March 17, 2025
Public relations practitioners have grown accustomed to being perceived as “spinsters” that twist narratives for their employer’s benefit. While this may be common in the general communications world, it is untrue. PR practitioners know that the position entails managing many different communications aspects in a company; reputation management, brand identity, user onboarding and retention, audience auditing and so much more. Mitigating all of these responsibilities can sometimes prove challenging, but a PR professional understands that ups and downs come with the job.
Depending on what communications focus you’re pursuing, understanding the strengths and weaknesses of specific elements makes it much easier to navigate the position. Knowing what your company is doing well with and what needs to be worked on builds a solid foundation for moving forward with communications.
Brand Identity
A way to start identifying these fundamentals is to think of your company as a whole. What do you think of when you visualize your company? What kinds of colors, feelings or senses activate when thinking of your company? These questions answer questions that help us understand and build upon a company’s brand identity.
Brand identity is a combination of physical and intangible elements that contribute to your brand’s personality and how it presents itself to the public. It is vital that your brand identity is strong, because if your audience cannot perceive your company, then they will not feel a strong desire to connect with it. Creating associations that audiences can refer back to when prompted will generate higher engagement for your company overall.
Jaguar's new website design
A Lesson From Jaguar
Creating consistent content and advertisements reinforces your brand identity. If you are not creating content that is ‘on-brand,' your audience will be unsure or uninterested.
An example of this occurring was Jaguar’s sudden rebrand that caused a lot of confusion among the public. Even audiences who do not actively buy Jaguar’s cars expressed bewilderment at this seemingly random choice. In reality, Jaguar was taking a swipe at being relevant in the changing social media landscape, but ultimately failed at leaving the public with a positive perception of the new campaign.
Jaguar attempted this transition by changing the overall color scheme of the brand from metallic silvers, golds and dark greens to bright, warm colors. Jaguar also changed its website design from classic and traditional to ultra-modern and minimalistic. While this may be an attempt at uniqueness, countless other brands have adopted a minimalistic aesthetic and logo, injecting Jaguar into a sea of generic, minimalist rebrands.
This rebrand was also negatively perceived due to the ignorance of Jaguar's primary target audience. Its deviation from the classic, wealthy and luxurious brand identity left a bad taste in many mouths and ignored its primary target audience: Older, wealthy European individuals.
Charles Taylor, a Villanova marketing professor, stated that "...the promotional video strikes the wrong tone for potential buyers...the company is making a mistake by not using the brand’s heritage as an elegant British high-performance sports car in its marketing." (AP News)
Before its rebrand, Jaguar had its finger on the pulse of how to cater to this audience. The company executed this perfectly with their advertisement featuring famous British actors that emanate luxury, poshness and the exclusiveness of Jaguar.
With a minimalistic rebrand, Jaguar aimed to cater more towards Gen Z individuals, although this makes little sense as Gen Z does not place as much of a priority on luxury. In the context of today's economic limitations, Gen Z cannot afford luxury compared to ten or twenty years prior. Jaguar's misfire has led to a lot of retaliation in light of Jaguar's ignorance of their audience.
