The Crest Crust
I have long wondered why Cadillac doesn’t evidence some marketing commensurate with its price level. Maybe it’s just my prejudice that when a company like Cadillac is trying to sell to the upper class, that they should be driven by smarter minds. Of course, they don’t make very good cars either, but apparently they sell enough to people who know better to stay in business.
They get a boost, truth be told, from the fact that a lot of elderly Americans with more money than sense buy Cadillacs solely for the image. They wouldn’t consider buying a foreign car -- e.g., Lexus or Mercedes -- and that leaves them with little choice other than a Lincoln or some other boat like a Ford Crown Victoria.
Behind the wheel of a Cadillac -- so often holding up traffic — is a grey-haired relic whose semi-glazed daze could be due either to over-medication or poor hearing aids or both. He’s wearing a light blue cardigan sweater over a pastel knit shirt, atop plaid slacks, and it’s all accessorized by white vinyl belt and matching shoes. Sitting next to him in the passenger seat is his blue-haired partner, clad in uncomfortable fashion, wearing a frozen, meaningless Nancy Reagan smile. There wasn’t much to say in the early years, and now there was nothing.
They likely have his and hers Caddies -- hers is Mary Kay Pink and his is Banker Black — which they scuttle back and forth to the country club, shopping, dinner out with friends, and Sunday visits with their grandchildren. We are not talking a trail-blazing, back-packing kinda lifestyle. They aren’t zipping up freeway ramps or burning rubber getting out of the Paque-’n-Puque.
So why, pray tell, do the Cadillac radio ads feature comments about cornering ability on mountain roads? Why do they trumpet a super-powerful Northstar 600Mghz engine, which even if it is any good is never gonna be used safely? Why would one commercial suggest that Cadillac owners crank up their radio and drive around the neighborhood showing off their car? The folks driving Cadillacs don’t drive that way. People who drive that way don’t drive Cadillacs.
Cadillac will probably bring back a fleet with fins one of these days, which everyone will pan and a lotta people will buy, simply because it’s a Cadillac and they get a new one every year. In the meantime, someone at parent GM may have induced the Caddie designers to come up with a sleeker — for a tank — design. I saw one of these behemoths the other day, all clean and shiny with a special acronymic flare on the trunk that read "ETC". Which I suppose means something, like Electronic Thought Control, but who wants to be driving around in an Et Cetera.?
Ya gotta think that Cadillac is happy with their market share, as in fat, dumb and happy, and they’re probably right to be so. One imagines that there will always be a segment of the population that will think Cadillac means something more than a hefty price tag for a glitzy if benign crest. The problem for the rest of us is that (1) it’s not good for people to squander resources on lesser quality for the sake of image, because (2) it leaves the prices higher for higher quality goods because they are chased by fewer dollars.
Too bad that Cadillac doesn’t measure up to its own image.
And that’s SetonnoteS...I’m Tony Seton.