The "Mark Of Leadership" slogan is on its way out, but what will replace it?

Joel Ewanick is proving to be quite the mover and shaker. Since his recruitment at GM this past May, he has been working on hitting the restart button on the entire marketing strategy for each General Motors brand. For example, when Ewanick shifted Cadillac’s $270 million account from the esteemed British ad agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty to Minnesota-based Fallon in July, he made a statement of the change that would certainly not stop there. Currently, Fallon is busy with launching an all-new campaign for Cadillac. But it already has the new slogan in place: “The New Standard For The World”.

The new slogan pays direct homage to the classic Cadillac “Standard Of The World” tagline that the brand has become accustomed to.  Ewanick would not mention just how different the new Cadillac ads will be from the clips created by Bartle Bogle Hegarty. If you’re wondering on just what makes Fallon the ideal advertising agency, consider the following quote from Ewanick:

“We picked an agency like Fallon because Fallon has 17 years of luxury-car experience. There’s not an agency in America that has 17 years of luxury-car experience in the United States. Look it up. They had 10 years with BMW and six-and-a-half, seven years with Porsche — some of that with me… so I know what they’re good at, I know what they’re strengths and weaknesses are, and Pat Fallon is a great advertising person.”

[Source: Automotive News]

According to Automotive News, Joel Ewanick, The General’s U.S. Vice President of Marketing, plans on spearheading the mission of promoting Chevy’s new products. He has taken measures to recruit an all new ad agency that has taken steps to develop a new slogan.

“Yes, we will be in the Super Bowl, I won’t tell you how much or what we’re doing, but I will tell you it will all be about Chevrolet.”

Conveniently, the Super Bowl takes place just after the debut of two critically vital Chevy models here in North America: the Cruze global compact and the Volt plug-in Extended Range Electric Vehicle (EREV). However, Ewanick did not comment on just which models will be featured in the Super Bowl Ads (or if Howie Long will accompany them). It is still safe to bet that GM wants to market these new vehicles as much as possible and – if the timing is right- it may want to include the all-new 2012 Aveo as well.

The agency now in charge of Chevy’s $600 million account is the San Fransisco-based Goodby, Silverstein & Partners rather than Publicis Worldwide, which operates out of Paris, France. Ewanick made the switch just this past May, negating the decision to give the account to Publicis made by Susan Docherty, who has moved on to GM International.

Oh, and “Excellence For Everyone” (or “Everyone Deserves Excellence”) is out the window, as Ewanick wittingly states:

“‘Excellence for all’ — it’s a great title for Stephen Covey’s next book. It’s also something I could find on every one of our competitors and one that I could put on every airline and everything else,” he said. “It’s not specific to who we are and where we’re taking Chevrolet, and I thought that was important. We took a step back and said, ‘What do we have? We have a soul.’ People have deep feelings and passion about that.”

Lastly, the Chevy Camaro will have its own advertising campaign debut in September. Ewanick added that GM plans on pushing the bow tie pony car to elevate the brand and show that Chevy is more than just a docile lineup of Toyota-fighting sedans. Take that, Toyota.

[Source: Automotive News]

In January, Brian Nesbitt – who at the time was the head of Cadillac but has since then moved on to executive director of GM’s advanced concept group – made the decision to give the Cadillac account to Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH). However, The General’s new marketing sheriff, Joel Ewanick, apparently believes that Fallon can do a better job.

“Cadillac products today compete head-to-head with the best in the world. Fallon’s deep, 17 year experience with other luxury automotive brands like Porsche and BMW makes them a perfect fit for our flagship brand,” said Joel Ewanick, vice president, U.S. Marketing.

“We look forward to working with Fallon to illuminate Cadillac as the new ‘Standard of the World,’” said Don Butler, vice president, Cadillac Marketing.

You can find out more about Fallon, including the company’s work and client list, at its website here.

View Press Release

Bartle Bogle Hegarty was awarded Cadillac’s ad contract back in January and the agency’s first commercial for the brand came out in May – right around the time Ewanick replaced Susan Docherty. Bartle Bogle Hegarty CEO Greg Anderson was surprised of GM’s decision, saying:

“We were extremely surprised to learn via the press yesterday that Cadillac has decided to move its advertising business elsewhere. That aside, we’re pleased to have been a part of helping turn Cadillac sales around over the last several months.”

The reason behind the decision to move Cadillac’s ad contracts is unknown at this time and GM and Publicis Groupe’s Fallon have no comment on these reports. Needless to say, we’ll be paying attention to this one very closely. In the meantime, click past the break to watch a CTS ad by Bartle Bogle Hegarty.

[Source: Automotive News]

Communication

For starters, Cadillac is cutting all ties to General Motors in its corporate communications structure by changing email addresses from @gm.com to @cadillac.com. This will ensure that Cadillac customers – current or potential – will not see GM anywhere in their communications with Caddy.

Branding

Cadillac is also erasing the GM name and logo from marketing, promotional, and dealer materials. This means that the base signs of dealerships selling other brands will no longer carry any traces of GM.

Dealer And Buying Experience

What’s more, Caddy will no longer participate in GM-wide promotional events such as the Red Tag clearance event (as we learned late last year when Cadillac introduced its Season’s Best event).

Ads

Cadillac will also launch an all-new ad campaign later this month. According to GM spokesman Nick Twork, it will come before a model introduction at the New York International Auto Show on March 31. The ads will be the first from Bartle Bogle Hegarty, the New York agency GM hired in January to replace Modernista! of Boston. And to get it out of the way, we’re just as unsure about the new model introduction as you are… perhaps it will be the production version of the XTS flagship sedan?

“We’re in the process of revamping all the things that face the customer,” Twork said. “The Cadillac brand is best communicated as Cadillac without GM.”

Research

According to Susan Docherty, Vice President of Marketing for GM North America, the automaker is poised to begin research on how customers perceive the company. This may coincide with the long-awaited customer and sales retention tool spearheaded by Docherty.

“Consumers, in their minds, can separate out the corporation versus the brands,” Docherty said in an interview. “They can separate ‘Hey, I can still fall in love with a CTS coupe, but I may not necessarily be happy with the fact that General Motors had to go through bankruptcy.”

Big Change

For 2010, GM is looking to increase Cadillac sales by 28 percent to 140,000 units. The most loyal GM fans will realize that all this is in stark contrast to the strategy undertaken by The General five years ago, when the company decided in favor of unifying its brands under a single/central GM brand. That was also when GM added its mark of excellence to all vehicles, a move that the company reversed in mid 2009.

The GM Authority Take

The GM Authority Team welcomes this change with open arms. What matters is that people are buying Cadillacs, not GMs.

There are also those who don’t even know that Cadillac is a General Motors product. By distancing itself from GM, Cadillac will be following the most successful luxury brand in the United States – Lexus – which cut all obvious ties to parent company Toyota in early and mid-2000s.

Add the fact that not everyone agrees about GM’s $50 billion government-backed bankruptcy last year, and this is good news all around! The next step for Caddy is to become the status symbol brand it once was.

[Source: Bloomberg]

Click me to watch the video!

Vauxhall has just launched a new ad for its vaunted Corsa model. The commercial, created by London-based DKLW, takes on a pop-art theme and is the most recent addition to Vauxhall’s recent art-and-style marketing campaign.

Andy Gilson, director of Vauxhall UK marketing, had the following to say about the ad:

Corsa remains one of the UK’s most popular small cars and we felt that pop art would be a great way to communicate the car’s style credentials in a fun, contemporary way.

Last month, GM Europe chief Nick Reilly presented a revised strategy for the operation, calling for the Vauxhall brand to remain a UK exclusive while marketing Opel twins (rebadges) throughout the rest of Europe.

The GM Authority Take

A fun ad for a fun car. The Gamma 2-based Opel/Vauxhall Corsa is an excellent B-segment car (called supermini in Britain) that has a loyal following in markets where it’s available. It’s this humble writer’s opinion that it would do very well in the U.S. against such vehicles as the beaten-by-the-ugly-stick Toyota Yaris and decent (yet not exciting) Hyundai Accent 3-door.

So if we put two and two together, what GM should do is produce the next-gen Aveo as a three-door hatch ala the Corsa. Afterall, the two vehicles ride on the same architecture – so a top-hat change-over wouldn’t be too much to ask.

Click past the break to watch the ad in its full glory. Oh, and just in case you’re wondering, the song is Run (I’m a Natural Disaster) by Gnarls Barkley.

PRESS RELEASE