As read by George Hahn. https://www.profgalloway.com/killing-the-cat/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What is the focus of the Decoder series?
In every company, there's a whole system of decision makers, challenges, and strategies, shaping the future of business at every level. That's why we're running a special three-part Decoder Thursday series, looking at how some of the biggest companies in the world are adapting, innovating, and rethinking their playbooks.
We're asking enterprise leaders about some of the toughest questions they're facing today, revealing the tensions, risks, and breakthroughs happening behind closed doors. Check out Decoder, wherever you get your podcasts. This special series from The Verge is presented by Adobe Express.
What's up, y'all? It's Kenny Beecham. We are currently watching the best playoff basketball since I can't even remember when. This is what we've been waiting for all season long. And on my show, Small Ball, I'll be breaking down the series matchups, major performances, in-game coaching decisions, and game strategy and so much more for the most exciting time of the NBA calendar.
Chapter 2: What insights does Kenny Beecham provide on NBA playoffs?
New episodes through the playoffs available on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe to Small Ball with Kenny Beecham so you don't miss a thing.
I'm Scott Galloway, and this is No Mercy, No Malice. Jaguar is giving us more proof that the era of brands is over. Killing the cat, as read by George Hahn.
Chapter 3: How is Jaguar attempting to revive its brand?
Jaguar, a brand that's been in a coma for years, is trying to wake up, and it's gasping. The car-free copy-nothing kickoff video and the rollout of a pink concept EV at Art Basel, Miami, have inspired well-earned mockery. The launch rivaled Elon's WeRobot event for the all-chip-no-salsa product launch of 2024. Getting attention is key to any marketing campaign, so mission accomplished, sort of.
Tata Motors, which owns Jaguar and its stablemate Land Rover, has also succeeded in further eroding what's left of Jaguar's brand equity. Jaguar trashed its iconic logo, all its current models, and its traditional promise of speed, power, and elegance. In their place is an uninspired and generic brand mark, a concept model that will never be put into production, and an incomprehensible promise.
Chapter 4: What are the consequences of Jaguar's branding decisions?
Something about good-looking people, bright colors, and exotic haircuts. A lot has been said about this HBR case study that's writing itself, including some predictable culture war bullshit about Jaguar having gone woke. Most of this misses the larger point, which is that Jaguar's move is further proof that the brand age is over.
Just as doctors have a Hippocratic oath, chief marketing officers ought to have a similar pledge. First, do no harm. I've advised lots of big consumer brands about their marketing, and I've noticed that CMOs recognize their days are numbered and are desperate to show visible motion, whether it makes sense or not.
Often that activity, devoid of progress, means spending lots of money on a new agency stocked with sharply dressed young people who will host events giving awards to whoever spent the most money across the advertising industrial complex. I'm honored to be part of this brand's history, and I'm shocked how well my predecessors managed the brand, said no CMO ever. The typical incoming speech?
Thank God I'm here. We need to redo everything. Which is usually self-defeating. For about 50 years following World War II, it was good business to churn out a mediocre product and then surround it with emotion, i.e. branding. On any given night, about 60% of America was in one of three places, ABC, CBS, or NBC.
Via the miracle of TV advertising, a few cents worth of peanut paste could be transubstantiated into a jar of maternal love as choosy mothers choose Jif. In the age of the Internet, network television is in hospice. Exhibit A, the proposed merger of Omnicom and Interpublic. When I started Profit, a brand strategy consultancy, these firms were the alphabets and metas of the economy.
Now they're consolidating. Two emaciated polar bears fighting over fewer seals and sharing a melting piece of ice. The previous sentence is both awful and wonderful. Mostly the former. Brands mean a lot less than they used to. Consumers now have a range of weapons of mass diligence to help them find and rate products, starting with Google and social media.
I travel constantly, so I used to rely on well-known brands when booking hotels in cities I didn't know well. The name Mandarin Oriental or Four Seasons meant I could consistently expect and get a seven- or eight-level customer experience. Lately, though, I've been using ChatGPT and other AI tools to find nines that better fit the moment and me.
The gym at the Soho House Berlin, the rooftop restaurant at the Waldorf in Beverly Hills, the bar at Chiltern Firehouse. If I sound like a privileged douchebag, trust your instincts. The Internet has diminished the power of even strong brands, and it's penetrated the shield of good branding from mediocre products like Nike, Intel, Target, etc.
A product or service that cannot fulfill its promise to make you smarter or sexier can't reverse its fortunes by listening to Don Draper. And inventing and refining a great product, fixing its supply chain, and improving your customer service is a lot more work than turning to mid-journey and asking for a new logo.
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Chapter 5: How has the internet changed brand power?
Great logos, the Nike swoosh, the McDonald's arches, the Mercedes three-pointed star, are immediately recognizable even almost outside our plane of vision. An effective logo needs to be meaningful, resonant, distinctive, and scalable. Jaguar's pouncing cat, which it called the Leaper, was all that. There are few things in nature stronger and more agile than a jaguar.
As sleek and beautiful as they are lethal, they're the apex predator of South America's jungles and deserts. Stealthy and fast, they kill by pouncing from behind and piercing their prey's skulls with jaws and teeth capable of penetrating artillery shells. Also, they're the only animals that, when hunted, will turn around and hunt their hunters. Not really, but go with it.
It's on brand for the cat. Jaguars look arrogant as fuck, and rightfully so. The old logo and mark told that story. The new logo says, We hired some MIT grads who, for $800,000, told us to lay off everyone in our customer service department and replace them with Salesforce's agent force.
Jaguar's Leapr now survives only in a faint echo of the original, the negative space in a field of horizontal lines on a small side panel of the Type 00. To take the greatest visual metaphor in automotive history and kill it is to destroy shareholder value. It's the essence of CMO malpractice.
It's just as stupid and wasteful as if Disney responded to a spate of weak releases by taking Mickey, Moana, Darth Vader, and Elsa out and shooting them. It's also a rejection of everything that ever made Jaguar, Jaguar. Not just the grace and power of the animal, but also the brand's Britishness.
There's nothing feline or rule Britannia about the Type 00, and for all that talk about copying nothing, the car's silhouette is reminiscent of the Rolls-Royce Spectre, and its sharp edges and lines recall the Cybertruck. The Jaguar people who signed off on all this richly deserve to have their careers pounced on. Branding is about differentiation and creating a sense of scarcity.
That means leaning into whatever you have that makes you stand out. If you're going bald, shave your head completely. If you're a tall woman, wear heels. If you need glasses, get the biggest pair you can find. Jaguar is abandoning its differentiators while at the same time trying to enter the high-end luxury market where being singular is the whole shooting match.
The higher you go in price, the more eccentric it gets. In my view, Jaguar should not have spent a dollar on marketing before it had an inspiring, ready-to-ship product to show the public. The companies that have added the most value in the past 10 years barely advertise at all. Netflix now has a market cap of about $400 billion. In 2014, it was about $21 billion.
Alphabet's market cap 10 years ago was roughly $390 billion. Today, it is $2.5 trillion. Those companies and others took dollars out of advertising and put them into making better products and getting them to customers faster and cheaper than their competitors. Amazon didn't win e-commerce with a marketing campaign. It won by doing the hard work of guaranteeing free delivery in 48 hours.
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