Nicholas Hoult And Jaguar Team Up For The 'British Intelligence' Campaign

Jaguar debuts its "British Intelligence" global marketing campaign featuring actor Nicholas Hoult.

The "British Intelligence" campaign expands upon the premise that a Brits' charm, precision, and ambition have long made them the best villains in film by adding that superior technology is also essential to great villainy. The television commercial begins where the predecessor campaign's TV spot, "Rendezvous," ends: at the Villains' lair.

The audience is taken inside the Jaguar innovation lab by actor Nicholas Hoult, the "brains behind the villainous operation," as he showcases the cutting-edge technology of Jaguar vehicles.

As Hoult explains, 'A villain is only as good as the technology at his fingertips.' To bring the innovation lab to life and continue raising the bar of automotive advertising to the cinematic calibre that was set with "Rendezvous," Jaguar worked with premier visual effects production house, The Mill, who incorporated visually compelling CGI (computer generated imagery) effects that highlight the engineering and technology under the hood of the newest Jaguar model lineup, seen throughout the campaign.

"In casting Hoult, a young, good looking and charismatic actor with just the right amount of eccentric British charm, we found our boy genius," said Matt Page, Creative Director, Spark44, the international communications agency for Jaguar.

"He plays the role of the Villain's behind-the-scenes technology wiz, providing his bosses with the right equipment for their mission - Jaguar cars - and in doing so, he wittily describes the innovation and technology that makes our cars feel so alive."

The campaign is led by a new cinematic 30-second television advertisement running first in the United States, and includes the recently launched "Why Jaguar" landing page on JaguarUSA.com and multiple first-to-market media platforms such as Google Glass and SoundCloud. "British Intelligence" is an evolution of Jaguar's highly acclaimed "British Villains" campaign for the F-TYPE Coupe, which debuted to millions of viewers during this years' broadcast of the 2014 Super Bowl, and will showcase the now complete Jaguar luxury sedan lineup, including the XJ, XF and, the recently revealed XE, on sale in the U.S. in 2016. The campaign's television spots star British actor Nicholas Hoult and were filmed by Oscar-winning British director, Tom Hooper, who also directed the brand's "British Villains" campaign, in London.

"Jaguar's British challenger brand strategy and our evolving model line-up continue to elevate us in the luxury category and introduce us to a new generation of buyers," said Phil Popham, Group Marketing Director, Jaguar Land Rover.

"With British Intelligence, we're evolving the 'British Villains' theme to now showcase the breadth and quality of Jaguar's lineup, and the innovative technology and leading-edge craftsmanship behind each model."

Three 30-second TV spots and a 90-second digital film, capture Hoult's assertion that "just like in the movies, behind every cunning plan there is a brilliant mind." Hoult also appears in three web films that illustrate the rigorous quality testing that Jaguar models undergo before arriving in showrooms or hitting the road, including climate and crash testing. Beginning on October 6, these films will live on a dedicated landing page for the "British Intelligence" campaign, (http://www.jaguarusa.com/innovation-lab), a digital iteration of the innovation lab.

The interactive site is a mechanism to initiate conversation about Jaguar technology and quality standards and invites consumers to view the performance specs beneath the F-TYPE, XF and XJ exteriors.

Rounding out the British Intelligence campaign are multiple first-to-market media platforms that feature Jaguar as a launch partner. Jaguar will be the first ever auto brand to create an augmented reality experience using Blippar, an app available on Google Glass. For the first time, users will be able to 'blipp' print advertisements in Conde Nast publications, by looking at them through their Google Glass devices, to activate additional digital content.

The print advertisements will trigger video content that is directly accessible to Google Glass users, plus additional features when blipping from mobile devices. Jaguar will utilize this augmented reality experience beginning with the December issue of Vanity Fair.

Jaguar is also the auto-exclusive launch partner for SoundCloud(R), the leading audio platform that allows everyone to discover original music and audio, connect with each other and share their sounds with the world, which began debuting advertising in August.

British Intelligence advertisements on SoundCloud commence on October 6.

The British Intelligence campaign will also be executed through broadcast integrations.

The XJ, XF and F-TYPE Coupe vehicles will be featured in an episode of the Esquire Network's new series "Car Matchmaker," airing on November 18, which features host Spike Feresten helping buyers choose the car best suited for them.

In the episode, Adam Fleischman, the founder of Umami Burger and a current Jaguar owner, will test drive three Jaguar vehicles in a picturesque journey around Los Angeles, to decide which one he'll be bringing home.