Behind Cadillac’s first campaign with 72andSunny and its approach to EV marketing

As Cadillac marketers began working with 72andSunny last year, the General Motors brand and its new agency began focusing on something revealed during research—Cadillac drivers own swimming pools at a higher rate than most people. “There’s a lot of pools because everyone wants people to come to their house. They want to celebrate with their friends and family,” said Melissa Grady Dias, Cadillac’s chief marketing officer. That insight about their social tendencies eventually led to a campaign that debuted this week for the new Escalade IQ, the first electric version of the SUV, whose recent debut at dealers comes as Cadillac takes another step toward an all-electric future. The campaign—which marks the first effort from 72andSunny for the brand since winning it last year as part of a bigger GM agency review—includes a new tagline, “Let’s Take the Cadillac.” The phrase feeds into what the brand and 72andSunny have learned about Cadillac owners: they are inherently social people, who like to share their Caddys, just like they share their pools. The tagline is “actually a very familiar set of words,” said Carl Mueller, 72andSunny’s executive strategy director, noting the research included interviews with some 100 Cadillac owners. “When people choose how they want to spend their day and where and how they want to drive to their destination, they said, ‘Let’s take the Cadillac.’ Everyone immediately understands this is going to be a special trip.” The campaign’s first ad shows two couples hopping into an Escalade IQ and driving through a city beneath a full moon. They take a car elevator to a fancy rooftop party. The ad, backed by Benson Boone’s “Nights Like These,” ends with shots of other Cadillac EVs: the Lyriq crossover, which debuted in 2022; as well as the compact Optiq and the three-row Vistiq, which are both hitting dealerships this year. An ad for the Optiq is expected to debut soon, Grady Dias said. NextGen Marketing Summit Join us for a crash course on Gen Z, DTC marketing and the creator economy Register today Finding EV momentum Across the automotive industry, EVs have not met bullish predictions made a few years ago, as buyers remain skittish about so-called range anxiety and the higher prices commanded by lots of electric vehicle models. But Cadillac has enjoyed strong demand for the Lyriq—U.S. sales more than tripled last year to 28,402 vehicles, according to Automotive News. With the other models now joining its fleet, Cadillac will have a full complement of EVs at various price points, ranging from the Optiq, which starts at around $54,000 with shipping, to the Escalade IQ, which is priced as high as $150,000, according to Automotive News. Cadillac has previously set a goal to have an all-electric vehicle portfolio by 2030, but the timeline could be fluid. Read more about GM’s ad spending from Ad Age Datacenter When it comes to marketing its new EVs, Cadillac is not overplaying their electric power; the new ad is almost exclusively lifestyle-focused, for instance. “We don’t really talk about them as EVs,” Mueller said. “We talk about them as great cars.” Marketers, he added, tend to “over-segment.” But “people just want the latest greatest car, and we’re going to find, over time that’s going to be more and more EVs, because that’s where the innovation lies. But at no point do Melissa and I talk about like the EV campaign or the entrance of EV into our range. It’s just like we got more great cars to sell.” Cadillac began hyping the Escalade IQ in 2023 with a campaign from then-lead agency Leo Burnett that included a Times Square takeover and copy lines such as, “You can’t reinvent the wheel, but you can reimagine it.” The effort was intended to prep the market for the electric version of the Escalade, a nameplate long established in pop culture, ranging from mentions in rap lyrics to placements in movies and video games. The Cadillac brand has been more broadly flicking at its place as a status symbol with the line “Be Iconic” across multiple campaigns for its models. While that line will not be in the new campaign, it will still be used in other consumer-facing materials, Grady Dias said.

Behind Cadillac’s first campaign with 72andSunny and its approach to EV marketing

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