emily in Paris.

Similarly, the Renault 4 debut has been heaped with praise since its unveiling at the Paris Motor Show.

The new Renault 4 E-Tech of today has captured the spirit of the original car – that was a mainstay of French middle classes for three decades and revolutionised the car market – thanks to its everyday appeal and charismatic design elements that blend into the electric world.

Aimed at a broader audience than the R5, the R4 is larger and better for families and is pitched to rival Tesla’s Model Y, Citroen’s cheap e-C3, Kia’s new EV3 and the Jeep Avenger.

Likely to cost from £28,000 it’s also quite inexpensive as EVs go.

And with the R4 and R5 incorporating fun, French design elements like baguette holders or lipstick-shaped gearstick selectors it’s proof that a little flare goes a long way if done right – as the French demonstrate time after time.

– Skoda, no longer the butt of jokes

What do you call a Skoda with a sun roof? A skip. How do you double the price of a Skoda? Fill up the tank. Why do Skodas have heated rear windscreens? To keep your hands warm while your pushing it.

Based on its reputation for being poor quality, unreliable and outdated, for years until the early nineties, Skoda was the butt of many an automotive joke.

However, that hasn’t been the case for some time thanks to the watchful eye of Volkswagen who rebranded Skoda after buying a 30 per cent stake in 1991.

Volkswagen injected Western processes and design, but that didn’t correlate to overnight success. Just because VW came with a stamp of German quality and innovation didn’t mean people suddenly forget their negative perception of the brand.

However, the first two VW-owned Skoda launches – the Felicia in 1994 and the Octavia in 1998 – did much to cement the direction Skoda was going in – towards consistent quality and premium brand prices – and were well-received by the automotive press.

But it was Skoda’s embracing of the past, and the brand’s ability to have a sense of humour about its previously dire reputation that turned it into the trusted marque of today.

And in particular one ad set Skoda on its new path.

‘It’s a Skoda. Honest’ – the 2000 campaign that accompanied the Fabia launch – challenged prejudice head-on and the humble and jokey promise of improved quality gained a lot of trust from customers. And the press loved it too.

In fact, it reduced marque rejection from 60 per cent to 42 per cent.

This humility and humour while addressing the elephant in the room became Skoda’s greatest rebranding strength, and once buyers saw the new Skoda cars (such as the Octavia and Super) delivered on this promise of improved quality the new Skoda of today was cemented – a brand that makes reliable, affordable and pleasant looking.

– Dacia proves you can deliver success on a budget

2010 was the year of new Dacia: the Romanian brand released its new Duster. It was the car that made the SUV segment finally affordable.

And it was also the moment that Renault – who’s investment in Dacia massively help modernise the marque’s production facilities and expanded its line-up – started marketing its budget cars hard in the UK.

The value for money angle hit home post-recession, and drivers wanted reliable cars without the thrills that didn’t cost the earth. The core values were highlighted: simplicity, robustness, no-nonsense, practicality and an unbeatable price.

Then Dacia’s first TV advertisement in 2013, ‘We don’t do frivolity, function’s our thing’ – which showcased the Duster, the Sandero and the Stepway – drummed home just how cheap Dacia cars were.

A new car for just £5,995? People lapped it up and the ‘just a solidly reliable car’ was what resonated with buyers. And Dacia’s motto ‘You do the maths’ was a clever way to reiterate that value for money proposition.

Dacia’s rebranding is an interesting one because, while other car manufacturers have largely wanted (or needed) to go upmarket, the Romanian brand has shown that sometimes doing the exact opposite can be wildly successful…