Cadillac Tells Consumers To ‘Believe The Hype’: Ad Break
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Cadillac has rolled out a new digital ad spot telling viewers (and hopefully buyers) to believe the hype surrounding the brand. On display is the 2018 Cadillac CT6 to usher the message in.
The short spot features no lofty voiceover, just a brash tune and text across the screen. Again, it’s a serious departure from “Dare Greatly,” and the phrase isn’t even mentioned in the ad once.
Text splashes across the screen reading, “Modern and classic at the same time,” as one reviewer described the CT6. It’s all quite flashy for a Cadillac ad, and quite frankly, it’s something we’re not accustomed to from the brand.
The marketing and advertising will likely continue to shift after former CMO Uwe Ellinghaus and President Johan de Nysschen have exited their roles. General Motors brought in Deborah Wahl to lead Cadillac marketing, McDonald’s ex-CMO, and GM-lifer Steve Carlisle will now lead GM’s luxury division.
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The issue the ACTUAL hype, video states someone on social media hyped: “modern and classic at the same time”…Stats have repeatedly shown less than half of these will be purchased and those who lease don’t care if it’s a classic…
Maybe they can run some Cadillac-a-Thon ads screaming about $99 mo leases? Would that make you happy?
Probably not.
Couldn’t be much worse than this…What would actually make me happy is a compelling well executed Cadillac ad; MOST of the time, both Buick and GMC seem to know what they’re doing…
Why do you care if the car is leased or purchased? Furthermore, why do you care what will happen to the 2019 CT6 30 years from now?
Looks like it’s just the last part of a commercial; where’s the rest of it? Believe what hype? Hype has a somewhat negative connotation, as it means exaggeration or propaganda. i.e. lies and deception. Unless they show some of the “hype” ahead of time, this is confusing and leaves the viewer with the impression of being manipulated.
At least the music is pretty good for the “brash” image intended. And it’s good to see Cadillac put “Dare Greatly” to rest. Though how many more times will we see those same urban streets in a Cadillac ad?
The OVERSIZED TEXT seems to be borrowed from those Ford F-150 ads narrated by Dennis Leary. Hey pal, man up and believe the hype.
Grade for the partial ad: B. Or possibly “incomplete”, since THERE SHOULD BE MORE TO IT, pal.
It was 15 seconds, I guarantee they have longer cuts of the same ad.
I don’t believe the hype. I’m just over Cadillac. Rooting for them wears me out. I think I wanted them to win more than anybody at the company did. I’ll remember their glory days but for the future, it’s Audi and BMW.
B’Bye then….Can we help you find a nice Mercedes or BMW circle jerk site that you can migrate over to?
I don’t know about this new leadership, but Cadillac had better figure it out. Their cars keep getting better, and the GM manager miasma just keeps getting in the way.
I can’t say that I’m enthusiastic about the new guy, inasmuch as Canada has such a storied history of producing its own notable aitomobiles.
I don’t know about this new leadership, but Cadillac had better figure it out. Their cars keep getting better, and the GM upper management miasma just keeps getting in the way.
I can’t say that I’m enthusiastic about the new guy, inasmuch as Canada has such a storied history of producing its own notable aitomobiles.
So you were thrilled with South Africa’s history of producing automobiles? Carlisle is from Canada but he’s quite familiar with what Cadillac means as a brand, unlike Johan de Nysschen of South Africa. Carlisle also grew up about 130 miles from Detroit, and he’s been at GM throughout his career.
It’s not as if Canadians like Carlisle are unfamiliar with US culture, and Canada does have a history of producing cars – its own brands in the early years of auto production; currently they produce for US and Japanese brands. All of the Cadillac XTS models sold in the US are produced in Canada, and several Chevrolet and GMC models are made there too. Chrysler, Ford, Toyota, and Honda all also produce cars in Canada.
Carlisle has a background as a production engineer as well as a sales manager, unlike JdN who was a pure sales manager, other than his brief time at Infiniti. In terms of background, Carlisle is a big step up from JdN.
Xenophobe, give it up— JDN is gone. You sound like a trump supporter still crying about Hillary Clinton existing.
-vorgy, you are either an idiot or a troll. And you sound like Hillary making excuses for being a loser, though in this case you are trying to excuse your beloved Johan for his failures. And as usual you bring out your one “big word” to misuse, again.
The reality is that Johan didn’t understand or respect Cadillac as a brand AT ALL. He didn’t know what Cadillac meant to Americans, didn’t know the history of the vehicles, didn’t care, and tried to make the brand a lifeless imitation of BMW. He copied BMW naming conventions, he copied Euro-styling, he copied German “sports luxury” specs – in every way he treated Cadillac like it had no history and acted like all Cadillac could ever hope to do is be a weak copy of something Cadillac never was. How anyone that claims to care about the Cadillac brand could love this guy, I don’t know, but there’s no explaining why you became so smitten with him. Maybe you liked his arrogance, or possibly it was his receding hairline.
Like all con artists, Johan talked a good game, but he couldn’t deliver. He snobbishly derided “the wrong driveways”, but then he offered up very non-luxury, non-Cadillac “base” and other models, with cheap seating surfaces, cheap headlights, cramped interiors and hard rides. He tried to keep his paychecks coming via big promises of future products that didn’t exist, yet when he was asked to deliver an actual model, it was the late and underwhelming XT4. At that point GM knew that had a charlatan on their hands, so he got fired. And yet you are still in love with this guy!
All of Johan’s actions suggested that he actually hated Cadillac as a brand, and tried to get as far away from its history as possible. But I thought I should cut the guy some slack, pointing out that he grew up in a country without Cadillacs, therefore he had no idea that he was dissing an American icon, not to mention missing out on sales he could have made, had he shown any respect for Cadillac’s history and market. You however decided to make it personal, that if I didn’t think he was right for the job, I must be a xenophobe. And somehow you thought that would make me stop criticizing your beloved man. How you must have cried and cried when he got fired.
Now on this topic I was actually defending Carlisle, pointing out that he does actually appear to understand and respect Cadillac as a brand, and is overall a much better choice to run Cadillac than Johan ever was. You managed to wipe your tears away long enough to type out your favorite x-word. Gee I’m an American defending a Canadian as the head of Cadillac, so I must be a xenophobe. I realize that you are probably chuckling to yourself “Hey look I made him respond to my feigned stupidity”, the basic thrill of all trolls. Buddy, find a new way to get your thrills. The “you are a xenophobe” thing is so ridiculously worn out. And while you are at it, take down all your life-sized statues and photos of Johan that used to give you such a thrill. He’s gone and he’s not coming back. He’s also not giving back all the money he took from GM shareholders, while delivering extremely poor results and nearly ending the Cadillac brand. Get over it, and find a new word in your dictionary.
Stop sucking up, Drew. Carlisle isn’t American, and no distance living in proximity to the US will make him ‘worthy’ for running Cadillac.
You’ve set those standards for Cadillac; it was an American at the helm or nothing. You’re lowering your standards if you’re letting a Canadian do the job that you complained (at length) was only fit for an American.
Dare Greatly. Dead ThankGodly.
One ad alone without the slogan does not prove that “Dare Greatly” is dead.
Sorry no class!!! That’s not the way to sell a Cadillac. Who do you want as your customer???
Cadillac is dead. That is all.
What do you base this pronouncement on?
He doesn’t know.
Sometimes I think Cadillac lives in a bubble . What hype , to Dare Greatly ? There hasn’t been enough commercials of the brand to believe anything . And if they are talking about the hype on the internet that would be a huge mistake as there is a lot of opinions that sound like James just wrote above .
Cadillac is now offering 0% financing for 60 months on their top seller , XT5 . Not sure why you would offer a rate like that if you aren’t concerned with sales .
Watched a You Tube video this week about a comparison between the Escalade and Navigator and Navigator won for many reasons . The Lincoln is newer but Cadillac’s big image creator is slipping behind and an update we won’t see until 2020 . Even price was a factor even though there is currently a $7000 rebate on Escalade to try to pull customers away from Lincoln .
Cadillac isn’t dead , but that little hiatus that Johan put Cadillac through has the division on life support .
To get healthy Cadillac needs new product as fast as is possible .
“Cadillac isn’t dead , but that little hiatus that Johan put Cadillac through has the division on life support . To get healthy Cadillac needs new product as fast as is possible. ”
Yes but Johan really talked a big game, didn’t he? With Johan it was “we’ll stun the world, after 2022 or so”. Or essentially “our future’s so bright, we gotta wear shades”. In reality, he couldn’t deliver much product, and when he did it was the underwhelming, derivative XT4.
As far as I’m concerned he conned the GM board into thinking he could do things he couldn’t really do, taking the company for a ride, until they woke up to the reality of the XT4. And yes Johan’s little excursion virtually sidetracked the brand for 4 years. But the brand can definitely be saved. If I were Carlisle though, I would move Renee Rauchut to the head of marketing. I’m not lovin’ the McDonald’s thing.
Drew, I’m with you on Ms. Rauchut. The At Last commercial had me do a double take. I was flabbergasted that an older tune could be part of a Cadillac commercial. There was another one with a man driving a CT6 with Super Cruise. His hair color was not JdNish. I knew that wouldn’t last. They were good ads. You could actually understand what they were saying.
The timing was off. Too bad.
I’m waiting for GM to realize Cadillac will never be the ‘bestest car ever because history or innovation’. That could take decades to happen but by then cars will be an utterly different concept.
I believe Cadillac should go all ‘green’ and compete only with Tesla. If that isn’t in the cards —
— Cadillac should be the best cars GM offers. Great design, tech, and reliability. Brand leading. A meager goal which it’s nowhere close to meeting.
Better than Dare Greatly but hopefully they have commercials in the works for the 2019 CT6 & VSport. Believe the hype of the refresh and brand new turbo V8. That’s something they should be advertising
Um, didn’t anyone tell them there’s a new CT6 & that ain’t it? ??
Guessing it’s a :15 pre-roll you’ll have to watch before viewing the content you actually wanted to see …
‘Click now for current CT6 offers’ (stay classy!) – may be unloading ‘pre-available inventory’.
Also, how hard is it to get a loaded CT6?????? Its as if they never learned a damn thing from the ATS commercials.
Some things never change…
2019 CT6/CT6 v sport coming up, this ad was done before 2019 model CT6/CT6 V sport arrived.
Peter G , I have test driven an Escalade B4 I bought my XT5 . Nice truck but a bit to rich for my blood . All GM here wouldn’t even consider the Navigator .
I may look into the new GMC Sierra Denali , that truck looks awesome .
I watch a ton of sports and that’s when luxury car adds come on. Hardly ever see Cadillac adds. When I do see them the vehicles look great but the actual commercial is kind of pretentious. Mercedes Benz add comes on and its a cool testosterone driven add that ends with a macho guy saying ….. the best, or nothing. Even the Lincoln adds with Mcconaughey are better. Just put Woody Harrelson in a CTS V doing a burnout…..done.
Haven’t seen a guy behind the wheel of a Cadillac in any of the resent Cadillac adds. Must be a diversity thing.