Marketing Advice from Cadillac -- Yes, Cadillac

There was a good Fast Company article about the reinvention of Cadillac's marketing, "Cadillac Turns To A 28-Year-Old To Reinvent The 'Standard Of The World';To break from its past, Caddy turned to someone who is different in every way" focusing on 28-year-old Veda Partalo, planning director at Minneapolis-based Fallon, the ad agency tasked with completing Cadillac's decade-long makeover.

I know, Cadillac.

The truly worthwhile nugget appeared in the last column in the print edition:

To her, the buyer, not the seller, determines the narrative. It is the buyer who wants ads that reinforce his essential rightness. She only figures out who he is and what he wants to be, then shows him a spot with a Cadillac besting a Ferrari on a windy racetrack.

Partalo began by scrapping the old approach of mini-campaigns for each model. "Sometimes you want to communicate to each buyer based on his individual needs," she says, her pumpkin-colored hair falling in waves around the Recaro bucket seat, a hand-stitched blend of black leather and saffron faux suede. "But the luxury buyer is different. He's more concerned with the brand's overall background, its heritage." If you're still claiming Standard of the World status, you better be able to prove it--especially when you're putting $70,000 of American metal up against Germany's finest. "So we wanted to do two things," she says. "First, bring Caddy back to its original standing. Second, do it through a campaign of substance."

This approach is especially in the social media age.