• by Tanya Gazdik , November 13, 2017

Felix Brautigam is leaving Porsche and joining Jaguar Land Rover as chief marketing officer.

He also gets a spot on the automaker’s board of management. Brautigam joins the business immediately, but takes full responsibility on Jan. 1, reporting directly to Ralf Speth, Jaguar Land Rover chief executive officer.

Brautigam replaces Gerd Mauser, who is retiring from the business at the end of the year but will continue as chairman of Jaguar Racing to lead next season’s Formula E campaign. He joins Jaguar Land Rover from Porsche AG in Stuttgart, where he was most recently vice president for Europe, responsible for 51 markets. He has also served as managing director of Porsche France and general manager marketing communications. He started his career at General Motors, with stints at Saab, Vauxhall and Opel.

Speth said Brautigam will be tasked with increasing “the success of our world-class brands with an even greater portfolio of new models designed to delight our customers, delivering experiences they will love for life.” He added that Mauser “presided over an unprecedented period of growth in our business, bringing consistency and creativity to our global marketing operations.”

Brautigam says he plans to help take Jaguar Land Rover and the customer experience to the next level. His experience with another luxury brand like Porsche will be helpful since the buyers are very similar, says Rebecca Lindland, Cox Automotive executive analyst

“JLR has a wonderful British heritage that they can pull from, and that certainly helps brands like Aston Martin, Burberry, and Sunseeker,” Lindland tells Marketing Daily. 

But the luxury market is changing, she says, noting that the oldest Millennials are turning 40 next year. 

“Their reasons for purchase are different than the Baby Boomers and Gen Xers who have revitalized Range Rover and are currently revitalizing Jaguar,” she says. 

Since Jaguar Land Rover is a global automaker, Brautigam also needs to be aware of how the brand is perceived differently in each region.

“He needs to understand how JLR is perceived in Dubai versus New York versus Los Angeles versus Paris,” she says. “But certainly his experience at Porsche will be a big benefit to him.”