After six years, Melody Lee will depart Cadillac, according to Cadillac Society. Lee tendered her resignation and wrote on her LinkedIn profile she doesn’t “know what’s next” but that she is “excited for it.”
A Cadillac spokesperson said Lee “has elected to resign from Cadillac to pursue other interests.”
Lee’s tenure at Cadillac has often been controversial as most of her effort surrounded the rollout of the brand’s “Dare Greatly” marketing and advertising program. She headed up the massive effort as Cadillac’s director of brand marketing. For the past eight months, Lee served as Book by Cadillac’s head.
The marketing and advertising campaign was often seen as misguided and aloof from the brand’s core competency and never birthed a “Born by Fire” moment the division hoped for. Cadillac’s advertising has since shifted directions to focus more on the product than storytelling.
As for Book by Cadillac, Lee’s resignation will not affect current plans. Book is currently in the process of expanding in Los Angeles and Dallas after a pilot program began in New York City last year. Lee’s resignation will take effect in mid-August and Sean Thornton, who’s held various positions at the company, will succeed her.
Comments
The tagline ‘Dare Greatly’ was an outstanding effort along with Roosevelt’s The Man in the Arena quote. It just wasn’t right for for Cadillac at this juncture. The reason the slogan ‘The Ultimate Driving Machine’ has worked so well for BMW for 45 years is that the products embody their credo and those words drive every business decision the company makes. No one at BMW that is designing or engineering a BMW ever forgets those four words; they know their work must live up to them. Unfortunately ‘Dare Greatly’ is not at all representative of who Cadillac is today. It is, in fact, the antithesis of who they currently are and became the butt of jokes here and in other forums. Alas their longtime motto ‘The Standard of the World’ isn’t appropriate either. If Melody Lee was behind those lofty ads I think it’s high time she move on. I would suggest that Cadillac move into a period of under-promising and over-delivering. We’ve had hype, and Johan de Nycsshen was king of that, but its time to quietly deliver amazing products that speak for themselves.
No reason they can’t use “the standard of the world” again. I really like it and it has the cache that MB “the best or nothing” and BMW “the ultimate driving machine”.
HOWEVER. Cadillac needs to deliver on its promises before it goes back to the SOTW slogan
So you want an end to the unsubstantiated hype, and a return to reality-based product improvement and the following word-of-mouth compliments that drive real respect?
So do I.
Perhaps that’s why a campaign that focused on a Republican President that did exactly what he said, and never said anything he didn’t intend to deliver on, an ad campaign that depended on the new Republican President living up to the lofty truth standards of that legendary previous Republican President, railed so miserably when the new Republican President was such a total failure when compared to that old Republican President…
Don’t get me wrong here, I said T-Roosevelt makes T-Rump look really bad, a total failure in fact.
Please note, I did NOT say T-Rump is a failure when compared with ANY President after Eisenhower. Seriously, note that I said what I said and don’t gaslight the truth.
I take that as an admission that Trump is the best president since Eisenhower. 😛
In all seriousness he probably is.
The way he dealt with the EU yesterday was a work of art!
Work of art, how? Trump just about always shove his weight around and renounces like he did with EU. Have a President who think things thru with ration and follow with the plan which Donald Trump lacks in the first place.
OT,
Give it up. Nobody wants to engage in a political discussion here. That isn’t the purpose of this site. A sizable chunk of the population pays no attention to politics so it’s likely that a lot of the folks here fall into that category; they basically have no opinion so you cannot engage in a debate with them no matter how hard you try. Others here with political opinions are wise enough to not want to poison a GM-centric site with divisive political talk. However, for those folks with opinions and want to express them, there are sites where politics is the topic of discussion. Your thoughts would likely be more welcome there.
I’m going to miss all of my biggest fans!
If this is real, its great.
What will you do without all these armchair CEO’s telling you how Cadillac should be run from their McJobs?
I see MrR rolled off his moms basement couch to give all his armchair CEO opinion. Did you get your allowance for the week.
Hey MrR you know how, once you wake up for the day and comment on how the Mc people and armchair CEOs are terrible people. How do you rate Cadillac. Do you actually think it is doing great. What Cadillacs do you drive, or have you driven. You don’t know anything about most of the people on sites. We, they mite have multimillion dollar companies. Sure maybe not automotive companies, but have just as much knowledge in sales, marketing, design, and manufacturing as the people making decisions for Cadillac. Also everyone is entitled to have an opinion. My opinion is Cadillac rite now better do something big. There tv adds are bla, they have 3 products they are trying to market, GM profits are slipping so they will have less cash to make something happen, but that’s my opinion. However we will see. The future will come. People will buy Cadillacs. And in about 7 to 10 years we will see how many are on the road. How many 3.6 timing chains replaced. How many CUE screens fixed. Or what the future holds for Cadillac.
Ci2Eye, thanks for two good entries.
As for Ms Lee, not sure she should be discussed here either. Her departure will likely not change things out in the real world.
Can’t say she didn’t try.
But … a menswear collection through ‘Gilt’ – Gilt sells fashion leftovers @ 70% off now.
Sponsoring Men’s Fashion Week. Opening a Cadillac House in Munich.
Art exhibitions, more fashion, Warhol letters, flying a pre-release XT5 around Manhattan, chopper service to the Hamptons … stuck with high-rent Soho real estate, and Shanghai …
Mel had a lot of room to run; made a lot of contacts, but it was mostly tangential, shiny object stuff.
Which might have worked if Cadillac turned out a killer, statement vehicle, and a special SUV/CUV or two.
But this all started with that polarizing Poolside ELR advert, the ‘Dare Greatly’ transition – a line which requires living up-to – spotty marketing efforts…Book by Cadillac (guessing that’s on life support) …
Can’t say Melody didn’t try – but she, Uwe and Johan didn’t do the right stuff, fast enough.
Hard to think of a hit the team turned out – but their predecessors (Team Rogue) did no better.
Such a great marque – still pulling for them, despite the missteps, and retail offers featured during the (British) Open, etc..
Figured Melody’s time was limited, after the departures of Uwe and Johan, but figure she’ll do ok elsewhere.
Good bye sweetie, don’t let the door knob hit you in the butt on the way out.
I don’t get it. Dare greatly is not that bad of a catch phrase. If GM let Cadillac Dare greatly Cadillac would not be in this predicament. Cadillac however is the worst of GM now. Cadillac once was the standard of the world. Also a turn around of a top class automobile will take a while. Even if the CT5 is an Escala of Cadillac, A hugely great car. 400 HP standard, thick soft leather seats, smooth accelerating, it is one car. And after that XT4 release I hope Cadillac stepped it up. And for the people who say, you watch they will all sell, I agree. People will buy them and give them a try, but if they are like us who gave the ATS a try it will be bad for Cadillac, because after 5 Cadillacs this ATS is the worst. And to top that off Cadillac knows the troubles but chose NOT to stand behind them. Cut and run to the next thing. Leave the only few loyal customers hanging.
It appeared if Ms Lee may have seen the handwriting on the wall given the termination of former Cadillac President Johan de Nysschen that GM’s Board of Directors want Cadillac to go a different direction and it’s sometimes better to resign than get fired.
I’m not surprised, GM is where dreams & ambitions die. Good for her & I wish her the best of luck with the next chapter of her life.
“Dare Greatly” sounds almost comical. What does it really mean to an enthusiast who wants the facts about quality, performance, exclusivity and heritage? Get back to the basics Cadillac with your advertising and marketing.
Maybe she joins her sister Sara selling pound cakes.