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“Rochester, pick up the Cadillac”
The Oscars have been called the Super bowl for women and last night reminded us why. The most talked about spot of the evening was Kate Walsh’s turn for Cadillac. In fact, people have been talking about this particular spot for weeks (check out Bob Garfield’s take on his AdAge blog –the responses are a hoot: http://adage.com/garfield/post?article_id=120814).
Of course, since the same Marketing Doctor rules apply to the Oscars as for the Superbowl (hint, spend your money elsewhere!), the real question through all the hype is: how does this really help the Cadillac brand? Cadillac thinks Kate Walsh is the new “it” girl for the brand –but since when is Cadillac an “it” girl brand? Last week, their head of global marketing told Automotive News that Walsh had helped the Cadillac brand “find its voice.” Fuggedaboutit! That’s some claim!
Wait a minute hasn’t Cadillac always been gas-guzzling luxury –and more important— a man’s luxury car? No. Cadillac actually has a history of innovation and change that you and I may have forgotten, but it’s still central to what the brand is all about. When I was driving my Caddy, I simply loved it. But I must admit that before I leased my 2007 DTS –the same model that Warren Buffett drives— I had my doubts. After all, GM has made some big missteps in recent decades, but this Kate Walsh thing is probably not one of them. She’s relevant. She’s young. She’s attractive. She reminds us of all the things that Cadillac used to be. And more than that, Walsh actually talks about all the redesigns and innovations that have made the latest Cadillacs great luxury cars. Point is that sometimes a brand can forget what it’s all about and it needs a vision like this to remind people –now if they only keep promoting the hell out of the idea after Oscar night then maybe we’ll see a real brand turnaround!
Men appreciate two things: beautiful cars and beautiful women. Pair a beautiful, hip, elegant young woman with your car and voila: beauty, hipness and youthful elegance may be engendered to the car by association. (Of course the challenge is to see that the viewer remembers THE CAR, not just the woman. Cadillac appears to have done this by making the product and logo the star, not our spokeslady.) For a brand striving to address a younger male market (or perhaps, also, during the Oscars airtime--his wife) and remain ever young, this makes sense. To paraphrase another brand, implicit in the message is, "This isn't your father's Cadillac". Agreed, a media buy far beyond the Oscars will be required to make the message "stick".
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