Cadillac

The First Cadillac –
Washington D.C. Area Cadillac Dealer Association

In December 2008 Tier 10 was approached by the Washington DC Area Cadillac Dealers’ Association to help them expand their presence in the already competitive luxury market.

Tier 10 sought a unique solution to this brand-building exercise and through preliminary research unearthed a little known fact about Cadillac and the Presidency of the United States, creating a Cadillac campaign with extraordinary results.

Our Process:

When people hear the word “Cadillac” they think luxury American-made cars and SUVs.  We made certain to stay brand consistent with Cadillac’s 100-year history.

Researching the History of Cadillac and the U.S. Presidency was an educational exercise that we were excited to share with the public. Incorporating Cadillac’s already well-defined brand, we integrated the long-standing history between this luxury vehicle and the Presidency of the United States: “Cadillac has been the ‘First Car’ since 1907”.

With the Historic inauguration of Barack Obama rapidly approaching, we saw an opportunity to help the Washington DC Area Cadillac Dealers’ Association creatively dominate local print outlets without pushing a retail message.
Building a multi-media campaign that included an entire website, full page newspaper ads, as well as, a one-time-only front page “strip” in the Washington Times, we set out to build a branding campaign for Cadillac that encompassed just 2 of the 10 tiers our company is built on, Tier 02: Traditional and Tier 03: Digital.

Our Strategy:

Using creative media placement we were able to place a strip ad on the front page of the Washington Times the day following the inauguration (a very popular issue that many people hold on to) along with a full page ad pointing readers to a custom website site illustrating the complete history of Cadillac and the Presidency and featuring a video, photo gallery and links to the regional Cadillac website highlighting current local offers and vehicle profiles.

The Result:

Results were staggering considering our limited reach, Print and Web only. The print ads ran in only 3 circulation issues. Day 1 received 12,228unique visitors, day 2 received 18,094 unique visitors, an unexpected increase for day-2 tracking, and day 3 received 7,121 unique visitors.