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

Cadillac Everyone knows this is an American brand, so they are promoting themselves as a global brand instead of emphasizing their origins.

“We don’t even rely on the US market,” Melissa Grady-Dias, Cadillac’s global marketing director, told Australian and New Zealand media.

“We are relying on the spirit of Cadillac, versus [the spirit of] America.”

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Cadillac will launch here this year as an all-electric brand, with the most iconic and distinctively American member of its current lineup – the V8-powered Escalade – off the table for our market.

“We will definitely use [its American origins] a little bit. But what we found in the research is that people seem to only know what they see in American popular culture, which is the Escalade in general,” said GM International communications director Lauren Indiveri-Clarke.

“So Lyriq for them, even though we say it’s American… they’ve never seen it. They don’t know about it because it’s not in pop culture for them.

“So… we’re not completely giving up on using [Cadillac being American]. We just don’t rely on them as much. [in the US] about that.”

That has forced the company to make some changes to its advertising, although Ms. Grady-Dias said the campaigns “really haven’t changed.”

“We’ve had some interesting feedback about the ad in the US market… it’s resonated with Australian and New Zealand customers,” Ms Indiveri-Clarke said.

“There are some phrases and terms, like the whole issue around American English, that don’t resonate that well.

“In [Australian and New Zealand] market, we’ve actually taken that out of some of our marketing and advertising and made it a little more global in the language that we’re using.

“We are actually presenting [Cadillac] more than a global brand.”

Even some word choices have been eliminated. For example, ‘Maverick’ is a popular term in the US, but in Australia and New Zealand, Cadillac says it only makes people think of Top Gun.

Instead, the brand is not targeting ‘dissidents’ but ‘ambitious norm-breakers’ to better align with the Australian and New Zealand vernacular.

“Obviously we don’t want to overemphasize our history and heritage in Australia and New Zealand because we don’t have a history there, but we do have a global history to draw on and we want to make sure that customers know where we come from,” Ms Indiveri-Clarke said.

Australians are probably more familiar with the Escalade, first introduced in 1999, than any other Cadillac model outside the old DeVille, Eldorado and Fleetwood luxury models.

However, in the 21st century, the Cadillac brand has undergone an extensive transformation.

The company introduced the aggressively styled rear-wheel-drive CTS in 2002, followed by the V8-powered CTS-V in 2004, the first in the V-Series of performance vehicles.

The first-generation CTS was the first of a line of American-made sports sedans, followed by today’s CT4 and CT5, both of which came in even more desirable V and V Blackwing versions… the latter even offering a six-speed manual transmission option, now a rarity.

The brand also gradually eliminated traditional Cadillac models such as the DeVille/DTS.

While Cadillac has offered numerous sports sedans and V-Series models over the past two decades – and even Corvette– a convertible called the XLR – is now on its way to becoming an all-electric vehicle by 2030.

However, this still opens the door for internal combustion engine vehicles to continue to develop later if customers demand it.

For Australia, Cadillac says it only plans to introduce electric vehicles. Lyrics is the first electric Cadillac, serving as the luxury brand’s rival to the likes of BMW iX. The product will headline the brand’s Australian launch later this year.

Cadillac then unveiled a smaller car. Optics and larger, three rows Vistiqas well as an electric counterpart to the Escalade called the Escalade iQ.

It has yet to confirm these models for our market, although all of their names have been registered trademark with IP AustraliaCadillac also revealed information about products that will be launched in 2025.

THAN: Everything About the Cadillac Lyriq