Jaguar Releases Two-Minute "Rendezvous" Director's Cut of the Brand's First Ever Super Bowl Ad and Says THANK YOU for Recognition of its British Villains Campaign

My favorite line in “Rendezvous” is when Mark Strong receives the keys to his Polaris White F‑TYPE R Coupe on the tarmac and says, ever so politely, “Thank you Mary,” because that’s exactly how I feel now after Jaguar lept into the Super Bowl. A big THANK YOU to everyone who watched, tweeted, voted, reported on, created or just plain enjoyed our British Villains, writes Jeff Curry, Brand Vice President, Jaguar North America.

In response to the overwhelming interest in the spot (11 Million YouTube views to date), today, Jaguar is releasing a special two‑minute Director’s Cut version of our popular “Rendezvous” spot from Oscar‑winning director Tom Hooper and our cast of British Villains; Sir Ben Kingsley, Tom Hiddleston and Mark Strong.

The British Villains campaign brings the unique British personality of Jaguar alive and serves notice that we are not one of the usual suspects in the luxury car market. We are out to disrupt the luxury car market by offering beautifully‑designed high‑performance British sports sedans and sports car. This six month F‑TYPE Coupe launch campaign is just getting underway (and, yes, there is much, much more to come!), and the Super Bowl was an amazing high profile platform for introducing it to the world. Here is a look at the rollout strategy and some early results from the first week post‑Super Bowl.

Back in November, we announced our British Villains campaign and plan to advertise in the Super Bowl for the first time, which was followed by the car’s dynamic debut in Los Angeles. We ran a 30‑second teaser with Sir Ben Kingsley in a few NFL games in early January, and the 60‑second spot debuted on our website (JaguarUSA.com) and YouTube channel on January 28. Finally, in the 4th quarter, with about 95% of viewers (100M+) still engaged, our 60‑second spot, “Rendezvous,” debuted, driving record traffic to JaguarUSA.com, igniting Jaguar online searches, and spiking our social media conversations to new record highs.

All along the way, we supported the campaign with proactive special influencer events and out‑of‑home activations, including wrapping 10 F‑TYPE F‑Train subway cars in Manhattan. From a social perspective, our goal was nothing less than to be among the most active and engaging brands by mainly leveraging the hashtag #GoodToBeBad. Numerous surveys have reported that we are #1 amongst automakers for driving social conversation; even the NFL included our hashtag in their social media cloud of trending topics.

So was it worth all the effort and investment? Are people interested in British Villains and a 550‑HP British sports car? Ultimately we measure it by the long‑term positive impact on the brand and accelerating our current momentum in Jaguar sales with our dealers, but also can’t help but pay attention to our competitive position versus the other 56 in‑game advertisers.

Here are some of the results to date:

• Twitter – Visitors to Twitter’s Ad Voting site, @AdScrimmage, voted the Jaguar spot #1
• NFL.com – Visitors to the NFL site voted the Jaguar spot #1
• AutoWeek – “Rendezvous” was ranked #1 among all Super Bowl automotive ads
• Yahoo! Sports – The news site graded Jaguar Car’s “Rendezvous” ad an “A” – only given to six spots
• Car and Driver – “Rendezvous” was rated a 5 gears out of 5 (highest rating given)
• AceMetrix – “Rendezvous” was ranked #10 in their Most Effective Super Bowl ad list
• WallStreetJournal.com – Visitors to the site voted the Jaguar spot #13 out of 57 spots
• USA Today ‘Ad Meter’ – “Rendezvous” was ranked #25 out of 57
• YouTube – “Rendezvous” has received more than 11 million views on Jaguar USA’s official YouTube channel, literally doubling our channel’s lifetime views in 10 days
• YouTube ‑ "Rendezvous" came in fifth place in YouTube's AdBlitz voting poll
• YouTube – “Rendezvous” has made it to the January YouTube Ads Leaderboard. The Leaderboard is a monthly showcase of the most engaging ads that people watch on YouTube
• JaguarUSA.com – The brand website has experienced a 56 percent increase in traffic since the “British Villains” campaign was announced in November
• Shopping Websites – All major auto shopping websites reported massive increases in Jaguar and F‑TYPE searches, before, during and after the game, with Jaguar ranked as a top performer in places like Kelly Blue Book and Autotrader

We knew we had something authentic, fun and memorable with British Villains, so it has been very gratifying, and humbling, to see the results post game. It speaks to the built‑in love people have for Jaguar and the excitement about the F‑TYPE as our leading edge.

In conclusion, I would like to say thank you to our British Villains Sir Ben Kingsley, Tom Hiddleston and Mark Strong, and Director Tom Hooper, for showing that it truly is #GoodToBeBad.

Stay tuned for more British Villains content, short films, events and commercials running through July. And go online to see the making of "Rendezvous". It is all in the name of telling the world, the F‑TYPE Coupe is coming, it’s British and it’s got a bit of a villainous edge and charm.