Cadillac, a 112 year-old brand, has recently focused on innovation and brand elevation, hosting cultural events at their brand hub Cadillac House and forming fashion-forward brand partnerships with everyone from Saks Fifth Avenue to Vogue.
Director of Brand Marketing Melody Lee has been at the helm of this renewal, focusing on marketing strategy, brand management and global communications planning. We asked her some questions about her role, her start in the industry and the future of Cadillac.
I oversee brand and marketing strategy development, brand management, partnerships and experiences as well as global communications planning. But ultimately, the job is to make Cadillac cool again. It was once the brand and car that the coolest people aspired to own, and we believe we can restore it back that iconic status. My team and I feel that we’ve been entrusted with the Cadillac brand, and that is a job that we take very seriously.
How did you get your start in the industry and what’s been your path to the position you currently have?
I’m not a marketer in the traditional sense. I got my start in crisis communications and public affairs, but what it taught me early on my in career was that a brand’s reputation takes a long time to build and can be lost in an instant. I began on the agency side and worked with Fortune 500 clients. I picked up GM as a client between its bankruptcy and subsequent IPO in 2009 and transitioned over to Cadillac’s marketing department in 2012.
How is the Cadillac brand reinventing itself?
By rebuilding its relevance with the next generation of luxury automotive consumers. The beautiful thing about Cadillac’s heritage is that it has been squarely at the heart of pop culture for nearly 70 years. It’s a tricky thing trying to restore Cadillac back to that place — it has to be done in a way that doesn’t read as an appropriation of culture, but instead gives the brand a credible role as a co-creator of culture. Our partnerships in fashion, art, design and entrepreneurial thought leadership, along with the mindset-focused Dare Greatly communications platform are all part of that strategy. Cadillac’s aim is to be as much a lifestyle brand as it is a car brand and fortunately that’s true to our past.
What is the best part about the work you do?
I love turnarounds. It must come from my crisis management background! I find it far more fun to be handed a challenge and told to turn it around than to be handed something pristine and told not to mess it up. The Cadillac brand challenge is one that will have to play out over decades, not years or months. And I work with an incredible team of colleagues who feel that the cause of reinventing a brand so beloved around the world is much more than just a job. Cadillac’s still being written about in Top 40 pop songs and the phrase “the Cadillac of…” is still in the vernacular. That is a lasting relevance any brand would kill to have, but now we just have to live up to it for the next generation.
What will be your major marketing initiatives in 2017?
We’ll be in year three of marketing communications under the “Dare Greatly” platform, and working hard to translate what that means as a 114-year old brand as well as what that means in terms of our terrific vehicles. We’ll continue to be focused very intently on building relevance for the brand with rising Gen X and Y luxury buyers. We hope that by identifying shared interests, shared passions and shared aspirations — and building bridges to them — we’ll form the basis of our future of growth.
Where does the brand hope to be in 5 years time?
We’re in the midst of what we refer to as our “brand elevation” phase. In five years’ time, we hope to be well into the “brand expansion” phase, where a revitalized brand image will set a strong foundation for the release of several new products between 2018-2022. And if there are even more songs that come out about Cadillac and more analogies comparing various products to the brand, then all the better!
af&co.
View ProfileLaura Neilson
View ProfileQuinn PR
View ProfileVan Wyck & Van Wyck
View ProfileAZZI+CO
View ProfileNo. 29 Communications
View ProfileKate Spade
View ProfileBullfrog + Baum
View ProfileLFB Media Group, BMF Media
View ProfileMeg Connolly Communications
View ProfileThe Communications Store
View ProfileBlack Frame
View ProfileAmazon
View ProfileBICOM Communications
View ProfileApollo Theater
View ProfilePreferred Hotels & Resorts
View ProfileChristie’s.
View ProfileKensington Grey
View ProfileCultural Counsel
View ProfileDi Petroff PR
View ProfileBecca
View ProfileSimmons PR
View ProfileLesley Vecsler Communications
View ProfilePR Consulting
View ProfileIRO PARIS
View ProfilePurple
View ProfileMMGY Wagstaff
View ProfileSmall Luxury Hotels of the World
View ProfileThe Brandman Agency
View ProfileBattalion PR
View ProfileGia Kuan Consulting
View ProfileRelevance International
View ProfileAlpha Kilo
View ProfileBacchus Agency
View ProfileMKG
View ProfileAmerican Express
View ProfileWalker Drawas
View ProfilePineapple Co / MKG
View ProfileLinda Gaunt Communications
View ProfileLaForce
View ProfileThe Select 7
View ProfileH&S
View Profile12.29
View ProfileBrandstyle Communications
View ProfileCJC Insights
View ProfileClaur Magazine & Creative Agency
View ProfileThe Flair Index
View ProfileNike Communications
View ProfileWednesday Agency
View Profile12.29
View ProfileSoho House & Co.
View ProfileParasol Marketing
View ProfileKWT Global
View ProfileBlack Flower Agency
View ProfileElliot Carlyle
View ProfileJenelle Hamilton Inc.
View ProfileThe Berman Group
View ProfileBerlinRosen
View ProfileTHE CONSULTANCY PR
View ProfileRon Wendt Design
View ProfileThe 5th Column
View ProfileSHADOW
View ProfileMMCurate
View ProfileM18
View ProfileThe Communications Bureau
View ProfileModern Luxury
View ProfileCarfrae Consulting
View ProfileJBC
View ProfileMillerKnoll
View ProfilePK PR & BRANDING
View ProfileNike Communications
View ProfileLittle Gem
View ProfileSmall Girls PR
View ProfileJ Public Relations
View ProfileSix One Agency
View ProfileCabana
View ProfileTaco Bell
View ProfileEddie Zaratsian
View ProfileAlison Brod Marketing + Communications
View Profilealice + olivia
View ProfileFunctional Creative Design
View ProfileCare of Chan
View ProfileChefanie
View ProfileThe A List
View ProfileWhitney Museum of American Art
View ProfileMagrino Agency
View ProfileBMF
View ProfileEmily P. Wheeler
View ProfileStylists to a T
View ProfileChristie's
View ProfileBillion Dollar Boy
View ProfileLaForce
View ProfileNJF an MMGY Global Company
View ProfileBPCM
View ProfileFactory PR
View ProfileRachel Cole Art Advisory
View ProfileBrandstyle Communications
View ProfileMarie Claire
View ProfileChristie's
View ProfileThe Gathery
View ProfilePaul Wilmot Communications
View ProfileModern Luxury
View ProfileSEEN Group
View ProfileGeneral Motors
View Profile