Marketing an Iconic Auto Brand: How Cadillac Appeals to New Generations with Melissa Grady Dias, Chief Marketing Officer at Cadillac
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For Melissa Grady Dias, nostalgia and brand marketing are used to help iconic brands like Cadillac appeal to new generations.
“Performance and brand marketing are not two separate things. It's all about who are the people you're targeting. I call them our group of potential customers. And whether you will be a customer in two months or two years, we should have a relationship with you. Just the messaging we're giving you is different based on where you are.”
— Melissa Grady Dias
The auto industry is famous for relying on history and tradition. But in today's world, that alone might not be enough to appeal to new generations and thrive as a business. For that reason, iconic brands like Cadillac put in a lot of effort to take that nostalgia and power from the past and propel it into the future. To understand what the company is doing to drive those efforts, we invited Melissa Grady Dias, the Chief Marketing Officer at Cadillac, to the Speed of Culture Podcast.
Melissa is a result-driven marketing leader with over fifteen years of proven outcomes across various industries. In her role as the CMO at Cadillac, she has led the launch of Cadillac’s "Make Your Way" campaign, the debut of the 2021 Cadillac Escalade, and helped the brand address the COVID-19 pandemic by launching the new "We Have Your Back" campaign.
On this episode of the Speed of Culture podcast, Melissa joins Suzy Founder & CEO Matt Britton to share Cadillac's omnichannel strategy and brand messaging, the importance of data for driving marketing performance, and how to succeed as a marketer professional in the auto industry.
Balancing Data With Creativity - Many people still believe advertising is all about TV commercials or creative ads. Though creativity plays a huge role in the designing process, the math and science are more important than ever.
Different Messages at Different Times to Different People - When you think about the auto industry, with longer sales cycles and fewer purchases over a consumer's lifetime, it’s easy to assume that data plays a secondary role. But the reality stands different. Marketers need to understand the audience they are targeting and advertise various messages to specific clients at different times.
Iconic Then, Iconic Now - Cadillac is considered an American icon with a remarkable history behind it. The company has done a great job modernizing brand messaging and making it relevant for new generations. Though Cadillac focuses on the EV future, the brand still positions itself as a luxurious American icon, which takes the nostalgia and power of the brand’s past to propel it forward.
GTM Strategy and EV Future - Cadillac aims to take an older industry and adapt how it communicates with its customers, whether on the phone, online, in-person, or combined. It comes down to meeting the customer where they are and ensuring they interact with the brand as they want.
Listen to Melissa on the Speed of Culture podcast today to learn the iconic brand moves toward the future with boldness – or read through the episode transcript below.
