There's a fine line between a bit of marketing banter and fighting talk. Ineos seems to be keen to find out where that is.
This month it launched a marketing campaign in the UK entitled "Them versus Us", designed to differentiate the Grenadier 4x4 from "regular school-run SUVs and soft-roading crossovers".
Fair enough. After all, the Grenadier was essentially conceived to fill the gap left by the previous-generation Defender, when Land Rover ceased production in 2016 (after 67 years).
"While respecting various rival manufacturers for their success in those segments, the Grenadier was engineered to follow a different trail," says the company. Again, fair enough.
The lead Ineos advertisement features an extremely dirty Grenadier head-to-head with an extremely clean new-generation Defender. Hmmm. Popular as a school-run vehicle for sure, but then so is the Grenadier from what we have seen. And you would hardly call the Defender a soft-roader: it's one of Land Rover's most capable and hard-core 4x4s.
The latest instalment in the campaign is a video featuring a Grenadier towing a giant billboard with the same image... right past JLR's UK headquarters in Solihull.
There's a bit more context to the taunt than mere brand banter. In 2018, a legal dispute arose between Ineos and Land Rover, the latter arguing that the new company was copying the design of its defunct-Defender. The matter was settled in court in 2021; JLR was unsuccessful, hence the Grenadier you see before you.
"The campaign follows a series of unsuccessful legal challenges around the world that were intended to disrupt the development and sales of the Grenadier and hinder the growth of the start-up British brand," says says CEO Lynn Calder. "After years of unnecessary distraction, Ineos Automotive is drawing a line in the sand.
“We’ve held our tongues while winning the court cases over and over again, and we feel it’s now time to set the record straight: we’re not them and we’re not trying to be them. Good luck to the others: they’re cool cars. But we’re tired of the comparisons. To be clear, this is all about saying we’re different."
