Cadillac is undergoing yet another internal overhaul, with General Motors looking to position it as the technology leader in its brand portfolio and introduce a number of pure electric vehicles under the luxury banner between now and the mid 2020s.
It’s not much of a surprise to see that Cadillac has switched public relations agencies amid the shift, with GM ditching Kovert Creative in favor of MSL Group.
“The time is right to make a change and we felt MSL provided the expertise in data and analytics and media skills that we really need,” Cadillac communications boss Michael Albano told The Holmes Report.
“Cadillac was a brand that once captured the imagination of the buying public. We need to recapture that, added Albano. “That is our mission.”
GM allegedly picked MSL following a market review that included two other major PR firms. Cadillac wanted its new agency of record to have a global footprint, The Holmes Report says, particularly in China. The automaker is hoping its shift toward electric vehicles will help it gain more of a foothold in the world’s largest automotive market, where EV sales have exploded in recent months.
Cadillac was with Kovert Creative since 2016, which GM selected after it conducted a mass review of its PR strategies.
“It is a thrill to partner with Cadillac at this important and transformational moment,” added CEO of MSL US, Diana Littman. “We couldn’t be more committed to building the business, and this brand’s incredible story.”
MSL will be busy in the coming years as Cadillac looks to introduce a new model every six months between now and the end of 2020. Among these models will be the next-generation Cadillac Escalade, the CT4 sport sedan and the rumored CT5-V performance sedan.
Source: The Holmes Report
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Comments
Oh good another change.
If Cadillac was playing golf they could only play putt putt. They have no follow through for the long game.
I am to the point I can’t even follow their image and branding anymore.
GM I am a Cadillac fan but I really have little idea what to cheer for anymore.
The only time I saw things coming together were with JDN and you killed it. Now more and more changes? I can see why non Cadillac fans stay away.
Get to one message, one branding and one idea. GMC has done it with Denali. It takes time and consistent work/message to build an image
Stop trying to be cool, hip and affordable luxury. Be the best at what you can be.
Cadillac read your original ad the Penalty of Leadership and learn from it.
Tisk, Tisk. Now you know you can’t say/comment about anything negative (THE HARD TRUTH) regarding GM/Cadillac/Chevrollac without the dumbs down. LOL.
Cadillac is gonna??? That’s it. “Gonna.” Gonna is not tangible. Products on the street are.
N, S, E, W – which way does Cadillac go? We have made a change for the better. How many times have we heard this from marketing, to managers to its cars over the last 30 years and nothing but mediocre BS products.
I think you are like me – we want the best for Cadillac but with a horrible track records over, and over again how can we defend and believe in Cadillac.
Cadillac has lost me 3x on sale. I want to buy one but I just can’t when they are just better cars out there in their class.
Of course someone will repsond with the Vs kick butt! That’s fine but all there cars should kick butt no only in the top level trim.
@scott3:
AMEN!!!
Wow! It seems Cadillac needs a direct link to this site. I used to be a GM and Cadillac loyalist. Dad had a ’76 four barrel Monte Carlo. Then an ’84 5-speed Comaro. After that a GMC Jimmy after falling in love with his brother’s. His brother bought a GMC Sierra and I KNEW one of those was in my future. Now that I think of it, none of us, Dad or uncle own a GM product. Now we rock Jeep, Ridgeline, and 4Runner.
I was a fan of Cadillac when I learned they had automatic dimming high-beams and climate control IN THE 70’S! Now, they are little more than high priced GM versions of existing cars. I used to argue tooth and nail about the superiority of Cadillac, or at least how they would turn it around and return to the ‘Standard of the World.’ Doesn’t look like that day will ever come… And it really pissed me off. So the down votes, I get it. But after a while, you too will get fed up, and realize that it just time to move on…
As far as that Penalty of Leadership ad? Pure Swag! But then again, their products supported that…
Yep
It may be time, after so many PR changes, for the new appointee to pick up on the no-name Cadillac nomenclature and just be, say, PR6.
Same with ad agencies –
they’ve had, what, 5 different ones in the last 10 or so years? Agency7. Has a secret agent ring to it.
Changing pr firms and ad agencies is an easy way to make it look like things are happening.
Making great vehicles, that’s another story.
Pr and marketing is important. We know this. But Cadillac seems to be so arrogant they think PR is THE problem. It’s the product and pricing boss.
I love my 2016 ATS-V one of the best cars ever in my life. I will reiterate I have had them all. Was it worth $73,000.00 Hell no not in this lifetime, but it was close. It should have MSRP for $69,00.00 tops. If they refined the car for say a life of 4 years and work it up to the price of BMW Audi etc. They could get the price they want. Now again we start over round round she goes. Crazy too bad. Feel for the GM worker and dealerships. Looks like all the $$$ goes into Chevy.
Cadillac just doesn’t know what it wants to be as a few years ago, Cadillac pushed performance was a measure of luxury and began to push this theory with it’s V-series vehicles that offered world class performance and now despite having spent a ton of money on it’s Blackwing Twin-Turbo V8, it decides to pivot and go yet another direction; but you’ve got to ask what direction can Cadillac pursue as it’s not technology given there are no Cadillac hybrid or electric vehicles like other luxury brands.
Here is the trouble. GM internally has several factions with different views on what Cadillac can and should be. The same crap has been worse at Ford on Lincoln. They went as far as coming close to killing Lincoln.
The problem is Cadillac can be all it can be but it needs one consistent vision and one leader to see it through to completion. Those who oppose the program need to but out and let it happen. The continued placing a puppet in Cadillac leadership has failed time and time again.
JDN had one vision for the company and had them headed in the right direction. Cadillac needs to be more than built from parts bin parts from Chevrolet. They can share platforms but everything you see, feel and touch needs to be Cadillac.
The engines need to be Cadillac. We now have a V8 and our own version of the TT V6 dedicated to Cadillac. The 4 needs its own tune for Cadillac as on the entry level the 4 shared is fine but it should have more power than any other GM vehicles using it.
There is nothing wrong with price if you build it right. You can not discount your way to a premium image. But you can build your way to a premium image buy building a real premium car.
Once you get the product right it takes time to build the image as it is not going to happen with one year and one car. It needs to be a consistent message over years not months.
Why do BMW and Benz get the spot light. Well they have been refining the same damn car for 35 years. They do not replace it fully they just keep making the same thing better. Occasionally they drift off and try something new like the FWD Benz. It struggled but yet they continue to refine the product.
GM need to commit to a plan stick to it and fund it properly and see it though the years of refining it till there is nothing better.
It is not PR, It is not marketing, It is not a badge or even a name. It is the vehicle. Get it right and no one will care what you call it and how it is marketed.
Yep 100%
Firing JDN told us where they were headed, back to the future.
Here we go again. Cadillac has found religion and is born again! Yet, always seems to be lost. So sad to see a brand that I’ve stood by for over 35 years and defended to the end. Let’s just hope this time it works for more than a year.
Cadillac needs to return to their roots. Cadillac has gone downhill since the bean counters decided they needed to be like the Germans. Oh they got their wish, they went from an American luxury car to an over priced unreliable pos that was just as unreliable as the Germans. Cadillac doesn’t even look like a luxury car, looks more like something styled with a hammer and chisel. And for all the German fanboys yeah I think they are overpriced pos that can’t keep running beyond the first year on the road.
One LEASES a German car; one does not BUY one. Maybe, buy one that is 20 years old. It is one of the survivors that will provide good, comfortable transportation for quite some time.
Here is my 2 cents. I feel their advertising has been horrific for the past 5 years. It never tells me what models are popular what they are working on and very few and far between ad spots. Mercedes and BMW just blast you with ads. So I’ll say it again if they would have advertised the ATS on a somewhat regular basis it would have done better. Challenge the competition . GM is just so freeking cheap. I see more Buick than Caddy.
Hey, Cadillac quit embarrassing yourself and America with these overpriced, front wheel drive based Crossovers and SUV’s, and autos. If you come out with another front wheel drive based vehicle, your doomed. Wake the hell up even Lincoln realized that alphabet soup naming system isn’t cutting it. In the pursuit of the German and Asian luxury vehicle buyers you abandoned building real Cadillacs. I was right in regards to the letter I wrote to GM In the early 90’s, which basically said don’t, mimic the Germans, and abandon the FWD, in your luxury vehicles. If you manufacture a electric FWD based vehicle, you totally don’t get it! You need a couple of roadsters, a couple of pillarless coupes, full and mid size convertibles, a Fleetwood 60, and extended armoured Fleetwood 75, hybrid or electric, then your on to something. If not in five years yours sales will really tank in America.
Good to see this change. I was always offended by the “lifestyle” type of ads that have been played on TV in the last few years…I mean, what the hell does “Dare Greatly” mean?
Making all electric and only electric vehicles won’t sell them, making the best vehicles will. The Cadillac of cars. And if Cadillac ditches the 3.0TT, the Blackwing, and V series just to pretend to be another brand again, it would really suck.
Sorry everyone. Going to post again. But I just thought of something after reading some of the other posts.
Has anyone seen the new(er) Lincoln ad with that tennis pro lady (Williams?? I think is her last name)? The ad where it’s raining outside and it shows her sitting inside the new Lincoln Navigator? She kind of sits back, rain pounding on the outside of the car, she turns the radio up to a great song. Ends saying something about it’s not just an interior, it’s a sanctuary.
Whoever came up with that ad should be promoted. It makes me want to go out and buy a Lincoln! It causes me at least to FEEL what Lincoln is about and how it could make me feel. It makes me feel that they offer a superior sound system (even if it’s no better than a Ford Escape system). My point is that it makes me FEEL something and it’s something I like to feel, Something I like to think about. Kind of like comfort food can make you feel.
Now about the ads Cadillac seems to be making: Cars and SUV’s (mostly suv’s) flying down a road at what seems to be an unsafe speed. Going fast in snow covered roads, going around a tree branch (or something) in the road. That’s the only ad I can even recall for Cadillac and it makes me feel nothing. Well, actually it does make me feel like they are promoting unsafe driving habits.
Shouldn’t advertising make you feel something good? Should it not cause you to remember more details? Make you WANT what is being advertised? IMO, Lincoln wins. Cadillac loses.
They are a disgrace. Who ever that ad agency is they should have been let go ages ago. Don Draper would be very upset with the style of ads for Caddy.
Don Draper peers wantingly at the long and low Newport Blue 1962 Cadillac Coupe deVille gleaming in the sunlight of a Manhattan showroom.
At this moment in his life, Don’s career as an advertising executive was on a rapid assent. He was the star of his universe and he knew it. Likewise, in the life of GM’s storied luxury brand, Cadillac was now America’s unquestioned king-of-the-hill, having beaten back most of their competition, most recently Packard, to become the quintessential American luxury marque and an unquestioned standard for the world. Like Don, they were the star of their universe and they knew it.
So too was America. It was high noon of the Camelot era and the nation was flying high, fueled by the jet age, about to reach for the moon, and having saved the rest of the world from tyranny. America, and its dashing young president and glamorous first lady were stars, and they too knew it.
Against this backdrop, the salesman approaches Don, clearly observing his admiration for the be-finned wonder from Clark Street. “What do you drive now?”, he asks. Draper replies, “a Dodge”. Then comes his reply. A line so emblematic of Cadillac at the time and so telling for Cadillac today. “Those are wonderful if you want to get somewhere…” the salesman begins, “this is for when you’ve already arrived.”
In 1962, Cadillac was for those who’ve arrived. For those who dared greatly and made it. A Cadillac was the epitome of the American dream and the reward for chances taken, and rewards reaped. It was the perfect capstone for so many lives lived to the fullest.
Alas, today that is no more. Cadillac is a muddled, confused shadow of their former selves; a brand living utterly off their reputation, rather than up to it. And, yet, the confusion obviously continues with yet another reset, another change of course, a new ad agency and another shift.
If they could somehow rewind to 1962, they might just find their way again. In the second year of the 1960s, Cadillac could’ve never imagined emulating Germans, after all, America, with GM’s help just annihilated Germans. No, they were the star and they defined what luxury looked like; they looked to no one else. I’ve often said Cadillac needs to let BMW be BMW and they need to make real true Cadillacs again. The kind of Cadillacs Don Draper would look wantingly upon. I imagine the Escala, that for a time sat gleaming in sunlight of Manhattan’s Cadillachaus, would’ve fit the bill quite nicely for a modern era. They only needed to be daring enough to have built it.
@Ci2eye:
Wow. Wow! Thank you for sharing that. I really enjoyed reading what you posted and even though I was not born in 1962, what you said took me to that place. It took me back to a time in which I could and did envision Cadillac as the brand in which I strive for.
Very well said and again, thank you.
Great statement. You said it all so eloquently. The Escala told us the story of a gutless group of bean counters. Someone here made a great statement GM wants instant results no patience at all. They have not learned a thing from all their failed attempts to get to where they were. The world has changed to the point they design for China.
So, Cadillac leans on yet another PR firm whose main objective is to first, get paid, second, figure
out what Cadillac is suppose to be this day and age when even Cadillac doesn’t know what it is.
It’s like some one with a personality disorder switching “Shrinks” every 3 months to figure out who they are.
I agree that JDN had a vision for Cadillac. Except for the change in a new alphabet soup naming system, I believe
his core desire was to not cut conners which would allow the product to be great enough to speak for itself.
You can’t have a new cool slogan and unclear message trying to, yet again, define who are are this month.
Like others have said, build the product right, and no need for misleading and confusing advertising lies and BS.
Damn, even companies like Jack in the Box have staid the course with a consistent representation
of who they are. Cadillac? I’m a fan, but your are constantly flipping burgers trying to decide which side to serve
facing up.
LEADERSHIP, LEADS. No more FWD parts-sharing, half-ass efforts. The water is moving closer to your neck.
*corners * stayed
Evil spellcheck!
As a car enthusiast I really don’t need a PR firm to tell me what to buy or why I should buy it. But that’s me, I have 3 different vehicles but my ATS-V is my favorite. Can it be better well yeah but so could the other 2. It’s all in the product then you advertise.
Agreed I traded my 2012 M3 fit my 2016 ATS-V Coupe. Blows it away with speed handling not even close. Looks Subjective and the size of the V is much better. Interior not even close BMW blow the V away. Like the man said everyone could improve
You traded for the things that matter most. As you stated. Speed and, handling.
Yes, looks are subjective. Interior materials and design are important.
Again, “speed and handling”.
My favorite over softer leather, badge snobbery, and gauge clusters that belong in a car 10 years ago.
Of course I agree they (Cadillac) should do better on those aspects. No excuses. But, I’ll take a better performing car with a, 6 out of 10 gauge cluster, over an, 8 out of 10 gauge cluster, with the snob badge,
every day-all day!
My god, gmauthority. Why can’t you upgrade you site to be compatible with my iPhone?
I’m not always sitting in front of my computer.
Bring back the Fleetwood Brougham … and along with it, a rear wheel drive, FULL FRAME, Roadmaster and Caprice. I’d say the same to Ford. Bring back the Town Car.
I’ll leave it at that …. because I’ve had one comment out of a dozen ever make past the “moderation” stage.
@GaryStein:
I agree 100%. I know a lot of people don’t agree with us on t his, but it’s how I feel Cadillac needs to go. Back to doing what they do (did) best?? But it’s ok if others don’t agree. I like that we all have different opinions. It makes the world a better place.
They can trot out any crap line they want. The day they change is when they make a beautiful car/. You think that kink in the window would have been allowed in Cadillac’s day of design? Never. Can they make a beautiful car – sure they can – look at the long list at Pebble Beach they trotted out. Instead. Machete Mara makes Cadillac benign for the Chinese market – and trots out a new ad agency to market the CT5 blob.
Hopefully I’ll never see another ad showing some car “drifting” or racing through traffic. Dumb ass millennial brain dead advertising
That’s like the third PR firm change in 4-5 years. ??♂️
If GM doesn’t know what the hell a Cadillac is how can an ad agency communicate that?
Seems to me Caddy is putting a lot on the shoulders of the ad agency. Caddy has a product problem that has little to do with image, and creative advertising. Make the right car with the right quality features and appearance, and most agencies will hit it out of the park. OH….something else – fund a campaign not a few few ads here and the. One can go a long time without coming across a Cadillac print or TV ad. What the hell is Caddy’s marketing department doing these days?
Their cheap personality shows they are not very serious. Blazer ads are flooding the screens.
“The Time is Right to Make a Change” is a perfect slogan – Many Cadillac loyalists already are and will –to other brands.
Playing catch-up is not enough; one has to lead. This is what, the third time they’ve tried to “re-invent” the brand in the last 17 years?
After reading a few of these comments, one I find myself in agreement with most of them, and two, old Mike could save a fortune by firing Diana, and sending these comments to the marketing and design departments.
Don’t dare do what we do well even better, let’s do better what they already do well once we figure out what it is!
Cadillac needs to come out with a new Coup de Ville. A nice big and wide coupe, with an electric engine, and a plush interior. Something nobody needs at all, but something people want. Something like a luxury dodge challenger. It would be completely unexpected and many would see it as patently stupid, but I bet you people would buy lots of them.
2nd try: As usual, 95% of my comments never get posted. I see them for days afterwards “waiting moderation.” But anyway, I agree. Go back to the names of course. And they’ve jumbled up letters and numbers and I can’t keep track … although I can with Lincoln where it’s letters only. Wondering if anyone has even driven the last of the Town Cars? Huge difference between the 205 horsepower of 98 and 240 horsepower of latter ones. They fly. And they get good mileage. Cadillac and Lincoln screwed up a good thing.
Read more: http://gmauthority.com/blog/2019/05/cadillac-gets-new-pr-agency-as-brand-strategy-shifts/#ixzz5neV9KGHs
You have 3 new models for 2020. I have 3 new commercials ? !