GM to move Cadillac brand to New York City

[Huggybear]

In a desperate attempt to resurrect the brand's imagine, Cadillac is moving their advertising from Campbell Ewald to Publicist and relocating to NYC in order to survive in the luxury market segment. Cadillac will enjoy access to some of the most talented and creative people in the world while becoming immersed and influenced by the culture of a world class city. It will also gain a broader reach due to Publicist's international perspective as a Paris based company. The brand is dying after years of appealing strictly to a white, middle class customer base. It is finally getting the product mix overhauled to emphasize style and performance and distancing itself from the other GM brands. It needs an agency with broad intellectual and creative skill. It could never get that from a bunch of white bred yahoos at a firm from 12 mile and Van Dyke in Warren. Surprisingly, most of the world doesn't think a person with a U of M or Michigan State degree, who considers Tiger games cultural events and believes being well traveled means taking their kids to Disney World is sophisticated and worldly enough to create campaigns and brand messaging needed for success.

I assume that this is a parody of Mr. De Nysschen's party line, which explanation for the move to New York was insanely tone deaf. If that is the case, you can stop reading right here. I saw the humor in it even if others did not. Bravo!

BUT — if you are being serious about starting a condescension contest,

• It is "image," not "imagine;"
• "Cadillac" is a singular noun;
• It is "Lowe Campbell Ewald," not "Campbell Ewald;"
• "Immersed" takes the preposition "in;"
• It is "Publicis," not "Publicist;"
• Compound adjectives such as "middle-class," "Paris-based," and "white-bred" are hyphenated. In addition, please note the spelling of "white-bread;" the correct spelling references a food;
• It is not clear who is overhauling the product mix;
• A person takes "his" children to Disney world, not "their" children; and
• You missed the comma at the end of the appositive ending with "Disney World."

If you are a native English speaker, it is ironic [[in the situational sense) that someone who writes so carelessly would venture to call anyone a yahoo. I do give you points for not inserting an apostrophe into any plural form. Of course, this too might be a parody — just one that is too subtle for its intended audience.

Getting to the substance, you make some factual suppositions that seem a bit out of line with reality. When you write that "most of the world" looks down on yahoos from Warren, I would observe, as someone who has been around the world, that most people in the world are unsophisticated hillbillies who have no clue what Warren even is. The only thing that prevents average Americans from understanding that they are not alone in their ignorance is that they assume that if someone does not walk or talk like a Jerry Springer guest, such a person is sophisticated. This is exactly what Tom Wolfe wrote about when he lampooned some early adopters of modernism as worshipping "the white gods."

The attack on the "yahoos" also seems to misapprehend the realities that [[1) most people working organizations that make, import, or sell cars in the United States are not particularly cultured - they are just as average in that regard as the people in Detroit whom you deride and that [[2) all of those other companies aggressively recruit people from GM. Ford, and Chrysler.

If I had to point to one thing that has inhibited Cadillac's success, it is the fact that many luxury buyers are self-loathing Americans. What else could explain the popularity of the base-model BMW 3-series?

HB

[Bham1982]

If you are a native English speaker, it is ironic [[in the situational sense) that someone who writes so carelessly would venture to call anyone a yahoo.

I'd say your response is even worse. Someone posting to a website from a device is not getting hung up on prepositions, like it's 8th grade English class or something. Nervous false pretension rebutting obvious satire.

[DetroitBoy]

The BMW is a true luxury product with an outstanding driver experience in all aspects of ownership[[driving, service and world-class image). It markets to customers with discerning tastes not the Medicare class of white men who live in Macomb Twp. If you think Cadillac can compete with that based on their current market position, you obviously have never owned a BMW or any other European luxury vehicle.

BTW thanks for the grammar check. Perhaps there's a job in the Detroit Public Schools waiting for you.

[Huggybear]

I'd say your response is even worse. Someone posting to a website from a device is not getting hung up on prepositions, like it's 8th grade English class or something. Nervous false pretension rebutting obvious satire.

Look, my response on the grammar was heavy-handed and excessive by design. I don't even worry about things like that most of the time. And there are certainly more subtle ways of saying that Americans underestimate their level of sophistication vis-à-vis their peers. In the context of the original statement [[which is only questionably satirical), it is hyperbole jumping down the throat of hyperbole. But at the end of the day, that GM management approved the New York adventure is indicative of a lack of self-confidence, almost as if the company leaders were shamed into agreeing to the divisional move when De Nysschen signed on. But nobody should feel bad about that; Infiniti wound up in Hong Kong as a result of his thinking, right?

HB

[Huggybear]

The BMW is a true luxury product with an outstanding driver experience in all aspects of ownership[[driving, service and world-class image). It markets to customers with discerning tastes not the Medicare class of white men who live in Macomb Twp. If you think Cadillac can compete with that based on their current market position, you obviously have never owned a BMW or any other European luxury vehicle.

I own a European luxury car [[actually, I've owned several, with a couple of Cadillacs thrown in), and I don't think the issue is the dealership experience or marketing so much as it is Cadillac's long-term inability to decide what it wants to be when it grows up. This comes out in an incoherent product line [[are the SRX and Escalade sold by the same company?!) that somehow manages to lose sales to its sister brand Buick. That's the lack of confidence: why not stake out your territory and dominate it? Trying to market a 3-series clone is a losing proposition; no matter how good, Car and Driver will never bless your product; others' offerings are homogenized ~2.0T snoozers; and in the end, the volume cars are small, low, and relatively low-powered. None of this is what you would associate with the Cadillac brand, which for most of its history has included mostly V8-powered larger cars. You can succeed with larger cars if you are confident and focused. Cars the size of the 5-series and up are the big profit generators [[that line is a relatively small portion of BMW's worldwide sales but brings home the plurality of the profits), and that is where companies like Jaguar have gone.

I agree that Cadillac has some serious problems, but I don't know that New York is the solution to this: query how many luxury car companies are in glamorous cities. BMW, for its part, is located in the German equivalent of the American Midwest, in a pretty grey corner of Munich. But if you are going to go to a cool place for inspiration, you might as well skip New York because you're not going to see the drivers of many vehicles that are not Lincoln Town Cars, hybrid taxis [[Ford, Nissan, Toyota), or subway cars. Go to London, Paris or Monaco - you can see more luxury cars there [[and their drivers or owners), and the upper middle class there is probably more the aspiration of luxury car buyers worldwide.

But your description of the "Medicare class of white men who live in Macomb Twp." is somewhat curious. Is this to say that poor white guys drive these cars? Or that the cars are designed by them?

HB

[Honky Tonk]

I own a European luxury car [[actually, I've owned several, with a couple of Cadillacs thrown in), and I don't think the issue is the dealership experience or marketing so much as it is Cadillac's long-term inability to decide what it wants to be when it grows up. This comes out in an incoherent product line [[are the SRX and Escalade sold by the same company?!) that somehow manages to lose sales to its sister brand Buick. That's the lack of confidence: why not stake out your territory and dominate it? Trying to market a 3-series clone is a losing proposition; no matter how good, Car and Driver will never bless your product; others' offerings are homogenized ~2.0T snoozers; and in the end, the volume cars are small, low, and relatively low-powered. None of this is what you would associate with the Cadillac brand, which for most of its history has included mostly V8-powered larger cars. You can succeed with larger cars if you are confident and focused. Cars the size of the 5-series and up are the big profit generators [[that line is a relatively small portion of BMW's worldwide sales but brings home the plurality of the profits), and that is where companies like Jaguar have gone.

I agree that Cadillac has some serious problems, but I don't know that New York is the solution to this: query how many luxury car companies are in glamorous cities. BMW, for its part, is located in the German equivalent of the American Midwest, in a pretty grey corner of Munich. But if you are going to go to a cool place for inspiration, you might as well skip New York because you're not going to see the drivers of many vehicles that are not Lincoln Town Cars, hybrid taxis [[Ford, Nissan, Toyota), or subway cars. Go to London, Paris or Monaco - you can see more luxury cars there [[and their drivers or owners), and the upper middle class there is probably more the aspiration of luxury car buyers worldwide.

But your description of the "Medicare class of white men who live in Macomb Twp." is somewhat curious. Is this to say that poor white guys drive these cars? Or that the cars are designed by them?

HB

I think Caddy's hope that somehow they'll be magically saved by moving to NY is a bit far fetched. Beemer, Benz, and Porsche all have added SUVs to their line up and it doesn't seem to have affected their bottom line. Personally, I like the Caddy car line-up, and find them both comfortable and a hoot to drive. A far cry from the Caddys of the 60s and 70s.

[Bham1982]

But if you are going to go to a cool place for inspiration, you might as well skip New York because you're not going to see the drivers of many vehicles that are not Lincoln Town Cars, hybrid taxis [[Ford, Nissan, Toyota), or subway cars. Go to London, Paris or Monaco - you can see more luxury cars there [[and their drivers or owners), and the upper middle class there is probably more the aspiration of luxury car buyers worldwide.

I agree with most of your comment but not this part. IMO you're conflating Manhattan with the NYC area.

It's true that Manhattan itself is not a huge luxury car market, but the NYC metro is probably the largest luxury car market in the world. The Euro luxury imports generally have their North American HQ in the NYC region for this reason. The one exception would be luxury sports cars, where I bet the LA market is #1 in the world.

I doubt Paris and London are comparable to the NYC region for luxury car sales, though fancy cars are probably more visible in core London than in core Paris or NYC. Monaco is tiny and probably can't even compare to Oakland County in luxury car sales.

[Mackinaw]

Just to weigh in without reading every line of the above drama...

1) This is all really dumb. Having an NYC HQ doesn't change your image unless you are in high fashion or the arts. At this point, having a Detroit HQ is honestly better marketing optics. This seems to be about some Caddy execs and their advertising friends wanting to move out east and pretend they're Don Draper.

2) This is a needless, inexplicable slap in the face to Detroit.

3) What level of control does GM have over this? They fully control Cadillac do they not? Aren't they alter egos? How and why did GM allow this?

[MAcc]

This seems to be about some Caddy execs and their advertising friends wanting to move out east and pretend they're Don Draper.

Pretend? No they're living out that dream. GM credit cards, multi-million dollar SoHo office space, large relocation bonuses for all execs, social calendar full of fancy parties and NYT rated restaurants. These guys will all be living the high life on corporate's dime.

If you're feeling patriotic, buy a Ford. GM is a top to bottom joke.

[MAcc]

The BMW is a true luxury product with an outstanding driver experience in all aspects of ownership[[driving, service and world-class image). It markets to customers with discerning tastes not the Medicare class of white men who live in Macomb Twp. If you think Cadillac can compete with that based on their current market position, you obviously have never owned a BMW or any other European luxury vehicle.

BTW thanks for the grammar check. Perhaps there's a job in the Detroit Public Schools waiting for you.

Hot take, as was your previous post in here. Big fan of your work. Please post more frequently.

[detmsp]

Just to weigh in without reading every line of the above drama...

1) This is all really dumb. Having an NYC HQ doesn't change your image unless you are in high fashion or the arts. At this point, having a Detroit HQ is honestly better marketing optics. This seems to be about some Caddy execs and their advertising friends wanting to move out east and pretend they're Don Draper.

I really don't understand why people think this is a marketing move; it isn't. They don't think that people will think Cadillac is cooler because they've changed their address, they say they are doing it to immerse their people in the world of luxury and to create separation from the rest of GM.

3) What level of control does GM have over this? They fully control Cadillac do they not? Aren't they alter egos? How and why did GM allow this?

Well the idea is to remove GM's control. They want Cadillac to operate as a separate entity because they think that the principles that work well for managing a mass market brand [[like Chevrolet) don't work for a luxury brand [[like Cadillac). That's why in a few years time, Cadillac will even report its financials separately from the rest of GM.

[MAcc]

I really don't understand why people think this is a marketing move; it isn't. They don't think that people will think Cadillac is cooler because they've changed their address, they say they are doing it to immerse their people in the world of luxury and to create separation from the rest of GM.

3-5 year NYC luxury vacation for execs, many of which are likely nearing retirement, before the plug is pulled on this shareholder SCHEME. This move does nothing for Cadillac. It is a luxury brand that was systematically destroyed by old GM over the course of 40 years, which coincided with the rise of BMW, MB, Audi and Lexus. It will never, ever be what it once was. It will continue to circle the drain as the last people that want to be seen in them – unsophisticated boomer Midwest retirees – continue to pass away.

[Willi]

Nothing special about a Cadillac, often has exact same specs for most of the components. High extra cost for chrome plastic trim level.

Will never understand why Cadillac insisted on wanting its own Chevrolet Avalanche with a Caddy Frisbee on it, in place of the Chevy Bowtie.

Luxury, nope -
people who think it is, have been duped

[detmsp]

3-5 year NYC luxury vacation for execs, many of which are likely nearing retirement, before the plug is pulled on this shareholder SCHEME. This move does nothing for Cadillac. It is a luxury brand that was systematically destroyed by old GM over the course of 40 years, which coincided with the rise of BMW, MB, Audi and Lexus. It will never, ever be what it once was. It will continue to circle the drain as the last people that want to be seen in them – unsophisticated boomer Midwest retirees – continue to pass away.

So if there's nothing they can do to fix Cadillac, might as well just shut it down. Either way, Cadillac won't be based in Detroit. So what are you so worked up about?

[Thruster315]

Well the idea is to remove GM's control. They want Cadillac to operate as a separate entity because they think that the principles that work well for managing a mass market brand [[like Chevrolet) don't work for a luxury brand [[like Cadillac). That's why in a few years time, Cadillac will even report its financials separately from the rest of GM.

I recall they tried this with the Saturn concept where they moved down to Spring Hill, Tennessee. The advertising even went to the west coast. They wanted autonomy and a step away from the old method of doing things. And look what happened. It was an experiment, while cute on the surface, failed and had to be folded back into the GM brand when things got lean.

What's going to happen to the account when Cadillacs don't sell? Or of there's a dip in the economy? Are they suddenly going to blame the ad agency and put the account back up for review again? If not this NYC ad agency, who next? It wouldn't surprise me at all to see the Cadillac account come back to Detroit at some time in the future; not any time soon because the honeymoon's on full bore right now, but eventually.

[MAcc]

So if there's nothing they can do to fix Cadillac, might as well just shut it down. Either way, Cadillac won't be based in Detroit. So what are you so worked up about?

I have disdain for the c-suite partying on the shareholders' dime.

[iheartthed]

Mercedes-Benz disagrees with GM: http://www.wsj.com/articles/mercedes...58581?mod=e2tw

[Hermod]

The BMW is a true luxury product with an outstanding driver experience in all aspects of ownership[[driving, service and world-class image). It markets to customers with discerning tastes not the Medicare class of white men who live in Macomb Twp. If you think Cadillac can compete with that based on their current market position, you obviously have never owned a BMW or any other European luxury vehicle.

BTW thanks for the grammar check. Perhaps there's a job in the Detroit Public Schools waiting for you.

The United Auto Workers thank you very much for your loyalty to Break My Window.

[1953]

Reading about Mercedes move to the south, I'm struck by the contrast with Cadillac. In Cadillac, you have a business seeking an association with a high wealth market segment, while in Mercedes you have a business trying to stay attentive to that segment by following and anticipating their demographic changes. It would seem to me that Cadillac is either one step behind or trying to get a piece of a very small, but well-heeled market. Which is it?

1953

[MAcc]

Reading about Mercedes move to the south, I'm struck by the contrast with Cadillac. In Cadillac, you have a business seeking an association with a high wealth market segment, while in Mercedes you have a business trying to stay attentive to that segment by following and anticipating their demographic changes. It would seem to me that Cadillac is either one step behind or trying to get a piece of a very small, but well-heeled market. Which is it?

1953

It's GM, of course they're a step behind. Johan de Nysschen is a fraud. He failed miserably at Infiniti. His success was at Audi, which had momentum before he got there, is a Euro brand, had the benefit of a booming worldwide economy, and top notch designs. Cadillac sales are in the toilet right now. This NYC move is an embarrassment. Cadillac in well on its way to being a livery and niche luxury truck company after the boomers are all in retirement homes.