Ineos to critics: We're no Defender pretenders

LONDON: Ineos Automotive is fed up of critics comparing its cars to the classic Land Rover Defender and seeing it as a cheap knock-off of the storied British brand.

It has launched an advertising campaign to differentiate the Grenadier 4X4 from what it described as "the regular school-run SUVs and soft-roading crossovers".

The Grenadier was engineered to follow its own path, said Ineos.

The lead advert being activated in social media and on out-of-home billboards depicts the Grenadier, with muddy scars and splashes from off-roading, pitted against the Defender's clean and tidy exterior. A cheeky provocative caption is intended to raise a smile.

Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) had challenged Ineos over the Grenadier’s design/branding, starting in 2016 but these challenges were resolved in Ineos’s favour.

The main confrontation occurred in the UK, where courts in 2020 decided that the Defender’s shape lacks trademark protection, defeating JLR’s claims

Ineos said that "after years of unnecessary distraction", it was 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,” said Ineos CEO Lynn Calder.

"To be clear, this is all about saying we’re different.”

The "Us vs Them" digital advert is the first in a series of campaign activations over the coming months.