Cadillac won’t lean heavily on its American heritage in Australia

Cadillac figures everybody already is aware of it’s American, so it’s pitching itself extra as a worldwide model fairly than emphasising its origins.

“We’re not even actually leaning into American,” Melissa Grady-Dias, Cadillac’s world chief advertising officer, instructed Australian and New Zealand media.

“We’re leaning into the spirit of Cadillac, versus [the spirit of] America.”

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Cadillac is launching right here this 12 months as an electric-only model, with arguably probably the most iconic and most distinctly American member of its present vary – the V8-powered Escalade – off the table for our market.

“We’ll positively use [its American origins] a bit bit. However what we discovered within the analysis is individuals solely appear to know what they see in American popular culture, which is Escalade typically,” mentioned GM Worldwide communications director Lauren Indiveri-Clarke.

“So the Lyriq for them, whether or not we mentioned it was American… they haven’t seen it. They don’t understand it as a result of it’s not in popular culture for them as a lot.

“So… we’re not completely going away from using [Cadillac being American]. We’re simply not leaning as closely as they do [in the US] on that.”

That has seen the corporate make some modifications to its promoting, although Ms Grady-Dias says the campaigns “aren’t actually totally different”.

“We received some fascinating suggestions across the promoting of the US market… it resonates with Australia and New Zealand prospects,” mentioned Ms Indiveri-Clarke.

“There’s a couple of phrases and phrases, like that entire factor across the American a part of it simply doesn’t resonate the identical.

“Within the [Australian and New Zealand] markets, we’ve truly sort of taken that out of among the advertising and the promoting and made it a bit bit extra world within the language that we’re utilizing.

“We’re actually presenting [Cadillac] extra as a worldwide model.”

Even some phrase decisions have been nixed. ‘Maverick’, for instance, is a well-liked time period within the US, however in Australia and New Zealand Cadillac mentioned it simply made individuals consider High Gun.

The model is as an alternative being pitched not at ‘mavericks’ however fairly ‘bold norm-breakers’, to higher swimsuit Australian and New Zealand vernacular.

“Our historical past and our heritage is one thing that we clearly don’t wish to over-play in Australia and New Zealand as a result of we don’t have a historical past there, however we now have a worldwide historical past to lean on and we wish to be sure that prospects know the place we’re coming from with that,” mentioned Ms Indiveri-Clarke.

Australians are arguably extra conversant in the Escalade, which was first launched for mannequin 12 months 1999, than some other Cadillac other than DeVille, Eldorado and Fleetwood luxo-barges of yore.

Throughout the twenty first century, nevertheless, the Cadillac model has been by an prolonged transformation.

It launched the aggressively styled, rear-wheel drive CTS in 2002, joined in 2004 by the V8-powered CTS-V that was the primary mannequin within the V-Sequence efficiency sub-brand.

The primary-generation CTS was the primary in an extended line of American-made sports activities sedans that continues with at present’s CT4 and CT5, each of which can be found in sizzling V and even hotter V Blackwing fashions… the latter of which even supply the now uncommon possibility of a six-speed guide.

The model additionally phased out extra historically Cadillac fashions just like the DeVille/DTS.

Whereas Cadillac has supplied varied sport sedans and V-Sequence fashions over the previous 20 years – and even a Corvette-based roadster referred to as the XLR – it’s now embarking on a journey to a totally electrical lineup by 2030.

It has, nevertheless, left the door open for combustion-powered autos to proceed past then if there’s buyer demand.

For Australia, Cadillac says it solely has plans to introduce EVs. The Lyriq is the primary electrical Cadillac, serving as the luxurious model’s rival to the likes of the BMW iX. It’ll headline the model’s launch in Australia later this 12 months.

Subsequently, Cadillac revealed the smaller Optiq and the bigger, three-row Vistiq, in addition to an electrical counterpart to the Escalade referred to as the Escalade iQ.

It has but to substantiate these fashions for our market, although all their names have been trademarked with IP Australia. Cadillac has additionally teased product bulletins will come throughout 2025.

MORE: Everything Cadillac Lyriq