Cadillac's top marketing guy has something in common with critics of his division's new commercial (video below) in which a rich guy brags about how hard ambitious Americans work.
Uwe Ellinghaus: "This is something that I’d never, ever use to build the brand globally." (GM photo)
Uwe Ellinghaus became the brand’s global chief marketing officer in January after the commercial already was in the works, writes Mike Colias of Automotive News, who speaks with him at the Geneva Motor Show in Switzerland.
Ellinghaus had been a little concerned that the 60-second spot . . . come off as “snobby, arrogant, a little aloof.”. . .So the new CMO tweaked the only thing he could at that late stage: He substituted the freshly launched plug-in hybrid ELR as the car appearing at the end of the commercial. He wouldn’t say what vehicle it replaced. (Can you imagine the critics’ howls if actor Neal McDonough had hopped into a blinged-out Escalade?)
The change made the commercial “a little more socially palatable,” says Ellinghaus, a German. . . .“I am behind it,” he said of the commercial. "But this is something that I’d never, ever use to build the brand globally.”
Earlier at Deadline Detroit:
Video: 'Ballsy' Cadillac Ad That Aired During Oscars Stirs Debate About Its Politics, March 2
