By JAMIE LAREAU | AUTOMOTIVE NEWS
AutoWeek | Published 07/17/06, 8:33 am et

DETROIT -- General Motors is breaking from its "Break Through" Cadillac campaign and dropping Led Zeppelin's song "Rock and Roll" as its soundtrack.

The move is meant to attract younger affluent buyers from foreign luxury rivals, industry sources say.

Cadillac will unveil a new campaign in a series of print ads late this month, followed by TV spots to air in mid-August, a Cadillac spokesman confirms.

The new campaign will not have a theme song. It will be more "story oriented" to build the brand's image, say dealers who have seen the storyboards. A spokesman for Cadillac would not confirm details.

Cadillac introduced the "Break Through" campaign in TV commercials during the 2002 Super Bowl.

"I was lobbying to change it months ago," says Howard Drake, co-owner of Casa Automotive Group in Sherman Oaks, Calif. Drake sells Hummer, Saab and Cadillac vehicles. "It's been four or five years now."

But Jacques Moore, owner of Moore Cadillac in Richmond, Va., saw the storyboards and says: "The kindest way to describe it is getting back to mainstream. I'm not entirely for it."

Moore concedes that Cadillac's new ad agency, Boston-based Modernista, invented the popular "Monsters" spot for Hummer. "So these guys are really sharp and very hip," he says. "They might have a point."

Source: http://www.autoweek.com/apps/pbcs.dl...1/TOC01ARCHIVE

 

So, they're going to market Cadillacs from Snoop Dogg to Carrie Underwood. Great...

 

I love what the brand is doing to turn itself around but IMO, it still have an older person's image to me. I just cannot see myself driving a Caddy.

And when its time for my last ride, it will be in a Lexus hearse.

 

Bout time. That Zeppelin did nothing for me. I looked at those commercials and asked myself "why??" every time.

But I did like the silver STS commercial where it crashes the Opera Ball with the all black E-class and 5-series.

 

I hated them.

"ooh yeah oooh ooh yeah" tells me "wow these are cars for idiots"

 

Well.....they could always try selling CARS instead of music.

If I want to hear rock, I'll put on the Kings of Rock themselves.....AC/DC.

 

Companies that choose 60's/70's "iconic" music do it in an obvious (and largely failed, I'd say) bid to appeal to the baby boomer generation. The other irony is that Gens X and Y are generally turned OFF by these obvious overtures to what we see as the old fogie generation, so marketers end up alienating pretty much the entire potential market. Another example is American Express' new "Ameriprise" financial planners--what a marketing debacle!

Now that Caddy ad crashing the opera WAS a good ad. A little aggressive considering all of those competing vehicles are considered superior to the Caddy in most ways, but "a little aggressive" is probably what they need at this point.

 

We baby boomers, for the most part, don't even listen to that stuff OURSELVES anymore.

For example: Why listen to the Beach Boys, Jan and Dean, Mamas and Papas, etc..... sing about the California of 40 years ago when today's California is a FAR different place?