Meet The Marketer Growing Fame for INEOS Automotive

After nearly four decades within the ad industry, working for agencies including Publicis, WCRS, Spark44, and DDB and developing a niche in the car sector, Jonathan Hill took the leap of faith by becoming the client and joining challenger brand INEOS Automotive.

He has experience of working on marketing for major marques such as Volkswagen and, perhaps most significantly for his current gig, Jaguar Land Rover [JLR]. And now, as INEOS Automotive's chief marketing officer, Hill is at the forefront of building a name recognition and reputation for the Sir Jim Ratcliffe-owned Grenadier and Quartermaster SUVs.

 “It’s been a bit of a gradual development for me,” begins Hill, outlining his career path to CMO. And while he has worked with many car agencies on the creative side within agencies, he states that he is firmly “not a tyre kicker, not am I a car expert.”

He explains that his interest in car advertising goes back to working on the launch of the iconic ‘Nicole. Papa.’ ads for Renault Clio in the 90s, which helped him to see the sector as one that got noticed more often by consumers.

After 10 years with DDB working on Volkswagen he went to the former JLR in-house agency (now owned by Accenture) Spark44 for three-and-a-half years, before joining Innocean in Germany (which works with Hyundai) as chief operation officer. It was then that he decided that it was time to test himself brand side. He moved to INEOS Automotive in January 2025, and retained the services of Wonderhood Studios to develop his first campaign, the deliberately provocative to challengers – ‘Us Vs Them’. Wonderhood has worked with the brand since winning its creative pitch in August 2023.

Working for a challenger brand, by definition, means the campaigns Hill oversees pushes back against the rest of the SUV sector, as well as many of the companies he used to work for. In doing this, he hopes to bring a different perspective to consumers about the market.

“That’s what is interesting about marketing and advertising communications, you have the opportunity to create a difference that attracts an audience. And you can do that with a mainstream brand like Volkswagen, but often at times we were tracing back to what we were doing to our roots as a challenger brand. Here, we couldn’t be more ‘challenger’ if we tried,” he outlines. “It’s absolutely in the DNA which gives me a chance to test a new and interesting, brand-defining communications strategy.”

And now Hill is on the other side, he admits to seeing things from a different perspective, but he has always had sympathy for clients, which made him a successful account manager.

“If the client knows that you're on their side, and the creative director knows that you're on your side, I think you're doing a good job as an account guy. If you’ve got one and not the other, you're failing. You've got to find a way to tread that pass between the two,” he advises.

Developing a challenging brand

The British car sector is not short of competitors, and while owning a car has grown more expensive in recent years, this has not diminished the popularity of car ownership.

Despite President Trump’s tariffs of 25 per cent on vehicle imports into America, INEOS Automotive is aiming for nearly 50 per cent sales growth in the US market this year, issuing a 5 per cent price increase in response. INEOS is also looking to expand into new markets, including China and Mexico. 

Hill deliberately cites the cliché ‘never waste a good crisis’ and says that INEOS has an opportunity due to its size and use, meaning it can be more nimble than its more established competitors around its position and decision making.

While JLR is pausing delivery to the US, INEOS has decided to continue shipping despite the increased costs to both themselves and buyers.

“The really big thing about all of this stuff that's going on with tariffs and Trump and everything else is, is that uncertainty is very difficult for individuals. It's very difficult for businesses. It's very difficult for everyone. What was relatively predictable now is completely unpredictable. So at least we managed to get to a position on our station wagon where we are going to ask our customers to pay more,” he adds.

And to make its mark and capture customers and grow market share its marketing is obviously going to be vital. Hill knows that competitor brands, without the financial might of the major players, can play the David vs Goliath playbook and rely on being proactive instead. And that’s what his first campaign aims to do, with posters placed next to JLR showrooms and being driven around car showrooms too.

”We like to think of ourselves as being agile, young, growing and energetic, while also willing to have a bit of fun. I don't think there's anything more to it than that. We're  not about being aggressive, I never want us to be aggressive - that's not what we are.  But we're putting ourselves next to a Land Rover, which most people wouldn't do, putting the opposition's product in there. But we decided that we might as well call it out directly. What better place than to do that than in their territory? And their territory is, in this case, an out-of-home site, right next to a retailer,” he outlines.

It's a useful strategy for brands seeking to build fame, with out-of-home proving an agile medium to help create a sense of excitement when one brand relays a cheeky message at another.

“We want people to know who we are. We want people not to say ‘I haven't seen one of these cars. I'm not sure about it,’ because we want everyone to know about it. We don't have the budgets that Land Rover has got, so, we've got to use our nous and our sense of humour to get ourselves known and seen.”

The world of marketing, according to Jonathan Hill

What early lessons have you learned as a marketer?

When you're in the agency, you are on the outside. Then you've got to get what it's like to be on the inside, but you've also got to give an outside perspective. That's hugely helpful for a brand like ours for me to have that perspective, because I don't think like the other car marketing people do. I think differentiation, first and foremost – how do we differentiate ourselves? That's been a thing I've noticed a lot.

What annoys you most in marketing?

The most annoying thing I've discovered is that all those clients, love them dearly, have said to me over the years: "What you don't realize is that what you do is only 10 per cent of what I do." Well, they're right and the contextualisation of communications decisions based on all kinds of different forces within the brand and within the company is super interesting. So, I think I've had that. I thought that would be the case, and it's very much been the case.

What makes a great agency partner and how has your experience been working with Wonderhood Studios?

I've known Wonderhood for a long time, because I did a documentary project with them - I actually produced a documentary about lockdown in Shanghai with Wonderhood and some friends of mine in Shanghai [Covid: Our Lockdown in Shanghai]. So I got to know them a bit, but not from an advertising point of view, during lockdown. 

I never met anyone, but I thought [co-founder] David Abraham had a great idea: clients would want both long-form content and short-form communication - advertising-style stuff - from one place. And with his background, it seemed to be a logical conclusion, but also quite a brave approach. And my initial experience with them was on the TV side, not on the advertising side, but I really enjoyed that, and I'm very glad to be back working with them.

From my point of view, what makes the relationship work really well between the client and agencies is honesty and transparency is absolutely the cornerstone of it. I never tried to bullshit a client. Well, maybe I did. I always tried not to because you're much better off being honest and transparent about things than you are making up stories or covering stuff up. I want to be surprised as well. I want to be surprised, and I want to be challenged. And I think those things are incredibly important.