It seemed there was a lot of talk last year about more clearly separating the Land Rover & Range Rover brands.  There were changes made in advertising and Land Rover websites.  And the entire 2012 Range Rover line got some more Range Rover badging.  Lately however, they appear to be reversing that trend in print.

On the main Land Rover Media Centre site, they had created two separate sections, one for Land Rover and one for Range Rover.  In the past couple months, the Range Rover section has been removed and everything is now under the Land Rover banner.

In advertising, we saw this last year, an actual Range Rover ad with no Land Rover badge, it appeared the change was happening.

Then the all-new Range Rover Evoque starts to appear, and it’s back to Land Rover badging in the ads

Additionally, they don’t even use the rangerover.com web address.

Now to the item that started me on this rant today, the first actual 2012MY Range Rover print ad I have:

We’re back to Land Rover branding on an ACTUAL Range Rover print ad and still using the landroverusa.com/rangerover link. 

Quick sub-rant: Land Rover, if you’re listening, please do something about these latest ads, I know you’re selling lots and lots of trucks but are ads like that one really helping?  Go back to your roots, you can still keep it classy and aspirational, but skiing in Chile with my Range Rover?   Boring.

I for one am happy with the change back to Land Rover if that’s what this is????

And for historical reference, here are some early 1970’s images of Range Rover branding, let’s keep it this way:

I guess we’ll see what the 2013 Range Rover ad blitz brings…