Cadillac had somewhat of an off year in 2014 in its home market. Despite selling the best vehicles it has ever produced, a bevy of new product launches, and notable endorsements for the new third-gen CTS, Motor Trend’s Car of the Year, plenty of ATS, CTS, and SRX models sat on dealer lots unsold as U.S. sales dipped 6.5 percent. But that wasn’t the case for the all-new 2015 Escalade, which shined during 2014 with a 149 percent year-over-year sales gain.
The luxurious aura of the mighty Escalade has followed the nameplate since its introduction in 1999, despite being a (perhaps not-so) cleverly-hidden badge-engineered Chevy Tahoe/Suburban or GMC Yukon/Yukon XL. The Escalade is also enabling GM and its dealers to make boat-loads of money on each and every sale, since the vehicle is in extremely high demand (which is great for dealers) and has very fat profit margins (which is good for GM.) All that has prompted Cadillac to decide to leave the Escalade name, rather than giving it a new name per its new vehicle nomenclature.
Cadillac’s new vehicle naming scheme assigns CT followed by a number for cars (starting with the Cadillac CT6 sedan) and XT followed by a number for crossovers and SUVs (starting with the SRX-replacing XT5 crossover). In fact, the Escalade will be the only vehicle in the Cadillac portfolio to wear a non-alphanumeric name.
“It’s a brand in itself,” Cadillac CMO Uwe Ellinghaus said of the Escalade in a new report from Forbes. “And it’s a great vehicle to have.”
The move makes sense, as Cadillac doesn’t want to lose all of the value behind the Escalade name. In fact, Ellinghaus says that having the successful Escalade on the brand’s side is an advantage that will help it launch future SUVs and crossovers. According to the CMO, the Escalade is “too polarizing” to serve as a halo vehicle for the brand, which is placing increased focus on its passenger car lineup like the upcoming CT6. However, Ellinghaus also credits the luxury SUV with giving the brand future credibility in the SUV space.
“We’ll have an easier time selling a small SUV,” Ellinghaus promised, “because of Escalade.”
The GM Authority Take
Ain’t that the truth.
Comments
Uwe Ellinghaus recognizes “Escalade” as “It’s a brand in itself”; this is where the opportunity is. The DARING move to really invent itself would have been to drop the “Cadillac” name and brand the entire line “Escalade”. Build on momentum and what relates to the market. Millenials want an Escalade not a Caddy. WE grew up wanting an Escalade, Benz, Bimmer, and Audi. For some reason, it means “we finally made it” or “I worked hard for this”. Purchasing a Cadillac doesn’t gove me that same emotional experience. I hope de Nysschen changes this perception ASAP!
Um, no.
Cadillac *IS* a storied name that has been the subject of many songs, TV and movie show plots and more. Better product will get the brand back to where it was after it was neglected for so long during previous GM administrations.
Well, at least something… I hate the new completely impersonal naming culture. How much nicer is it to say “I love my Eldorado” over “I love my cee tee es coupé”?
How much nicer is it to say “I love my Cadillac” instead of “I love my eldorado”.
I think you’ll find that luxury buyers care more about the badge than the model name. You may call them badge snobs, but they don’t care as they have exactly what they want.
Of course they do. I don’t care about them just as they don’t care about the model name. Why are you bringing that up?
Then why are you worried about the names of Cadillac’s cars? The names aren’t supposed to be personal, and for anyone 40 and under, ‘El Dorado’ is as distant and impresonate as it is insulting to hear spoken.
If you want Cadillac’s nomeclature to be evocative of the 60’s, don’t ever expect the young luxury consumer of today to follow you back in time; only you and a slim minority will willingly and openly desire to have the past to dictate the future of Cadillac.
If the Escalade is so “loved”, it could be a brand related to Cadillac. Or just change its name to “SKA” which is a sound play on Es- Cal-Ade”.
I agree that BETTER PRODUCT will get the brand momentum… but can you vision BETTER PRODUCT + BRAND RECOGNITION = BRAND EQUITY… imagine the synergy
You are right again too.. Cadillac *IS* a storied name that has been the subject of many songs, TV and movie show plots and more BUT that relates to another generation, BABY BOOMERS, a dying breed, not the demographics that is going to be buying vehicles in the future. Millenials can care less…
“It’s a brand in itself”
In my opinion, the folks over at Cadillac should take advantage of that and make more variants of the escalade. An good example in my mind is like how Mercedes has standard, Pullman, Maybach and AMG versions of their flagship s-class.
And in a non related topic, the gmauthority mobile site is very resource heavy and has crashed my Web browser and my rss feed app on multiple occasions.
Glad they are keeping the Escalade name . What I hope Cadillac doesn’t do is cheapen the name by using it for future SUV’s . There was talk a few months back that they were thinking of doing that, making Escalade a sub-brand of Cadillac like they do withe the V-sports .
I think luxury buyers do care about the name of the product they are buying . Its not enough to say ” I love my Cadillac ” , What Cadillac are you talking about ? How do you describe to people what you bought . Its going to take time to get used to the new alphanumeric names . Its like Oldsmobile , you could tell people ” I love my 98 or 88 or cutlass etc.. ‘ and folks understood you without even mentioning Oldsmobile . That is what Nysschen is going for .