It's a universal truth in marketing, an industry forever in thrall to the next big thing, that sometimes in order to drive forward, you have to take the time to look backwards.

For JLR’s Defender brand, a complete review of the language used in marketing communications opened up a new chapter of brand storytelling centred around women’s lived experiences.

“We came together to reinterpret the automotive industry through the lens of women,” explains Joanna White, Head of Customer Experience at Defender. An insight which gets to the heart of the scale of the ambition at JLR to rewrite the narrative for women in automotive. An ambition driven by both women’s experiences in navigating their careers in the automotive industry, and the experience of women customers.

White is speaking alongside Leonie Raistrick, Brand Director at Defender and Discovery UK, as part of the Global Women in Marketing interview series with Creativebrief. JLR, which scooped the coveted ‘Company of the Year’ at the 2024 Awards, is lifting the lid on how its marketing leaders, Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) and partners have successfully transformed the way the brand communicates with women.

Telling new stories

It is a transformation story that expands beyond the marketing team. JLR has two specific Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) dedicated to women. One dedicated to women in engineering and the second a wider gender equality group.

White shares that over the past five years the company has been on a journey to really understand how to change the narrative for women internally and increase the number of women in leadership roles. JLR is part of The Automotive 30% Club, which aims to ensure that 30% of senior management positions in automotive are held by women by 2030.

Yet while change is accelerating, the uncomfortable truth for the sector as a whole remains that when it comes to targeting women, the marketing mishaps come thick and fast. From the car that launched with eyelashes on the headlights, to a showroom experience that has historically been less than inclusive for women. Female car buyers are still being told to come back with their husbands.

In an ecosystem which has arguably historically been hostile to female buyers, the Defender brand has committed to doing things differently.

In March this year, Jaguar Land Rover announced a change to its leadership structure as part of its ‘House of Brands’ strategy. Jaguar, Range Rover, Defender and Discovery now all benefit from dedicated brand teams. The desire to do things differently is genuine and it is powering a new approach to marketing.

Each brand director is working to provide leadership to their individual brand, as well as bring their own UK spotlight to marketing. Raistrick joined the car marque from Stellantis, where she was International Brand Strategy Director at Peugeot.

Last year the brands came together with agency partners to build a specific ‘women’s growth initiative.’ “This gave us the impetus we needed to find opportunities for our house of brands to find new growth,” explained White.

White continued: “We know women’s wealth has grown. Workforce participation and education levels are going up.” According to White for the Defender brand, a specific gap was in play amongst women buyers. “We found that women were interested in the Defender brand, there is a clear commercial opportunity there, but it is also the right thing to do,” she added.

While gender was the initial lens for the initiative, improving diversity overall is one of the Defender brand’s global priorities. “We launched an action plan on a global level, which set out both the opportunity and the approach,” says White.

The power of consistency in tone of voice

In a sector which appears to have put the brakes on creativity, JLR continues to push for progress. White credits Victoria Kirby-Keyes, Interim Brand Communications Director and Global Chief Editor at JLR, for lighting the spark of the idea that the brand needed to review the language it was using. A process which has been transformative for both the brand and the wider business. The team brought in Vikki Ross, the UK’s leading marketing tone of voice and copywriting expert, to consult with the teams.

The feedback and workshops that Ross provided acted as a launchpad for creativity within the business. Sparking new ideas and facilitating the conversations that can be difficult to make space for in the midst of the day-to-day demands of a fast-paced business. “It really allowed us to create a better balance between masculine and feminine language. As well as launch distinct tone of voice guidelines across our house of brands,” adds White.

The experience has also delivered Defender one of the most underutilised advantages in marketing: consistency. As White explains: “The way we tell our stories to our customers is so important.”

In a marketing ecosystem in which AI can deliver 10,000 assets in 10 minutes for luxury brands, distinctiveness will only ever become more important. True marketing consistency is rooted both in brand truth and a genuine and honest understanding of consumers. For the automotive sector as a whole, where the electric vehicle revolution is underway, being clear about what is distinctive about both brand and proposition has never been more important.

Diversity drives creativity

White is passionate in her belief that equity can add to this distinctiveness. She explains: “The business case for gender equality and diversity is really clear. The Women’s Growth initiative is a small part of what is happening across the business.”

“Group-think stifles creativity. It is so important to understand different lived experiences and different perspectives,” she adds.

White credits the Women’s Growth Initiative for creating the space to understand those different perspectives and drive a more convivial and creative approach to marketing. “When we started the Women’s Growth Initiative, attracting diverse talent was a key priority. JLR has been really innovating in this space and we have partnerships in place to drive more applications from across a diverse talent base,” she explains.

The team is passionate about creating the space to tell new stories, which serves to both attract and retain talent and better connect with customers.

Defender collected stories of 50 women who designed and worked on the brand across design, engineering, development and commercial operations. They were published by the brand’s North America team and were subsequently played back to the brand by its customers via social media.

Raistrick explains: “Our retailers are independent, but we make it our business to drive inclusivity and diversity. There are women operating at all levels in our businesses and that is essential to our growth. It is important to tell their stories”

This storytelling drive is also backed by clear policy to support, grow and retain talent in the business. As White shares: “We recognise the importance of progressive policies to attract and retain women. We have a groundbreaking menopause policy, maternity policy and a flexible working policy.”

Stereotype smashing

Stereotypes matter because they stop people from achieving their full potential. In the car market, these stereotypes have equally stopped brands from reaching their full potential. If assumptions are the death of creativity, then the vast number of stereotypes about what women want from a car has held the sector back.

When White began building the women’s growth initiative for Defender, she was mindful of avoiding stereotyping. “It was our priority when we started this work,” she says. “It can be really easy to make assumptions based on gender so from the very start we had to do some myth-busting.”

The team wasn’t starting from scratch as historically women have featured extensively in all of its customer research. White explains: “We have gleaned specific insights and we can increase satisfaction ratings amongst our female customers as well as improving the experiences of all our customers as a result.”

Crucially these insights aren’t just about how the brand is marketed to women, they identify specific pain points for women customers so the brand can build products and services better suited to women’s unique needs. This is a particularly poignant insight in the car market.

Through a marketing lens, making products that don’t just accommodate women, but are designed with their specific needs in mind, presents a huge commercial advantage. For Defender, this endeavour isn’t about skating the surface of its products or a new strapline. With diverse teams working across everything from marketing to engineering, the desire to do things differently is genuine.

White explains: “It is really important to say, this initiative is not about making Defender more feminine or downplaying the technology inside the cars. Those are the things that are most appealing to women.” She continues: “Toughness is not just a masculine quality, Tough luxury, which we bring to life in our latest campaign, has a strong appeal to women.”

This ethos also extends to the brand’s approach to the retailer and dealership experience. Raistrick continues: “There is a perception across the industry that it can be an intimidating and male-dominated environment. We are working hard to elevate our showroom experience. We are introducing barista coffee bars and dwell seating where people can work while their car is being serviced. We are introducing a more congenial environment, and by coupling online and in-person purchase options to offer greater choice and autonomy, we are opening the ways clients transact with us – this suits our female clients particularly well.”

As a luxury brand, Defender consistently elevates experiences for its customers. Defender OCTA was previewed in exclusive events ahead of its public launch in July this year. Events ran in private, exclusive locations around the world from the UK, Germany and Italy in Europe, to the United States, Dubai and Japan.

Elevating luxury experiences

When personalised, immersive experiences are becoming a bigger play for luxury brands, understanding consumers better is vital. “We are always working to elevate the Defender brand as a distinctive luxury brand,” explains Raistrick.

The focus on building luxury brand experiences has seen Defender look beyond specialist automotive media and focus on more immersive lifestyle experiences at music festivals and sporting events. Key clients and customers were invited to glamp at the Lost Village festival or attend the Defender Burghley Horse Trials, where the brand is the headline sponsor.

“Once you are a Defender owner you are part of our ‘tribe’ and that relationship goes beyond the cabin of the car,” Raistrick explains. “Our female clientele really want to engage through those immersive experiences and it is really important for us to create those spaces,” she adds.

The power of brand experience

Looking back on the journey the brand has undertaken, White is clear on the biggest highlight of the experience. “The opportunity to work with the most inspirational group of women and our allies has been phenomenal,” she explains.

She credits the consistency and steadfast nature of the approach as key to really being able to communicate the vision to the wider stakeholders in the business and show why it is important to invest in equality.

From a brand storytelling perspective, the journey has been equally expansive. “This process has made us recognise that you can tell the same product story in different ways. Women don’t want the capability of the car dumbed down, that isn’t why women are interested in the Defender brand,” says White.

For Raistrick the journey has really helped her to power forward with the brand’s end-to-end experience. “That complete experience is a key factor for luxury and automotive and what people buy is not just the product.” It is an approach which demands the marketing experience continues to evolve just like the products.”

All too often Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) are seen as a distraction from the day-to-day business of building effective and commercially successful brands. Yet JLR’s successful transformation of the Defender brand underlines that equality and commercial creativity are not mutually exclusive pursuits. In fact, when the power of internal storytelling and external marketing communication align, companies can overcome change fatigue and build genuine momentum.

“We were really proud to be nominated at the Women In Marketing Awards and it is really great to see that hard work rewarded. There are so many people across the company dedicated to improving the experience for everyone. To have that work recognised helps us to continue because there is still so much more to do,” says White. An ethos which underlines the truth that for the world’s best marketing leaders, equity and creativity alike are forever a work in progress.