Critics blast Jaguar over weird new car-less ad: 'Jaguar just pulled a Bud Light'



The British luxury vehicle brand Jaguar released a bizarre new ad Tuesday, prompting intense criticism along with questions about whether the company was still in the business of making cars and whether it may have confused November for so-called Pride month.

Jaguar leaned into the backlash to its loud and car-less campaign ostensibly celebrating deviancy, suggesting that its hackneyed call to defy the "ordinary" — already uniformly and reflexively resisted by massive companies, Western governments, the media, and various other institutions unmoored by tradition — was an introduction to "the future."

Provocative advertisements have long been used to court controversy, secure earned media, and remind the public that a company and its products still exist.

Facing a chicken delivery management crisis in the United Kingdom and widespread closures, the KFC Corporation leaned on the creative agency Mother in 2018 for a novel way to simultaneously apologize and advertise — printing "FCK," the anagram of its brand name, on chicken buckets.

Volkswagen ran its playful "Think Small" campaign in the 1960s to promote the Beetle.

Red Bull, evidently keen to sell more energy drinks, had Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner take a helium balloon up to an altitude of 39 kilometers, jump, break the sound barrier, and land on his feet in New Mexico.

Apple released an ad earlier this year titled "Crush" in which a compressor destroyed the various tools and means for real-world artistic endeavors and in-person activities that its new device would apparently replace and virtualize.

On Tuesday, Jaguar gave it a go, launching an ad campaign on social media with the caption "Copy nothing."

The video opens with a feminine individual with a Pacman-shaped afro leading five androgynous individuals dressed in misshapen apparel out of an elevator and onto a pink moonscape.

The text "delete ordinary" appears over a subsequent shot of an individual painting white lines.

'Fire your marketing team.'

In the following shot, a masculine figure wearing a dress and wielding a yellow sledgehammer appears in a blue room with the text "Break moulds."

Finally, the cast of androgynes, now joined by a heavyset black woman, crews together on the pink moonscape and strikes a well-choreographed pose.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said in response to the ad, "Do you sell cars?"

Conservative writer and author Peachy Keenan shared a screenshot of the opening still and wrote, "You lost me at :01."

Keenan added, "Copy nothing [b]ut the worst, stalest cultural trends so you can subvert a storied brand. Congrats and no thanks."

"Well ... we know where the advertising team for Bud Light went," wrote Nick Freitas, Republican member of the Virginia House of Delegates.

"Jaguar just pulled a Bud Light," wrote End Wokeness. "Wtf is this?"

Conservative filmmaker Robby Starbuck tweeted, "Fire your marketing team and drop the woke stuff."

When asked, "What the actual hell is this[?]" the company responded, "The future."

The company's corresponding splash page states, "We're here to delete ordinary. To go bold. To copy nothing."

Rather than credit the Ohio band Devo or fashion designer Pierre Cardin with its new aesthetic, Jaguar said in a release that its "transformation is defined by Exuberant Modernism, a creative philosophy that underpins all aspects of the new Jaguar brand world."

Jaguar managing director Rawdon Glover suggested to Car Dealer Magazine that the company is looking to sell to "younger, more affluent, and urban livers."

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Apple's new ad met with widespread disgust and resentment over 'dystopian' messaging



Apple's celebrated "1984" television commercial, which first aired on Dec. 31, 1983, depicts a bleak dystopian reality wherein shaved, uniformed, and altogether interchangeable persons file ant-like through gray steel structures and into a theater. Awaiting them in the dark is a giant screen whereon a Big Brother-esque talking head spews propaganda.

The Orwellian monologue is interrupted by a colorful and athletic woman, who storms in armed with a sledge hammer. Having outpaced her faceless pursuers, the heroine hurls the hammer through the screen, shorting the mass programming exercise and possibly liberating the audience.

According to the ad, the Apple Computer would ensure "1984 won't be like '1984.'"

This week, some 40 years later, Apple released another provocative ad entitled "Crush." This time around, in its confrontation with a colorful humanity, the standardizing screen wins.

Apple CEO Tim Cook shared the ad to social media Tuesday, writing, "Meet the new iPad Pro: the thinnest product we've ever created, the most advanced display we've ever produced, with the incredible power of the M4 chip. Just imagine all the things it'll be used to create."

Cook's creation theme was coupled with visuals of destruction — specifically of the various tools and means for real-world artistic endeavors and in-person activities that his new device will apparently replace and virtualize.

As with the "1984" ad, the 2024 ad, entitled "Crush," takes place in a bleak and gray setting.

Upon what appears at first blush to be a stage sits an arcade game, a piano, books, DLSR cameras, a tailor's mannequin, a chalkboard, various paints, a chess board, a guitar and trumpet, and a sculpture of a human head. It quickly becomes clear that this is no stage at all but rather an industrial-scale crushing machine.

Over the course of the one-minute ad, the crusher flattens and destroys to the tune of Sonny and Cher's "All I Ever Need Is You."

"The message seems to be that everything beautiful and analog that involves practice and focus is pointless trash, easily replaced by a disposable computer," wrote King's College London finance professor Patrick Boyle.

In the final shot, the crusher opens to reveal the 5.1mm thick, 13-inch iPad Pro. A voice-over states, "The most powerful iPad ever is also the thinnest."

The Drum indicated the ad was created in-house by Apple.

Meet the new iPad Pro: the thinnest product we\u2019ve ever created, the most advanced display we\u2019ve ever produced, with the incredible power of the M4 chip. Just imagine all the things it\u2019ll be used to create.
— (@)

Critics on X sounded off about the ad, many asking what the advertising team at Apple was thinking.

Fr. Steve Grunow, CEO of Word on Fire Catholic Ministries, asked, "What level of hell did the idea for this ad come from?"

David Goldfarb, founder of the Swedish game studio The Outsiders, called the ad an "unintentionally perfect metaphor for how we are destroying beauty for profit."

Hugh Tomlinson, an English barrister and translator of philosopher Gilles Deleuze, tweeted, "The destruction of the human experience. Courtesy of Silicon Valley."

"I find this new Apple ad extremely ugly and dystopian," wrote King's College London finance professor Patrick Boyle. "There is no recognition of how artists love the tools of their trade[.] The message seems to be that everything beautiful and analog that involves practice and focus is pointless trash, easily replaced by a disposable computer."

Babylon Bee managing editor Joel Berry noted, "This is a sad and disturbing ad."

AppleInsider indicated that the possibility that at least some of the ad was created with CGI did not diminish the disgust most people appear to feel in reaction to the depiction.

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'This condition is no joke': Uber Eats removes peanut butter joke from Super Bowl ad after outrage from allergy groups

'This condition is no joke': Uber Eats removes peanut butter joke from Super Bowl ad after outrage from allergy groups



An Uber Eats commercial about being forgetful triggered a response from an allergy research group and others over a segment of the ad that featured a man eating peanut butter, forgetting that he is allergic to peanuts.

Food delivery company Uber Eats shelled out approximately $14 million for a one-minute spot during Super Bowl LVIII. The monumental price tag makes it more shocking that the company was willing to make an edit after several groups complained.

In the star-studded ad, actress Jennifer Aniston appeared to get an Uber Eats delivery from her assistant, who said she forgot about all the items she could get from the delivery service. Aniston responded by explaining that "in order to remember something, you’ve got to forget something else. Make a little room."

The spot then showed different celebrities forgetting seemingly memorable parts of their lives, like Victoria Beckham forgetting the name of her group, the Spice Girls. Aniston forgot who her "Friends" costar David Schwimmer was, and singer Jelly Roll didn't recall getting face tattoos.

What was that group I was in called again #DavidBeckham, was it the Saffron Squad? Or maybe it was the Nutmeg Maidens\u2026 Kisses @UberEats Xx\n\n#ad
— (@)

Other segments featured a man forgetting to wear pants to work and an allegedly controversial man eating peanut butter.

The man is seen with a spoonful of peanut butter and an allergic reaction on his face, saying, "There’s peanuts in peanut butter?" followed by the realization, "Oh, it’s the primary ingredient."

This was enough to spark outrage from allergy research groups and organizations, which immediately condemned the ad publicly.

"We're incredibly disappointed by Uber Eats' use of life-threatening food allergies as humor in its Super Bowl ad. The suffering of 33M+ Americans with this condition is no joke. Life-threatening food allergy is a disease, not a diet. Enough is enough," said Food Allergy Research & Education.

We're incredibly disappointed by @UberEats' use of life-threatening food allergies as humor in its Super Bowl ad. The suffering of 33M+ Americans with this condition is no joke. Life-threatening food allergy is a disease, not a diet. Enough is enough.
— (@)

The Elijah-Alavi Foundation, which promotes "equity" through food allergy education, wrote that the "ad mocking food allergies cuts deep."

"This is a serious health crisis, not a punchline. We demand respect and urgent change," they added.

As well, the outlet Allergic Living called on the "entertainment industry to stop the allergy 'jokes.'"

The pressure got to Uber Eats, which agreed to edit the commercial over the backlash.

“FARE would like to thank Uber for listening to our community and making the changes to their Super Bowl ad. After talking with them today, I believe we have a new ally in helping us navigate our journey with our disease," said Dr. Sung Poblete, CEO of the allergy researchers' organization.

"I hope this sends a message to Hollywood that food allergies will no longer be the butt of jokes," Poblete added.

The original version still exists online and is unlisted on Uber Eats' YouTube channel. The edited version that made the Super Bowl replaced the peanut butter lover with a man who forgets how to sit in a chair.

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The Unseen Road | Reese's Commercial

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