What’s The Cringiest Car Marketing You’ve Seen?

Image: Jaguar

Sometimes it can be amazing to watch a billion dollar corporation put millions into developing and building a new car, and then fall completely flat when it comes to marketing it. From doing no marketing, and then wondering why no one bought the car (looking at you GM) to the subject of our post today, trying too hard and it’s just cringe.

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All automakers are guilty of this, you just have to find the example of them doing this. One I found that was both cringe and sort of sad was a Jaguar ad for the XJ from 2017.

Jaguar XJ | Game of Drones

This is back when Jaguar was still using their “Art of Performance” tagline. This is also from a time when drone shots and Game of Thrones were hot as well. So someone in Jags marketing department thought “Lets combine all three to get young people interested in the XJ!” They came up with nearly two minutes of just what the hell is happening.

The ad is called Game of Drones. The premise was to highlight just how much space there was in the back of the XJL using 13 neon lights in the shape of the XJs door opening (?) that the drones would fly through called “The Circuit”, annoying music, three XJLs, one special edition XJR 575 and two drone pilots who piloted the drones from the back of the XJR 575. Whoever lost would have to walk home while the winner got to ride in the back of the XJL. It’s just all dumb and pointless. It’s cringe because this wanted to get young people interested in the XJ, but the average age of the XJ buyers was 58. It’s just sad to watch.

Now we ask you, Jalopnik reader. What car marketing is the cringiest you’ve seen? It can be print, brochure, etc. Any kind of consumable medium, we’ll call it out. Let us know in the comments.