From Heritage Icon to Top 10 UK Automotive Brand
MG Motor is one of the UK’s most recognisable automotive names, with a legacy built on British sports cars and decades of engineering heritage. But by 2020, the brand found itself at a turning point, caught between its past identity and a new future under ownership of SAIC Motor, with ambitions to become a global, high-volume manufacturer.
THE CHALLENGE:
MG’s UK positioning no longer reflected what the brand had become. Still anchored in its heritage, it lacked a clear, modern proposition that could sit alongside a rapidly evolving product range of affordable, mass-market vehicles.
The challenge was to bridge two worlds: retaining the emotional pull of MG’s legacy, while repositioning the brand for a new generation of UK car buyers who had little or no connection to its history.
At the same time, MG needed to compete in an increasingly crowded and competitive automotive market, where clarity, consistency and distinctiveness were critical to growth.
THE SOLUTION:
We redefined MG’s UK brand strategy around a simple but powerful idea: MORE.
Built from the core reasons people had always loved the brand – more speed, more fun, more torque, more value – the proposition gave MG a single-minded platform that connected heritage with its new positioning as an accessible, modern automotive challenger.
This became the foundation for a full brand refresh, including a simplified logo system and a cohesive design framework that could scale across every touchpoint, from national campaigns and model launches to dealership activity. The aim was consistency, clarity and impact in a highly competitive category.
The refreshed identity was designed to sit confidently across both traditional and digital channels, supporting MG’s transition from heritage brand to modern challenger OEM. It also gave the business a unified platform to launch new vehicles and communicate at scale across the UK market.
Alongside the brand work, we supported ongoing model launches and national campaigns, ensuring the “MORE” proposition ran consistently through above-the-line activity, performance marketing and dealer communications.
THE RESULT:
The impact was transformative. From a position of 29th in the UK automotive rankings in 2019, MG entered the Top 10 UK automotive brands by 2024.
Between 2020 and 2024, MG became the fastest-growing automotive brand in the UK, establishing itself as a major disruptor in the market and redefining perceptions of Chinese automotive brands in the process.
More than a rebrand, this was a repositioning that unlocked sustained commercial performance, turning MG into a modern, competitive and recognisable force in the UK automotive landscape.
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