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- [00:00]
Anna
Foreign. Let's do this. Thank you very much. Well, I mean this was an idea. So I'm glad you were game, Ray.
- [00:13]
Ray
I was game. I was. I was pleasantly surprised that Brian was game.
- [00:16]
Anna
And thank you, Brian, for making room because he. We arrived last night in New York and it's immediately business.
- [00:32]
Ray
Anna, do you want to give a little bit of a setup of what we are going to talk about and the dynamic we have today?
- [00:39]
Anna
Absolutely. So it's great for all of us to be here. And by all of us, I mean Brian Morrissey, who is former editor in chief and president of Digiday and now the founder of the Rebooting. If you're not reading Rebooting, you're missing a lot on the present and futures of media technology, brands and agencies. Sign up the rebooting.com so welcome Brian. Thank you for joining us here. Because Ray and I last. In the last episode we talked about brands and their functionality and identity and the interplay between two. And at the end of every episode we have a hit list. And the hit list was Jaguar's rebrand. That was two weeks ago. And the LinkedIn and Twitter or apps were in up in flames among everyone who. Who had an opinion. Everyone had an opinion about it. So that was my hit. And Ray's hit was an omelette. A Japanese omelette.
- [01:39]
Ray
Yes.
- [01:40]
Anna
The sub genre of gazillion people. And I got into it after I heard about it.
- [01:46]
Brian
I love Japanese omelets. I can talk about.
- [01:48]
Ray
I know rice. Rice.
- [01:51]
Brian
Oh, rice. I think omelette.
- [01:54]
Ray
Omelette, omelette. But on top of rice called omelets.
- [01:58]
Brian
Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay, great.
- [02:00]
Anna
You know about it, Brian, It's.
- [02:02]
Brian
I didn't know about that, but I know I always looked at any time in Japan the people preparing omelets with chopsticks. It's like amazing.
- [02:10]
Anna
Yes, Neville, because it's done in such way you cut it and it falls over rice.
- [02:18]
Ray
See that's. That's now. That's now become your obsession.
- [02:20]
Anna
Yeah, you have to see. Ray sent me some videos. Yeah. I had to look it up online.
- [02:25]
Ray
Yeah.
- [02:25]
Anna
So anyway, and then we were. Okay, so this is not dying down, this conversation about Jaeger and rebrand. And we thought it would be good to have especially now that Jagger unveiled the car. And I'm sure a lot of people are going to have opinion about that as well. And strangely enough, the ad fits perfectly with the car, which people didn't know at the time. And we thought it would be a good idea to talk About a wider context of brands and their creative and communication through the lens of media that you bring. Lens of brands that both Ray and I bring, and then lens of creative that Ray is an expert in, but that I also bring in. So, Ray, whenever you're ready. I hope this setup worked. Yeah, whenever you're ready.
- [03:14]
Ray
So what I'm kind of curious about, and particularly, you know, the reason why we wanted to have you, Brian. And by the way, Brian, I was just trying to think when the first time that you and I met, and I think it must have been like 20 years ago.
- [03:26]
Brian
It might have been.
- [03:27]
Ray
Honestly, it must have been. He must have been. Yeah, right.
- [03:31]
Brian
When you joined akqa.
- [03:32]
Ray
No, but I was. I. Like when I first met you, I was still at rga, because I distinctly remember. Yeah, I was still at og. And you, you must have been at that age. Maybe at age at a week.
- [03:44]
Brian
Cub reporter.
- [03:45]
Ray
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, way back when, 20 years, fast forward and the. I mean, everybody's been talking about it, and we are recording this on December 3rd, which is a day after the reveal of the actual product, as Anna mentioned. But even before that, what I was kind of curious about was how it became a politicized topic and how now individuals like Elon Musk would have such an enormous influence on the spread of something like this. So, like, when Anna, when you and I talked about this two weeks ago, and at that time on Twitter, you only had about 5 million views on Twitter, or actually X. And then within like two to three days, the ballooned to over 150 million views. And I think it was the Elon effect. So the question that I actually have for you, Brian, is, and this is an ongoing topic that you have on your podcast, which is about media culture and technology. And then just to cut to the chase, is mass media dead? Meaning that, like, this didn't spread because of mass media. It spread because of an individual who happens to be enormously influential and he himself happens to have the kind of reach that no mass brand or no mass media has ever had, at least as far as I. I can tell. Yeah. So that. And then, you know, as well.
- [05:23]
Anna
But I let brand.
- [05:24]
Ray
Yeah. And I don't want to make it about the election or the. The politics or the whatever, but I feel like in the past four years, you know, are we finally seeing the death of mass media or is it just like advertising? Is that overblown?
- [05:42]
Brian
I would say yes. And yes, I mean, we are definitely seeing the crackup of mass media. I mean, it's Been happening forever. Not forever, but for the last decade. And I think the election just brought this all sort of front and center. And, you know, it's been called the podcast election, but it was very clear is that the influence of mass media and particularly journalism, you know, mass journalism has been in decline and it's less effective than it has been. And I think you're right on about this being a story. I think timing is everything, right? So this happened in the aftermath of the election. I don't think it's a coincidence that this became a big deal when it did. I think if this happened a couple years ago, it wouldn't have been a. That big of a deal. I mean, to me, it's like four stories, right? There's a business sort of case study, which is Jaguar as a brand is a. Is a classic legacy brand that's trying to reinvent itself. It doesn't have a path with its current approach. And I think its reputation is far bigger than its reality. It sold 64,000 cars last year. This is a. This is a tiny. A tiny brand in a. In a market that doesn't have niche brands, really. You need scale in it. And then there's a classic rebrand story, you know, that you and I might have been talking about. When I was at Adweek, I would like, write about. I'd write about, like, logo rebrands on, like, ad free, and there would be like4.4 million commenters. You know, like, this sucks. This sucks.
- [07:10]
Ray
Oh, yeah.
- [07:10]
Brian
And, you know, people love to pile on a rebrand story, but I think, like, you're saying, like, the bigger, you know, the thing that caused this to be much bigger is that it's sort of a story about the changing media landscape with. With X. Twitter has always punched above its weight, right? As it didn't. It didn't lead to a lot of traffic or anything. And it was always kind of like a little bit of a niche thing was so diffuse. But, you know, particularly with Elon Musk changing it now being X, it has a conservative bent, without a doubt. Now, I think depending on your political persuasion, you could say, well, that's just sort of rebalancing because the mainstream media is overwhelmingly progressive, et cetera, et cetera. But I don't think it's any coincidence that it took off there and then spread, right? It spread into, quote, unquote, mass media, and it did become a bigger story than it was. And then the final thing I would say is, you know, cultural institutions are all under sort of duress, right? Now, whether that's. They're the ones like, with progressive leanings, right? You see the attacks on academia, on journalism, on media overall, even going into like government, I really feel like. And I think advertising is next, right? And we saw this with the Bud Light controversy. And let's be real, you both have been in advertising agencies, like quite a bit in your careers, right? That's not, that's not a place for MAGA hats. Right? And then the people who are. And the people who are ascendant right now know that. They know that really well. They know that in rga. I mean, think about it like RGA, over the pandemic had. What is it? It was like prison reform advocate as, as the cmo. Like, this is not like an industry that is known for.
- [08:58]
Ray
I did not know that. That I did not know.
- [09:00]
Brian
Yeah, I mean, like everyone went kind of crazy during, during the pandemic. And I think that advertising and branding, all this, all the MAGA people are going to be coming after you guys. So good luck.
- [09:15]
Ray
Then. It's not coming after. Come on, they've already come after you, Brian. They are already after you.
- [09:23]
Brian
No, I tried to operate a middle ground. No, I mean, I think that that is. Look, when, when Jaguar came out with this, this, what do they call it? Exuberant modernism?
- [09:33]
Ray
Yeah.
- [09:34]
Brian
Is that what it is? Right? You know, it got roundly attacked by the usual suspects on, on X. And to me, I don't know, it looked like a typical ad agency stuff to me. I'm like, I was like really shocked that something like this would get people so bothered.
- [09:52]
Ray
Anna, what do you. What do you think?
- [09:54]
Anna
Well, that's what, like I'm going to build up on that. I first saw it on LinkedIn and not Twitter just because I spend less time on Twitter than I do on LinkedIn. And for me, it's also what Ray, you were saying is mass media, that for me it was more like how different expert communities weighed in. You know, people on brand side, on agency side, on creative side, on business side. Everyone. You know how LinkedIn is networked. You don't really have. You have influencers there, but it's kind of not a mess thing. Things don't go viral the way they go on Twitter just by design. But the fact that I've seen from all angles in my feet was like, oh, maybe this is a new mess, aggregation of all these different niches. So that's, that's my point number one. The second point number two is like both of you built upon, like already mentioned it that I want to build upon is that basically, as far as rebrands go, this is far from diverse. Like, yeah, rebrand was horrible for a minute with that ball, like box on. Or even people forget that Netflix was, was one called Quickster. You know, if we stay with traditional brands, you have like Tropicana changing.
- [11:12]
Ray
Yeah.
- [11:13]
Anna
A lot of brands this changed their logos and there was a minor outreach among creative and advertising types for a minute. And then what actually gained scale here is the. Is the moment the zeitgeist. So it's, it's, it's. I often say when the, when the time is right, anyone can start a trend. When it's not, no one can. I think, Ray, that I even once told you that in Japan I heard this expression, cookie voyomu. I don't know how I'm pronouncing it. Right. Like cookie v Yomu. A Japanese guy said it's kind of how do you need a room?
- [11:51]
Ray
Oh, kooky. Oyomu Kukuya.
- [11:53]
Anna
Yes, I'm not. Yeah, yes, yes, yes, yes. Read the room. And like, they used to explain, oh, you know, that. How do you read the room in the sense of like promoting an idea or. So I think this is what it is. Everything right now in culture is so politicized that any sort of output is viewed through the lens. You're either Vogue or Maga in a good old social media. They caught up, you know. So in a sense, the moment you hear this ad is like inoffensive. People can like it, not like it. But it's not. But it was red and like, oh, it's androgynous and the colors are exuberant and it's futuristic and it's not nostalgic and it's not heritage in history that that Jaguar is known for and so on. So interpretation is immediately through political lens. So for me, the question was, so what do. What do brands do now in their cultural output when they, when interpretation of. No matter what they put out because the atmosphere is so politically charged, that is going to interpret it in a certain way.
- [13:02]
Ray
I think that the thing that Brian, that you mentioned, timing is everything. And this is totally speculation, but my guess is that there must have been a conversation about launching this at CES as opposed to AT or Basel. But I would imagine that the conversation must have been that, oh, CS is too crowded, there'll be too many things launching, so let's find another timing. And also let's reach out to a crowd that they may not have reached out to. Perhaps younger, perhaps, you know, more hip, hipster, hip crowd at places like El Basel in Miami.
- [13:46]
Brian
Yeah.
- [13:47]
Ray
And then it just so happens that this year coincided with the presidential election and Trump winning. And that was the timing of the announcement of the launch was a few weeks after that. So I don't think it was intentional that it was right after the presidential election. I think I could almost tell that they must have gone through the logic of, oh, like, let's do something around ces, oh, it's too crowded. And then let's find another timing. And it just happens that it was close to a political moment, so it was already a hot topic. And then it just happens that those things were close enough that he caught on that the kind of zeitgeist. And on top of that, I think just one individual in Elon Musk, who is essentially a super spreader and he was the instigator of this whole explosion. And this is only speculation, but I kind of wonder if it wasn't for Elon Musk tweeting, A, had it become the kind of attention that it created and B, if it became as politicized as it has has become.
- [15:05]
Brian
Yeah, I think that's a great point because, I mean, sometimes you lose sight. I mean, Jaguar's in a really weird position, right? Like, it, it's not working as a brand. Right. Like, I mean, and they're switching over to all ev. Okay. And like, it's doing it at a time when EV sales are, are struggling. Right?
- [15:24]
Ray
Yeah.
- [15:25]
Brian
They have to shut down production all of. All of next year. They're not going to. They're not going to sell a car next year. Right. And they came up with a concept car. They didn't come out with like a production car. This is a concept. This is not going.
- [15:39]
Ray
That.
- [15:40]
Brian
Nobody is going to be sitting in that car. I don't know what they're going to produce or when they're going to produce it, but they didn't produce anything. This is just a concept. And so to think that all of this is over a concept car from a.
- [15:54]
Anna
For a brand that no one even mentioned for many, many, many years. You know, it's not like you're talking about Tesla or someone, right?
- [16:02]
Brian
And they're, they're trying to. They're trying to swap out their customer base. I mean, their customer base is in their, like, late 50s, right. They were. They're at best, I guess there's what, like an English heritage brand. And I think that that's where it sort of tapped into. I think Part of the whole MAGA thing is there's always nostalgia in a lot of these conservative and populist movements, and there's a lot of nostalgia of the way things were. Now. Forget the fact that this legacy brand has no modern function. It does not have a clear path in. In the modern auto market. Right. And so a lot of what people, I guess, get upset about a lot of times when it comes to these. These old brands is some memory of them in the past, not their actual, you know, present. Like, because, you know, people are saying, oh, you know, this is. This is a heritage of, like, of England. And this is that the Royal Family had Jaguars. It's owned by Tata. What are we talking about here? Like, Tata owns this thing. It's being, like, carried by Land Rover. But they're trying to swap out their customer set and so they can afford. I think it's an interesting branding story, though, because they can afford. How do you swap out your customer set? Right. They need to appeal to a totally different customer. They're going to try to get this thing that's going to be like $100,000 plus per car, go ultra luxury and to be all EV. I mean, I don't know. That's an interesting branding and business pivot to me, beyond all the political stuff.
- [17:43]
Anna
And then I would add to that. So, Ray, I do think that is something else. I don't think that necessarily. It was like, CES is too crowded. I think they just want to align themselves with the art and the creative class out, and that's who they want to attract, and that's what that crowd is. So that business. That's my read. You may as well be right. But I made. It was that they wanted, like, with the color, with the art, with the. With the.
- [18:13]
Ray
Yeah, I don't disagree with that.
- [18:14]
Anna
Global creative class. We are gonna actually launch a car at the art event rather than a tech event, because this is such a radical reinvention going electric in. In conceptually going electric, that I also think that they also wanted to kind of peel off their category completely. But that said, if they launched it in a different time and in a different context, I don't think it would be as much of a uproar.
- [18:45]
Ray
And again, this is, in hindsight and just, you know, it's easy for me to say after the fact, but I think they said too much during the initial launch teaser and I watched the launch event video yesterday. They're saying too much, you know, and when it comes to the product, I'm not even show.
- [19:08]
Brian
It's, it's like in journalism they say show, don't tell, but like if you don't have much to show that you're going to, you're going to do a lot of talking. Right. Like, and talking.
- [19:16]
Ray
Let the product. Yeah. And let the. And then leave it at that. You know, they, I think they are just kind of shooting themselves in the foot by saying too much. And when it comes to the actual product design of it, a, like Brian said, this is a concept car, so nobody's able to drive it, nobody's able to buy it, so nobody's going to have an opinion about it or, you know, they aren't able to review it. I happened just to prepare for this conversation. I happened to watch maybe two 20 minute videos yesterday about like car experts reviewing the concept car. One guy was this old British guy who owns, you know, a collection of classic cars and three of the cars that he owns happens to be Jaguar cars. And I was surprised that he was actually quite. He had criticism about the branding of it, but when he came to the making, the make of it, he was more positive than I had expected it. And then another guy who was a younger American car expert talked about the new design and he was, to my surprise, quite positive about it. So I think they, Jagger tried too hard to hype this up and they said too much by saying things that didn't really make any typical marketing advertising, you know, jargons and blah, blah, blah. And then on top of that, at the event as well, you know, this chief creative officer of Jaguar Kmart and spoke for 20 minutes about the details of the car. No offense to him, and I'm, you know, I'm sure he's a very respected and capable designer, but I was like, I was cringing, I was cringing. Just stop talking and let the car do the talking.
- [21:06]
Brian
I would be interested in both of you to, to how, how would you handle this kind of situation where you have to swap out. It seems very clear they want to swap out their existing customers for new customers. Like they don't see a path with their existing customers and so they're going to swap them out. They have to get, they have to get younger, they have to be more relevant to them and they have to move the price point up. And on top of that, they have to deal with the fact that they're not going to sell any cars for a year in doing that change. Yeah, how do you go about that?
- [21:40]
Ray
I would say that. So when I saw the, the actual product reviewed again I'm not a car guy, but even to a regular Joe like myself, I was surprised in a good way that they departed so far from what Jaguar was known for from a design perspective in terms of the shape, the form, the angle, you know, it's very angular as opposed to curvy. The colorway, the London blue color in Miami pink color were completely away from the existing color palette as far as I, I know about the brand and it was just an unusual choice. But I applaud the, the, the boldness in terms of departing from what they were known for. And to, to answer your question, Brian, I think that they should have just stuck with it. And just the fact that the product itself is such a departure from the past, I think would. Again, this is speculation only, but I think could have at least started to talk to a new audience. You know, it might have alienated their old audience, the middle, you know, people in their mid-50s or above who comes to the brand with nostalgia. And I think the, the design of it could have spoken, maybe not as loudly as the cultural backlash that we are seeing, but at least to start targeting a new set of people as opposed to the old segment. Again, it's easy for me to say after the fact, but I think they try to say too much about the brand and try to make up a brand when they should have start with the product, stick with the product and let the product speak for itself.
- [23:39]
Anna
They think like, I agree you have.
- [23:41]
Brian
Experience in this with legacy brands.
- [23:44]
Anna
That's what I was thinking, Ray, as you were talking. So they clearly did an analysis. They're like, what if we did a car that's still appealing to our old customers and just more than it. And they're like, this is not going to be enough. Like we are just going to scrap everything. We are going to use the name. It's almost like a, it's like, almost like licensing. It's intellectual property. It's just like, it's just a name. And they're like, our product is going to be completely new. We are going to lead with the product LED branding that we talked about before and we are just going to say it's Jaguar, but it can be any other name almost. It's so such a radical departure, but I think that was the matter of their survival. Or like what Tata figured was, you know what, it doesn't really matter if you're not making money. We're not going to make money out of those people. If you want to keep this brand going, it needs to look completely different. So, Brian, you want to chime in? Because then I'll continue.
- [24:43]
Brian
Well, I'm just wondering, what's the point of a brand then? Right? Like, I mean, do you have to. It's not like they obviously have to evolve, right? All brands have to evolve, and they're all made up. Let's be real here. But like, if you're just gonna. If you're just gonna take a name that people like recognize and take the authentic brand, like PE Playbook, and be like, all right, well, who cares, people? It's lodged in people's brain somewhere. We can just slap it on, whatever. Like, what. What is the sort of point of.
- [25:11]
Anna
But there is a brand strength in that. There is a set of associations and emotions still. And now they just want to have a new set of associations and emotions.
- [25:22]
Ray
So, you know, there's actually a car brand that manages to transition their old image and be able to target a new set of audience. And it's Cadillac.
- [25:34]
Brian
I thought you said the Yingo.
- [25:36]
Ray
Which one?
- [25:39]
Anna
Exactly. It's a Yugoslav card. It was the only card that was exported to US Market.
- [25:48]
Ray
Oh, really?
- [25:48]
Anna
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [25:50]
Ray
I think it was some insider joke that I'm not aware of, but see, like.
- [25:55]
Brian
Yeah, you didn't get them in Japan, you guys.
- [25:57]
Ray
No, no, definitely not. Obviously not. Obviously not. Yeah. But just to. Just to finish the train of thought that I. That I had, because about 20 years ago, this was like around 2000, one of the first accounts that I ever worked on when I was a junior designer was Cadillac. And it's this classic old 1960s American car brand that was popular among grandpas, you know, in Midwest. Yeah, yeah. And like from the late 90s to like 2000ish. And I worked on it for a couple years, so I didn't see through, but they were deliberately trying to shift away from being a car for grandpas in Midwest, quite literally in Detroit. I mean, I went to school in Michigan. You know, like all grandpas were literally driving it. And then also around that time, and I can't remember exactly the timeline, but the big SUVs started to come out and like the hip hop crowd, some crowd started to embrace these humongous SUVs. So around that time, around 2000, Cadillac deliberately. And then they didn't do a drastic rebrand. It was a gradual thing that they did over probably about 10 years or so. And I would say they did a relatively good job of shifting from that dusty old grandpa image to, you know, a hipper, cooler crowd who listens to hip hop. And, and, and also like around that time, like you know, 20 plus years ago, they had a product placement in the Matrix, the first Matrix movie. I don't know if you guys remember, but it was kind of a shock for a lot of people because nobody thought of a Cadillac placed in a sci fi movie like the Matrix. And it was the first time in a long time, if not ever, a car like a Cadillac was portrayed in a heroic way. And I think they did a pretty good job of transitioning from a legacy. I don't know if they were dying the same way that Jaguar is, but they definitely made a conscious, deliberate decision to make that transition from an old image to a new one. And I think they did it really well.
- [28:26]
Brian
But I wonder whether that's possible now in this kind of fragmented, like I call it.
- [28:31]
Anna
That's what I wanted to say. The time was different. Brands always reinvented themselves, I don't think. I think Cadillac is an amazing example, but it's not the only one. Because when you look at the retail brands I've worked for, like how Banana Republic reinvented itself from being like this upcycled military garb safari into 1990s metrosexual, like yuppie crowd, you know, that was a complete. And people embraced it because, you know, it was more gradual. And Brian, as you said, like the fragmented versus mass. And then when you look at esprit as well, and that's what Brian asked earlier, the only way for brands to survive is if they radically reinvent themselves or they're going to stay small. So because look at cross luxury brands, do you think that what they're producing now has anything to do with whatever producing where the founders were alive? It's just that it happened over the period of 10 years as your example of Cadillac was, or even more.
- [29:33]
Ray
Yeah, yeah.
- [29:34]
Anna
Like how you slowly push, you start making, oh for, let's take Louis Vuitton, you start from luggage, you start adding ready to wear. Marc Jacobs introduced that and you start playing with it. They didn't have ready to wear, they didn't have any clothes before that Louis Vuitton, it was, it was a travel, it was a luggage brand.
- [29:51]
Ray
So do you think the point, Brian, that you're making or the question that you're asking is you don't think it's possible potentially for a Jaguar, for Jaguar to reinvent itself because A, the media landscape is too fragmented and B, culture moves too quickly? Is that, is that sort of the point?
- [30:11]
Brian
Well, I guess it's like the playbook I Think has to be totally different. And also we have to come to terms with the fact that a lot of brands need to go to hospice care. Like, I mean, let's be real.
- [30:21]
Anna
Like, we simply have too many of them.
- [30:24]
Brian
We can't keep adding these brands that mean something because we keep inventing new brands. And so, like, some are going to have to go away. Like, like, that's just the natural order of things. We created a lot of brands in the 20th century. We have to be okay that some are, you know, going to go to the brand place in the sky. Like, I mean, that's, that's going to be the reality. And I think we're seeing a lot of brands that are trying to cling to some kind of relevance or invent some kind of relevance. And it's, it's, it's kind of, it's kind of messy, I think.
- [31:00]
Ray
But, but do you think that would be a choice for the executives at Tata and Jaguar to sell you something?
- [31:06]
Anna
Ray? From my own experience, sure, sure, sure. Nebrands are incredibly expensive.
- [31:12]
Ray
Yes.
- [31:13]
Anna
Sometimes it's easier to just scrap it all and do it again. It's like people underestimate executives, underestimate the amount of material investment, technological investment in time, and it takes three to five years. So Jaguar could have done that, could have. They could have said, let's keep the shell, let's make transition to electric. They're like, you know what? Forget it. We are just going to create a completely new design with a completely new interior. The only thing we are keeping is the name, which is the same with authentic brands, Group do at the end of the day, with Brooks Brothers, with Vince, with like Reebok, all those brands, what are they doing? They're doing some collaborations. They're milking the cow as they go because they don't want to invest. So that's one model. But Jaguar didn't want to go that route at all. If you go that route, be ready to invest hundreds of millions or maybe automotive brands and for, for a, retail brands, for Banana, for Esprit, that is the investment of tens of millions over the course of three to five years. Because imagine, not only you need to change the quality, not only you need to change the design. What we did at Esprit, elevate, then you change distribution, then you penetrate a new market, then you spend marketing dollars on carpet bombing for a year across mass media or everything, and then you do that for five years. That is the thing. When a robber hits the road, it's all about the money.
- [32:41]
Ray
And the I say and the ego.
- [32:45]
Brian
Yeah. I mean, nobody's nobody, Nobody's gonna rally the truth with. We're gonna milk this until we can't milk it anymore. I mean, I was gonna try to reinvent it, but at the same time, like, I actually went. I was, I was wrong. It's like in the US it sold 88,284 cars last year, 8,000. This is like a miniature, like, brand. And so, I mean, I think about it in media, like, media has all so many of these brands that are like zombies. They're like. So I give them credit for trying. I mean, this is to me is like, it's a Hail Mary at the end of the day for this brand. I mean, because it's the way it's going. It's like, what is going to change? Like, what is actually going to change to make this brand, like, as relevant as it was during its heyday? Very little. Right. So you can either like cater to it and care for it, like in hospice, or you can try to like turn stuff around. Like, I don't know if that's going to work. Like, I mean, it seems like it's trying to become like Maserati. Like, you know, like, you don't see many Maseratis around.
- [33:49]
Anna
So. Does Tata have other electric vehicles?
- [33:52]
Ray
I'm not sure.
- [33:53]
Brian
I. I believe so, but.
- [33:55]
Anna
All right, so if they do have, they probably have already set up production and all of that. So they'll just say, hey, let's just use Jaguar name and use the production that we already have and we are going to make more money because Jaguar brand still has in, in his mind, some sort of.
- [34:11]
Brian
I mean, they're investing an entire new, like, you know, EV infrastructure for this. And so, I mean, auto is a very.
- [34:20]
Anna
And they're going to say, hey, we're going to do something new, but we're going to slap an old brand to that. They're going to do better with the Jaguar name than with some other name with the Data Electric name. You know what I'm saying? It's like they're just taking the best of both worlds.
- [34:36]
Brian
What did you. Let me ask, let me ask about the design. What did you think? I like, let's go, let's have some.
- [34:41]
Ray
Car design or the brand design.
- [34:43]
Brian
No, the brand design.
- [34:44]
Ray
Brand design.
- [34:45]
Brian
Logo talked.
- [34:46]
Ray
Yeah, No, I thought it was such a missed opportunity. If they were to rebrand, they should have kept the cat, the leaping Jaguar and. Yeah, they should have. If anything was to be removed, it should have been the typeface, not the icon.
- [35:02]
Anna
What about the car?
- [35:04]
Ray
The car. I'm kind of indifferent about it, neutral about it. I'm not overly critical of it. Like I said earlier, I do respect the level of departure that they were willing to take and unusual design choices in some places, especially in the interior of the car.
- [35:26]
Anna
But that's the only thing you can influence because so many cars look the same because of performance requirements and so on. So you can really design the interior or, I don't know, colorways or tech inside. That is, for me, it doesn't look differentiated. I haven't been inside, not that much, you know, so that is the que. That is. But also the question is, can you really differentiate that much these days in terms of cars? Yeah. Stopping short of creating a cyber truck. But even when you look at the cyber truck generations, they all look very similar.
- [36:00]
Brian
I know. It's got cyber truck vibes, though.
- [36:02]
Ray
It does, it does sometimes.
- [36:05]
Anna
Look, we look. Now that's like.
- [36:07]
Brian
I mean, I, I will say this, like, I'm not like any car. I'm. I, I have an Ultima Altima. So I. But like, I, It's.
- [36:14]
Anna
You don't even hear a car person.
- [36:18]
Brian
But like, I don't understand, like, car design itself. Like, I'm glad that they're at least trying, like, new kinds of car design. Like, it seems like everything's like, was very. And I, you know, I understand it's. It's hard to manufacture something new, but at least they're trying. Like, at least looks different.
- [36:34]
Ray
Different enough. Yeah.
- [36:37]
Brian
I mean, I will say this for the cybertruck. When you see them going around, you notice it's still like, yeah, it's a little garish and I'm not sure what kind of statement it's making, but you at least notice it. So I think that's. That's okay.
- [36:51]
Ray
I, I felt that when I saw that new Jaguar cars revealed, I sort of felt the same way that I felt about Tesla Cybertruck. The first time, yeah. Was like, what the hell is this? But then a year or two years have passed and I see them in my neighborhood running around. I think like the first few months, people were almost ashamed to admit that they wanted to buy it. But then now the people who drive, no offense and no judgment, but people who drive them, I think they are proud of driving the cybertruck. And then my sense about the Jaguar car in two years time is that it will get mocked when it first comes out, but I think there'll be enough people who will Buy it. It's not. I don't know if we will be enough people to revive the brand to what it was, but I think enough.
- [37:48]
Anna
People need the same thing that you had with Elon Musk and his ex exposed, like tweet it would. You would have. You need one person, you need a Kardashian to sit in a custom color and you know, and there you go. And I know we have Brian only for a couple of minutes. So for me, the bigger picture of all of this is do other categories need to go electric? Literally, like scrap everything they've been known for? Because I know in retail brands have been doing that. Look, look at Abercrombie's revival. They scrapped that teenage model abuse the preppy aesthetic. And they're like, we're just gonna do what is popular now. And here they're gonna do it faster than anyone else. So our chase is like, the chase is. Is. Is retail term when you quickly produce something people are wearing is. And we are just gonna do like, what do customers need? They need dresses in the summer, make a lot of dresses in the summer. So literally be super responsible it to market. And to an extent, that's what Esprit did. That's what Banana does. That's what a lot of the brands that you see that had a point aesthetic point of view back when they were founded are. They're just going to make popular stuff. And I feel like that this is, this is our own future across different categories that all you have is a name, but what you're actually creating is what is going to sell at the.
- [39:10]
Ray
Moment, at the given moment.
- [39:12]
Anna
Responsiveness to market. Exactly.
- [39:15]
Ray
Yeah.
- [39:16]
Brian
I think it's harder though in auto.
- [39:18]
Anna
Right?
- [39:18]
Brian
I mean, this is an industry in complete change and they're becoming software driven. You know, there's a great viral video of the former Ford CEO talking about how much they screwed up software because they, they, you know, they bid all of their suppliers against one another and they always do this and they did the same thing with software. And that's, that's where Elon Musk got them because he took the Apple approach. And it's like all in one, unified. And they've got people writing software, different providers that don't talk to each other. And I think, you know, it's just a major shift going on in the auto industry where, I mean, I feel like the branding stuff is. It's interesting and it's great to talk about but like there, this is an industry that is. And we've seen it with the the transition to EVs. I mean it's been a disaster for a lot of these companies and the subsidies going away are not going to be good, at least in the US So I mean you both talk about it a lot. Is, is it is ultimately going to be a product that. That decides this? Not. Not some kind of video, viral video. Because it was very expensive. You know it's expensive when they call it a film.
- [40:42]
Ray
True. By the way, rumored that he was an in house agency. No Facebook.
- [40:47]
Brian
Oh good. See that'll like ad age. You could have like a column and adding throughout. See this proves that in housing is the worst.
- [40:53]
Anna
Oh, the bravest CMOs and. Yeah. Well, thank you.
- [40:57]
Brian
Hey, it was brave. It was brave.
- [40:59]
Ray
He was brave. He was brave.
- [41:00]
Brian
Let's give credit where credit is due. Too much bravery in marketing is not very brave. This one was brave. They at least got attacked by people.
- [41:09]
Ray
Yeah. Awesome. Thanks. Thanks for stopping by, Brian.
- [41:12]
Brian
Awesome. Thank you so much. Yeah, it's fun. Bye.
- [41:15]
Anna
Bye. So Ray, do you want to move.
- [41:17]
Ray
Into hits before that? Why don't we do our summary first?
- [41:23]
Anna
Yeah, summary? Yes, please. Yeah.
- [41:26]
Ray
Okay. So I think one thing that you said made me think which is the electrification that's happening to the automotive industry. Does the same thing need to happen to other industries as well? And you talked about the apparel industry and how the companies that once had a clear point of view and clear aesthetic, design aesthetic of their products are now shifting to being reacting to the moment, pumping out products that they think they would sell. And audience seems. I mean, you know, Shein is. Is sort of the classic example of a company that didn't really have a point of view about design.
- [42:11]
Anna
But more unfortunate thing is so are the luxury brands now, you know, when they started streetwear and sneakers and I didn't mean the literally electrification.
- [42:22]
Ray
Yeah, I get it, I get it.
- [42:23]
Anna
No, no, I know you didn't either. I just want to go back to you know how Bob Dylan plugged in guitar and that's like went electric.
- [42:30]
Ray
Yeah.
- [42:31]
Anna
It was a completely new genre that was created. So in a sense I think that like electric cars are new genre of cars. So I. That's what I'm thinking. Like what does it look like going electric in hospitality, in retail, in a pair, in sports? You know, what would it mean going in for Nike? Going like, like what is that change of the organizing principle of the. And I saw a lot of that in retail and that how brands are around us in the name, not in product design.
- [43:04]
Ray
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [43:05]
Anna
Or not even in advertising.
- [43:07]
Ray
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think my takeaway and my curiosity is what's the next industry that needs a paradigm shift? When Tesla came onto the market, they didn't necessarily change the car itself. I mean, they did change it with software being the major part of it.
- [43:28]
Anna
It was a slow shift.
- [43:30]
Ray
Yeah, yeah. Apple didn't necessarily change personal computing the second time that Steve Jobs came back, but they changed the perception of computers.
- [43:40]
Anna
But also the phone. They changed.
- [43:42]
Ray
Yeah. The imac, the iPhone, Apple stores.
- [43:45]
Anna
Paradigm shift when everyone went from flip phones to smartphones.
- [43:50]
Ray
Yeah. So what this conversation took me to the mind, my mind went was, what are the next industries that could use that paradigm shift?
- [44:01]
Anna
For me, you know what my takeaway is actually? What is the rebrand strategy? When you know that continuity and linearity, it's not going to like linear change, incremental change is not going to get you that you need to get. You're not going to attract new customers doing what, what Kadyla did, you're not going to attract your customers. But slowly shifting your esthetic or having a marketing campaign or moving the focus of your dollars towards younger audience, that's not going to cut it. But you really need, in order to stay around, you really need that paradigm shift, which means in order to reach new audience, you need a new product.
- [44:43]
Ray
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I would say for me it's.
- [44:47]
Anna
More of a survival strategy, not just growth strategy. I want to say, how do you remain in the market, period, not growing market, remain.
- [44:58]
Ray
Yeah, yeah.
- [44:58]
Anna
What is the rebrand strategy going on? Because I think we're going to see way more Jaguars than Cadillac. Rebrands across industries stress.
- [45:09]
Ray
Possibly. Yeah, possibly. So I think just to finish that conversation about Jaguar, again, it's easy to say this in hindsight after the fact, but their strategy, their rebranding shouldn't have been rebranding, it should have been the product strategy, you know, product reintroduction strategy as opposed to rebranding strategy.
- [45:26]
Anna
I agree with that. I absolutely agree with that. Because like, I think, and that's more and more I think about it, is that that product led branding is what is going to make brands survive. At the end of the day, what makes Abercrombie successful is the fit is great, much better than before, the quality is up and then you find designs you want. So it really goes back to do you have that quality product? Do you have a desirable product? And then how do you build communication and brand around that? And what, what Nike did was like they sped up Pegasus and you know, like when you See, for Nike and Adidas competitors, they're product innovations.
- [46:11]
Ray
Yeah. Yeah.
- [46:11]
Anna
And that's why I don't necessarily think that Nike and Adidas have Anything to worry about is to reach the scale, you. You do need product innovation, but you also need categories and you need the fashion aspect of it and you need others sort of articles to really succeed. But. But on was product innovation at the end?
- [46:32]
Ray
Yeah, yeah, definitely. Definitely.
- [46:33]
Anna
Cool. Yeah.
- [46:35]
Ray
All right. Shall we move to our hit list?
- [46:37]
Anna
Yes. And honestly, you know what? Like, I didn't plan this. I. Yesterday from Miami and this is what waited for me. Oh, I know. It's here.
- [46:46]
Ray
Nice.
- [46:47]
Anna
So I have. Because. Yeah, I know. It's like, I was like, very happy to see it in, like, alive. So I would say.
- [46:57]
Ray
Is that the final, final copy?
- [46:58]
Anna
Yes, that's the. I got 10 copies gratis. I'm gonna have in Paris on Monday, the book launch. I'll have some for the journalists and they're sending me some hotel there.
- [47:09]
Ray
Yeah. So you're having your event in Paris.
- [47:11]
Anna
Next week on, on December 9th, hosted by Vivendi.
- [47:15]
Ray
Oh, okay. Okay. Well, conversations. And good luck with that live event. I wish I. I wish I could say I could be there, but I can't. So I will.
- [47:23]
Anna
I wish. Maybe in New York. There's going to be one in London.
- [47:26]
Ray
You should.
- [47:27]
Anna
And then New York. Absolutely.
- [47:29]
Ray
Oh, yeah. So when I met up with you this summer, you were talking about finishing the book, well, earlier in the summer and. Yeah, it was coming out in the fall and now finally it's. It's here. So congratulations. I know it's a lot of work to write a book, so thank you. Yeah. Well, looking forward to seeing the actual copy in person.
- [47:49]
Anna
Yes, absolutely. Thank you, Rennie.
- [47:50]
Ray
So my hit list is a tiny discovery that, that I came across just a couple days ago, and it's not that groundbreaking, but I was quite fascinated by it. And it's an old podcast that's been around for a couple years by Rick Rubin and he's got this podcast called Tetragrammaton where he interviews musicians, artists, creators, a lot of, you know, famous creators. And recently he started a segment or new version of the podcast called Unexpected Conversations. And there have been two of those episodes. One was in September and then another one just came out this past week. And it was a conversation with Rick Rubin himself, with this guy named Richard Feynman. Do you know who that is? Richard Feynman. Feynman. He's a Nobel Prize winning physicist. He's dead. He died many, many years ago, like 20 years ago. So, yeah, but it's a conversation between Rick Rubin and this deceased person. And then when you look at the description of the, the podcast episode, it just says, Rick Rubin talks with Richard Feynman, a Nobel prize winning physicist. And not much detail about it. So I looked up, hey, what's going on? Is this AI? Is this fake? So how he made it was that he took an existing interview from the past and then edited it, and then he regrouping himself, asks question. Right. And then inserted his voice in permission.
- [49:38]
Anna
To do that from the estate.
- [49:40]
Ray
I, I would imagine. So the first one was with Jim Morrison, the door singer. And then the second one was this, you know, very famous, internationally acclaimed physicist.
- [49:49]
Anna
I think it's unbelievably smart concept. I think it's because it's like re. Contextualizing the material that you won't necessarily be drawn to. We won't maybe know it exists. But when would you listen to Jim Morrison's interview?
- [50:03]
Ray
I, I thought he was really, really smart, clever, very beautiful. Like when I listened to it and like, I, I read Richard Feynman's book when I was in high school. My high school physics teacher recommended that I read his book. And it was just a biography. It wasn't about physics, it was just about life. And super easy read. And you know, this is like 30 years ago. And he made an impression on me and then I didn't really, I mean, you know, I'm not in physics or science, so I didn't really follow his work. And then he passed away maybe 20 years ago, and I hadn't heard his name. And it just happened to pop up on my podcast feed. And what I find, what I found so refreshing was that he wasn't using any fancy technology. He was using like, you know, editing and things like that. But he wasn't using like AI to recreate this person's voice or anything like that. I mean, audio is such an old medium and I was surprised. Maybe this isn't a new concept, but mixing something that exists in the past and then making it sound like as if it's a recent conversation that took place between two real people in case he wasn't. And. But still it felt very authentic. It didn't feel like fake. Yeah, so I do, you know, if you're a Jim Morrison fan, definitely, if you happen to like physics or science or, you know, know who Richard Feynman is, and they, he does talk about.
- [51:31]
Anna
Fairman's hypothesis or something like that.
- [51:34]
Ray
Yeah, I know. He, you Know, he. He. Yeah, his work is very famous.
- [51:37]
Anna
Yeah, yeah. No, it's coming back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you see what I like when you were. I think it's great example. I think we've seen that. As you said, it's not new, but I think it's amazing because I think that what culture is. It's all about curation, editing, and remixing. So this is one of the. Exactly one of the examples of how do you take noteworthy events, texts, materials from the past and recontextualize it? So I do think that that is how this.
- [52:09]
Ray
That's exactly.
- [52:10]
Anna
Is in a remix now, really, is the creativity is. How do you creatively combine. Because there is creativity in how the questions that are asked. And how it was edited.
- [52:21]
Ray
Yes. Yeah, yeah. And they edited it so that the conversation feels very natural. You know, you hear the nodding of the interviewer, Rick Rubin, and the nodding and the size and the little details of a conversation so that it's like one conversation between two people who just happen to exist in two different times in history. Yeah. So I definitely recommend. You know, this podcast has been around for quite a while, for a couple of years now, but this episode just came out recently, and I was mesmerized on myself for being so into it. So that's my. That's my hit list of tiny thing. But it gave me a lot of joy. Aha. And yeah, this is what creativity culture is about.
- [53:09]
Anna
Yeah, it definitely is. And I would encourage our listeners to think of other examples that we. Because we are seeing that a lot in fashion with the revival of Archives going back and, you know, just recontextualizing that. But I do think that we should see probably more. Yeah, that. Because there is a gold mine.
- [53:29]
Ray
Yeah.
- [53:29]
Anna
Of human creativity. And if we can be creative by, again, 3% rule, changing something just by percent and packaging it as a new product, there is a lot to be gained because the creativity is really in the dj, in that remix.
- [53:45]
Ray
Yeah. In the dj. The craftsmanship of, you know, mixing the sound so that it sounds natural. Those little details definitely matter. So I highly recommend it.
- [53:54]
Anna
Oh, yeah. Cool.
- [53:55]
Brian
All right.
- [53:55]
Ray
With that wraps up another conversation. All right, so if I don't talk. Talk to you before you go to Paris. Have a safe trip.
- [54:02]
Anna
Thank you.
- [54:03]
Ray
And talk to you in two weeks.
- [54:05]
Anna
That sounds like a plan.
- [54:06]
Ray
Awesome. All right, thanks, Mania.
- [54:07]
Anna
Thanks, guys. This was great.
- [54:09]
Ray
Ciao.
- [54:10]
Anna
By.