Jaguar Fashion Week, cars are so passe?

Last week, Jaguar-which no Indian will ever fail not to remind everyone that it is owned by an 'INDIAN!' corporate group-released a new advert. The 30-sec video was in preparation of the British luxury car being relaunched as an ultra-luxurious, all-electric brand at the Miami Art Week that starts Dec 2. Strangely, the commercial shows no car, but a cool line-up of models of carefully-picked diverse ethnicities-'But no INDIAN!' -smilelessly sashay through the frames in vibrant, Miami Fashion Week couture (read: costume). With Apple-type slogans-'Create exuberant,' 'Live vivid,' 'Delete ordinary,' 'Break moulds,' and the clinching line at the end, 'Copy nothing'-it's very art-house. But, um, what is it selling?

We get it. As Jaguar MD Rawdon Glover said, 'If we play in the same way that everybody else does, we'll just get drowned out. So, we shouldn't turn up like an auto brand.' But after watching it 15 times, we have had the urge to buy crinkled fabric and Studio Tissue Organza, instead of developing any interest in checking out cars. We kinda hear Elon Musk's tweet: 'Do you sell cars?' The ad is apparently a teaser. But a teaser teases a product it ultimately plans to sell, even if tangentially. If this was an ad for a Moon Mission, Jaguar would probably have shown a rubber duckie in a tub. Cutting edge, sure. But very 'WTF?'