Oh boy! Here we go again.

Last week, we posted an article about Land Rover in which we looked at how a (traditionally) foreign automaker handles promoting websites to an audience in the United States.

Today we’re looking at another (traditionally) foreign automaker in the same situation. This time, it’s Jaguar.

And, yes, Jaguar and Land Rover are now under the same parent company (Tata) but back around the time of today’s ads, the two were under Ford’s ownership (though, not entirely at this time, but close enough, but corporate ownership is its own mess).

That’s not particularly relevant to today’s discussion. What we do care about is websites, and where they go today.

So let’s take a look at the first ad.

S-Type Version 1

This ad appeared in a September 2001 ad (yes, September 2001, which always makes me pause in respect, though these magazines typically appeared in the mail about a month early). It advertises the then-new S-Type, Jaguar’s mid-level offering, between the smaller X-Type and the larger XJ.

The ad features a very simple and logical website for anyone interested in a Lincoln LS in a snazzier suit (oh, wait, did I say that aloud?): jaguar.com.

While that’s simple enough, what does jaguar.com look like today?

This makes absolute sense. Jaguar, being a global brand, has held onto jaguar.com and has used it as a portal to direct customers to their local sites. Well done.

And while I applaud Jaguar for preserving the domain, it’s a bit of a no-brainer. If your brand is Jaguar and you own jaguar.com, you should never let go of it. Ever.

EVER!

Hold onto that puppy until someone tries to pry it from your cold dead hand! It’s your BRAND. OWN IT!

Anyway! Yes, good job chaps at Jaguar!

S-Type Version 2

Next up, we have a different version of an ad for the S-Type:

This one comes from a January 1999 magazine and features a ghostly simple front view of the S-Type Jaguar. Ooooooh!

Catering to an audience in the United States, this ad encourages us to visit jaguar.com/us.

As we saw in our Land Rover article, web marketing efforts can be a bit tricky when trying to appeal to an audience in a specific region, especially one as large as the U.S. market.

Unlike the first ad featured here, which promoted simply jaguar.com, this ad wants the reader to go a step further and enter jaguar.com/us to go directly to the company’s North-American offerings.

And where does that URL bring us to today?

Oh! Well, that’s cool. Jaguar.com/us very smartly takes us to the homepage (index.html) of jaguarusa.com, where we can find out about all the wonderful Jaguars for sale here in the United States.

Well done!

This is what we like to see on Wake Up And Drive. The company still owns jaguar.com, so it only makes sense for them to set a redirect of a previously advertised subdomain (jaguar.com/us) to go to a relevant site, jaguarusa.com which is the main site for Jaguar’s marketing in the United States.

XJ

Oh. Wait.

Before we throw too much love at the big cats from the UK, we have one more ad to visit today featuring Jaguar’s efforts to sell cars in the U.S.:

Oh, the big XJ. What a wonderfully British icon. My uncle owned a previous version of this and that car was just so stately and smooth. I’ll never forget it.

Speaking of forgetting, can we forget the website promoted in this ad, jaguarcars.com/us?

Well, it seems someone at Jaguar forgot about this website. Today, it brings up this:

Ouch.

That’s not a good look. Checking whois.com, we see that Jaguar/Land Rover still owns the jaguarcars.com domain. Yet, it seems to have fallen into obscurity. What a shame.

Guys? Why aren’t you doing something productive with this domain? You were doing so well in the first part of this article.

And I hate to see such majestic cats fail to land properly on their feet.