How Jaguar is Dealing with the New Luxury Market

4728 Views 6 Replies 5 Participants Last post by Kingpin, Sep 11, 2015

Jaguar XE News

Discussion Starter · Sep 9, 2015

Jaguar has long suffered from perceptions of poor quality and reliability compared to the other notable luxury brands, doubly so in the US.

So what is Jaguar to do. they could double down and try and position themselves above the Teutonic trio, but that's a precarious endeavour, one that leaves them competing with Bentley, Maserati and Rolls Royce. They could attempt to reach further downmarket to boost their meagre 16,000 per year sales total in the US, but then that destroys any notion of luxury.

Jaguar Land Rover North America CEO Joe Eberhardt announced last week that Jaguar would be fixing all that plagues its US operation in one fell strategic swoop.

First came the comprehensive 5 year/60,000 mile scheduled maintenance plan, a first for the brand. Why they've never offered one before is beyond the scope of this discussion.

Second Eberhardt announced that all models would either receive price cuts or have more content added to the base model, which should make Jaguars more attractive to savvy shoppers.

Neither of these moves guarantee success, but what they at least give Jaguar is an even playing field. They have satisfied the most rudimentary prerequisites of the modern luxury shopper, the product is killer, now they just need a brand image to match...

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Predator

· #2 · Sep 10, 2015

I'm sure the sizable incentive (averaging $6,000) will be swaying a few buyers. Will the XE have more content for the base model if this is their new marketing system?

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Winger

· #3 · Sep 10, 2015

It does sound like it will work. It certainly sounds like it will work better than Cadillac's strategy of continuing to hold steady their high prices despite slumping sales.

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Kingpin

· #4 · Sep 10, 2015

Winger said:
It does sound like it will work. It certainly sounds like it will work better than Cadillac's strategy of continuing to hold steady their high prices despite slumping sales.

That's one thing I was surprised about them. But it might be their effort to not make their vehicles seem cheap, rather just push for efforts that don't call for price cuts.

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Predator

· #5 · Sep 11, 2015

If the Cadillac can still make a good profit with the low unit sales then all the power to them for trying to maintain an exclusive brand. I still think Jaguar is still a luxury brand even with the added incentives for the XE. A few other luxury brands came out with cheaper models but they still retained the luxury status so I can't see why the same won't work for Jaguar.

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BJM

· #6 · Sep 11, 2015

MT sat down with Eberhardt to talk brand perception and quality...

http://blogs.motortrend.com/jaguar_joe_eberhardt_on_brand_perception_quality_the_xe_and_the_xf.html

"And I think before we talk about the future product—just one step back—Jaguar has one of the most storied histories in the car business. Racing pedigree, racing success, some of the most beautiful cars with the C-, D-type, lightweight E-type, XK120, and Mk1 and Mk2. So really a history that was always focused not just on racing success but on performance, design, and all of that in a value package. I mean, William Lyons said, 'Pace, grace, and space.' That was one of the taglines. Another was, 'Fast, beautiful cars.' But it was always this combination of making a car that was performance-oriented, that looks pretty, that is sort of affordable. "And with that brand DNA we think we really have something that we can continue to build the brand on and evolve further. So that process started in '09 with the XF, XJ, and the XK. But really, up until today, we were a three-car brand, three model lines … that as we know today are somewhat limited in size, especially as of late are under severe pressure from an overall line perspective because of the SUV growth in particular.

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Kingpin

· #7 · Sep 11, 2015

^ that's so true and what helps is there's still a good amount of E-Types on the road, there's a ton of passionate people about them that want to keep them around.

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