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Advertising: What Cadillac Ads Should Be

It’s no secret what GM has in store for Cadillac. We’ve discussed the strategy for the brand more than a few times on the podcast and the overall consensus is that Caddy will be the performance luxury brand in The General’s line-up. It will compete with other performance-oriented luxury brands such as BMW, Audi, and Infiniti. The recent announcement about the forthcoming Cadillac ATS lends further proof to this new strategy, since the new model will slot in below the CTS and will be RWD/AWD to compete head-on with the BMW 3-series. Still, it’s important to notice that the segment is called “performance luxury,” with performance taking priority before luxury (and not the other way around – luxury performance is more along the lines of Mercedes Benz and Lincoln).

In that regard, it would only make sense that Cadillac advertisements would reflect the performance aspect of the brand. There is only one problem – they don’t. Current Caddy ads hint at the products’ performance attributes but – in my opinion – don’t go far enough in doing so. Over the weekend, an ad on Hulu caught my eye:

This Subaru ad is what Cadillac ads should be: low in production cost, high in value but most importantly – clearly stating the point that your car is – first and foremost – a delight to drive. No high-profile people to pay, or special lighting/effects to use. Just what a performance luxury buyer is looking for. What do you think?

GM Authority Executive Editor with a passion for business strategy and fast cars.

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Comments

  1. Link isn’t working…

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    1. The link, or the video? Looks like the video has been removed by the user, and after searching, it seems that the Subaru ad is not available on the web anywhere. 🙁

      Reply
  2. Cadillac marketing lost my interest a long time ago. Performance or not, they are thought of as luxury cars; or rebadged other division cars that want to be luxury cars. I definitely want to see them as performance cars. But some bean counter, somewhere, likely in a secluded office way in the back corner next to the custodian’s closet must have been reading a spending report and said, “We are spending far too much on advertising.” Since then, the brochures that once were almost good enough to be coffee table books became pathetic. The newspaper and magazine ads became bland. The TV ads shriveled and died like the vinyl rooves on ’77 Sedan DeVilles that have never been properly treated. There is no class, no prestige, no sexy elitism. Though I have not seen the Subaru ad, I agree with your assessment. If you want people to see you as something worth having, then some them you are something worth having.

    Reply

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