There are many eve-of-the-offensive conversations I would love to have been a fly on the wall for. Inside the Trojan horse, say, with that Ancient Greek SAS unit bantering the day away, before busting out for their daring small-hours raid. Or inside the Jaguar marketing department, on the night before their new rebrand, as these crack experiential troops prepared to release this week's new ad on an unsuspecting luxury car market.
Picture the champagne corks popping as the socials are timed to post the video at the appointed hour. "I hope the pre-order guys are ready for an onslaught – because we've got eight capital-D diverse models in category-five tulle busting out of a pink-planet lift wielding a hammer – and precisely NO cars! Let's make some sales history!" Anyhow. Arguably it's gone slightly worse than the wooden horse, which, when you think about it, was one of the most successful high performance vehicles in history/mythology.
Sure, it was oversized, over-reliant on heritage materials, and probably took corners like a supertanker – and yet, I defy you not to take your hat off. No one said urban warfare couldn't be quirky and design-led. Back in the present day, meanwhile, marketing folklore is already building up around the Jaguar campaign, which made its debut this week to reactions ranging from vocal bemusement to vocal derision.
As far as I can make out, the best this ad's defenders can come up with is that "the internet is talking about it", which these days.
