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Cadillac Risks Break From Detroit With New 'Dare Greatly' Campaign

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This article is more than 9 years old.

This could become Cadillac's "Eminem moment" -- a day of reckoning for the brand much like that experienced by Chrysler four years ago.

Cadillac executives are taking a huge risk in the branding campaign that is illustrated in the first TV ads for their new "Dare Greatly" positioning. They will air Sunday night during The Oscars telecast on ABC, and General Motors is hoping they score the kind of emotional connection with viewers that was achieved by Chrysler in 2011 when that brand telecast its now-iconic two-minute commercial starring Eminem during the Super Bowl. That ad, titled by insiders "Born Of Fire," catapulted Chrysler into its new "Imported From Detroit" identity, and the brand has never looked back.

Certainly the moment could be that big for Cadillac, CMO Uwe Ellinghaus and even CEO Johan de Nysschen. They have reached an important intersection in their efforts to turn around the General Motors luxury brand, whose U.S. sales trailed off by 6 percent last year amid an overall market -- and, especially, a luxury segment -- that was up strongly. In the wake of some price cuts on its vaunted sedans, and with the the lack of a compact sport-utility vehicle leaving a gaping hole in its product lineup, right now Cadillac hugely needs to redefine its brand in a way that stands out.

"The Cadillac brand needed to change," Ellinghaus told me. "We've lost some of our old customers and we're not conquesting enough new customers -- because we lack relevance. We need to have a new point of view to show why we're relevant and to get across how much Cadillac has changed. You can't just put product -- even great product, which we have -- in front of people. If the brand isn't relevant, people don't care."

But as admirable and out of traditional character as this bit of risk-taking might be for Cadillac, even to "Dare Greatly" alone won't cut it; Cadillac needs to succeed greatly with this effort. The brand has been in tatters for a while. Cadillac owners, dealers, GM executives and third-party arbiters have agreed that its sedan lineup comprises the best the brand has ever had, and an expanding line of  "V" super-charged versions is enhancing the credibility of that assessment. Meanwhile, on the large-SUV front, Cadillac is selling every Escalade it can make.

Fortunately for Cadillac, the actual merits of its vehicles add up to a huge advantage enjoyed by the brand as it nears its moment of reckoning in the 87th Annual Academy Awards broadcast this weekend, compared with the threadbare lineup that afflicted the Chrysler brand when Fiat Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne and CMO Olivier Francois took a huge gamble on brand elevation with the "Imported From Detroit" campaign.

And Cadillac will be unveiling its new top-end CT6 sedan at the New York auto show in a few weeks, the first fruits of a $12-billion commitment to new products -- including a hurry-up small utility -- that de Nysschen managed to secure from GM CEO Mary Barra.

But regard for the Cadillac brand per se badly lags the sharp definitions that have been established over the years by Mercedes-Benz , BMW, Audi and Lexus -- brand identities that have been crucial in accelerating the growth of each one of those marques past Cadillac. The latest, and very tangible, sign of Cadillac's ineffective brand is that de Nysschen has had to cut prices of some versions of Cadillac sedans because customers just weren't feeling the equity that its pricing demanded.

One of the best harbingers for Ellinghaus's 15-month effort to come up with a worthy rejuvenation of the Cadillac brand is that the U.S. Cadillac dealer council heartily backed his approach when they saw the cinematic new "Dare Greatly" ads, he said. "They have seen the campaign elements already and they are strongly behind what we are doing," Ellinghaus said. "And it is they who experience daily what lacking relevance has meant for the Cadillac brand. They have been ready to embrace this change."

And fortunately, while there remains no stage in marketing as big as the Big Game, The Oscars might be the closest second. While Hollywood has turned in a couple of tame years at the box office, attention paid to the Academy Awards itself has only exploded, with pre- and post-award shows and an absolute blizzard of social-media attention.

Cadillac will be attempting to tap into the entirety of the occasion. Interestingly, the "Dare Greatly" ads promise to have much the same kind of gray, somewhat gritty, totally urban feel that was leveraged in Chrysler's "Born of Fire" ads, which used Detroit, some of its landmarks and even a Motown gospel choir as backdrops.

If the "Dare Greatly" ads rise to the level of Chrysler's star turn, accolades  for Cadillac -- and buzz for the brand, and purchase consideration -- could get a huge bump. What happens after that depends largely on follow-up by consumers and dealers, and Cadillac clearly will build on and extend its new positioning for many months to come.

In the meantime, Cadillac launched a social-media effort under #DareGreatly, including a video on YouTube that featured most of the relevant famous passage by President Theodore Roosevelt from a speech commonly known as "The Man in the Arena," which he delivered in 1910 at the Sorbonne in Paris. A female voiceover delivered the passage while unretouched street scenes from New York City played on the screen, featuring none of Cadillac's products.

And Cadillac disclosed it has been behind billboards in a handful of major US cities that have been using excerpts from the speech to challenge viewers to think of themselves as principled, indefatigable, impassioned contrarians -- because that is what Cadillac is going to do as a brand. Initially, the outdoor signs only displayed the quote without an author or "owner"; beginning Sunday, the bottom of the signs read, "#DareGreatly ... Cadillac."

"It is not the critic who counts," the billboards read, lifting judiciously from the entire passage by Roosevelt. "Credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena ... who errs .. because there is no effort without error and shortcoming ... who at best knows ... of triumph of high achievement ... or fails while daring greatly."

With the new brand positioning, Ellinghaus explained, Cadillac wants to "'outwit' luxury, to dare greatly and create interplay among the brand values of boldness, sophistication and optimism, and yet be inviting and approachable. We want to inspire. We want people to dream Cadillac again instead of demonstrating one-upsmanship such as 'more horsepower,' 'more torque,' etc."

And while Cadillac has repositioned itself before, he said, "This is a reinvention, not just a repositioning. And it's a product renaissance as well. So we have the right to say we are 'daring greatly' ourselves. This is not just a 'campaign.' We want people to say, 'Look how much Cadillac has changed.' And we will get some criticism."

But Ellinghaus said he is ready for critiques to come. He's certainly used to his ears burning already from those who attacked Cadillac's brain trust for moving the brand's headquarters staff to New York City from Detroit, a process that is still underway. Manhattan and its upscale vibe also have a strong place in the Cadillac rebranding campaign. For that, there will be more slings and arrows aplenty.