A bizarre new ad for car brand Jaguar has been widely mocked as “woke” and “outdated” by social media users.
The venerable British marque, now owned by Indian multinational Tata Group as part of Jaguar Land Rover Automotive, shared the 30-second clip on social media on Tuesday with the caption, “Copy nothing.”
Notably missing from the ad — which features similarly bold taglines like “create exuberant,” “live vivid” and “delete ordinary” — is an actual Jaguar.
It opts instead for something more resembling a Paris fashion show, featuring a group of mixed-race, ambiguously gendered catwalk models in bright colors strutting and posing on abstract sets.
The clip has been viewed more than 6.6 million times on X, sparking backlash from many viewers.
“Do you sell cars?” Tesla chief executive Elon Musk wrote.
“Edgy. Will it sell cars?” another user asked.
“Umm, where are the cars in this ad? Is this for fashion?” a third said.
Jaguar’s X account replied, “Think of this as a declaration of intent.”
Replying to a similar post Jaguar wrote, “The story is unfolding. Stay tuned.”
“What in the actual hell is this,” another X user said.
“The future,” Jaguar hit back.
One X user said “All this ad tells me is to not buy your car,” while another called it “the worst ad I’ve ever seen.”
Another added, “You don’t have to do this humiliation ritual anymore, you can just post a short video of a nice car and call it good.”
Conservative filmmaker Robby Starbuck said, “Fire your marketing team and drop the woke stuff. This just made me want to sell my Jaguar and I don’t even own a Jaguar.”