Features
Back to Library >
Elegant cars for elegant women?
1 year ago
Jaguar wants to move on from being a heritage brand
If that is the real intention behind Jaguar’s campaign, it would be a brilliant strategy for three distinct reasons.
First, no other brands are exclusively vying for this growing segment, so Jaguar has a unique opportunity to carve out a market niche for itself. Women are increasingly rising to the highest ranks of the corporate and professional worlds and, as I have seen amongst my millennial peers now in our 30s and 40s, more and more are choosing not to have children. As a result, there is a growing segment of women with disposable income and only themselves to spend it on. In recent years, I have also seen a shift amongst my friends as we reject the notion that we must conform to a masculine style to be successful, and instead embrace being unapologetically feminine.
However, models currently positioned as ‘women’s cars’ are either small and cute hatchbacks or sturdy and spacious SUVs. I succumbed to this profiling myself, excitedly choosing a Mini Cooper as my first ‘bought for myself’ car in my early 30s, before accepting (two kids later) that I needed more space and opting for a Hyundai Ioniq 5. The few manufacturers that have explicitly targeted the upmarket female segment have done so with success, but so far this too has been limited to high-end SUVs.
"Jaguar already has many of the ingredients required to succeed with this positioning. Creator of the very elegant E-Type – reputedly described by Enzo Ferrari as ‘the most beautiful car in the world’ – the marque is already well known for producing stylish cars"
Meanwhile, the influx of new EV entrants from China and investors from the Middle East are largely betting on cutting-edge technology (Forseven, NIO, BYD) and/or buying British brands with racing heritage (Lotus, Gordon Murray, McLaren) to appeal to young, urban ‘tech bros’ and the like who have contributed to Tesla’s success.
In short, no automotive company is targeting high income women with cars that are elegant, sophisticated, and feminine: here there is a real opportunity for Jaguar.
Second, Jaguar already has many of the ingredients required to succeed with this positioning. Creator of the very elegant E-Type – reputedly described by Enzo Ferrari as ‘the most beautiful car in the world’ – the marque is already well known for producing stylish cars. More recently, the company has had real success with female customers: the XF won the first ‘Women’s World Car of the Year’ award in 2010 and the F-Pace won the same in 2016. The brand has also seen success in the BEV space, with the I-Pace winning an unprecedented treble at the 2019 World Car of the Year awards during its launch period and making a splash in the autonomous trial market through its partnership in the US with Waymo.
“Jaguar can really benefit from being part of the JLR ‘House of Brands’. As part of the JLR portfolio, Jaguar can be hyper-focused while Range Rover and Defender continue to deliver the volumes needed to provide economies of scale”
I’ve seen this first hand. My own mother, after decades of carting us around as kids, was delighted to trade in her last minivan for a Jaguar S-Type when she turned 50 and the last of us left home, and has been a loyal Jaguar customer ever since. My brother-in-law still cherishes his late mother’s Jaguar – but it is his wife, my sister, who is now its primary driver.
Finally, Jaguar can really benefit from being part of the JLR ‘House of Brands’. Pursuing this niche segment is an ultra-luxury, low-volume play, which would be commercially unsustainable for a standalone marque. But as part of the JLR portfolio, Jaguar can be hyper-focused while Range Rover and Defender continue to deliver the volumes needed to provide economies of scale.
In addition, Jaguar will benefit from ready access to customers who are already within this so-called House of Brands, particularly with the arrival of the electric Range Rover later this year. And, of course, Jaguar could make a play to capture a greater share of the household through existing Range Rover customers, by targeting their spouses.
But can Jaguar pull it off?
If this is indeed the company’s strategy, the publicity from the rebranding campaign is merely the first step: people don’t buy cars just based on ads.
To succeed, JLR will need to build a much richer understanding of the needs, behaviours and expectations of the target segment by drawing from direct customer feedback, vehicle telemetry data, and other sources, and to reflect these in every aspect of its operations.
This begins with the car itself. Jaguar will need to change its internal ways of working – cutting across organisational silos and dismantling the cultural supremacy of engineering – to incorporate customer insights early in the product design and development process, creating a vehicle range that outperforms competitor models in the areas the target customers most value, including customisation and personalisation. The long, low Type 00 concept car showcases sleek windows and a beautiful interior aesthetic, and I’m hoping that when we finally see the production version it will trade some of the concept’s heft and bulk for the more feline muscularity for which the brand is so rightly known.
Next, Jaguar must elevate its customer experience. This includes transforming its retail and distribution approach by optimising the footprint, tuning for different markets, and driving consistent pricing and seamless data sharing across online channels, third-party dealers and Jaguar’s own ‘curated brand stores’. In addition, the company has to provide a luxury experience beyond the point of purchase, extending right through the customer lifecycle, using digital channels and selective partnerships to envelop customers in a Jaguar lifestyle and community.
Whether you love or loathe the Type 00 and the provocative teaser that preceded it, there’s no denying that Jaguar has created a great opportunity for itself, emerging from the media flurry with much wider brand recognition. Now comes the hard part: delivering both an exceptional car and an exceptional buying experience that make the most of this opportunity.
Akshara Chandhok is a Director at Strategy&, the strategy consulting team in PwC
