Country Base: USA
Industry/Sector/Keywords: Automobiles, Automotive, Cars, Transportation, Driving
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Cadillac – www.rebrand.com/cadillac-images
Industry Setting
Despite financial crises around the world, the global luxury car market has enjoyed growth in the past decade, driven by emerging markets and increasing disparity of incomes. BMW, Audi and Mercedes-Benz account for approximately 80% share worldwide. The success of these brands has also eclipsed domestic incumbents Cadillac and Lincoln, who compete with other challenger brands Jaguar, Range Rover and Volvo.
Challenge
Despite great product innovation and performance, Cadillac’s growth was slow worldwide and in steady decline domestically – down 6.5% in 2014. The German brands were growing rapidly, shaping category norms and preferences.
Cadillac’s brand had drifted into clichéd images of gangsters and retirees, alienating young, affluent consumer driving growth in luxury auto sales. And an internal ‘culture of creative license’ had fragmented the brand and eroded any one sense of identity.
Strategy
Through interviews and a review of assets going back a century, we dug into Cadillac’s culture to pinpoint brand values as aspirational as they were ingrained: bold, sophisticated and optimistic. These were held together by an emotive core of ‘passion’, emphasizing a decidedly non-Germanic stance.
The ‘Crest’ logo – the latest of 30 revisions over the years – was refined into a globally usable asset, uniting the wider, dimensional Crest and script wordmark across all touchpoints to strengthen awareness of the Crest’s owner. A new secondary pattern and suite of visual elements accompany the logo and hone Cadillac’s presentation, removing the noise that had crept into brand efforts.
Result
The new, consistent visual expression is now standard across all 2D, 3D and experiential programs worldwide. One of the first implementations, a global brand-launch event in New York City and brand storybook galvanized employees to understand and represent one global Cadillac.
Launched during the 2015 Oscars, a new ad campaign built on the brand work – “Dare Greatly” – immediately delivered 885 million impressions. Shortly after launch, Cadillac saw a 26% week-over-week increase in conversation volumes on the web.
Client: Cadillac – www.cadillac.com
Brand Strategists/Designers: FutureBrand – www.futurebrand.com
Client Services
Senior Account Director: Beth Mallow
Brand Strategy
Global Strategic Lead: James Cockerille
Associate Strategy Director: Mona Bhatnagar
Senior Strategist: Camilla Crane
Design
Executive Creative Director: Doug Sellers
Creative Director: Tina Schoepflin
Associate Creative Director: Joo Yeon Chae
Design Director: Felix Huettel
Design Director: Scott Williams
Implementation & Production
Senior Implementation Specialist: Jamahl Umar
Writing
Writing Director: Patrick Attenasio
Associate Director, Verbal Identity: Veronique Bergeron
