Cadillac ATS ads tout car's world-class capabilities
Reprints
Print
Respond
DETROIT -- General Motors is going to great lengths -- including the mountains of Morocco and the southern tip of South America -- to pitch its new Cadillac ATS compact sedan.
Last week, Cadillac launched documentary-style advertisements that show the ATS speeding through the streets of Monaco and slicing through the windswept plains of Patagonia in Chile.
GM is playing up the car's sportiness as it seeks to sway younger, performance-minded buyers who historically have gravitated to German cars such as the segment-leading BMW 3 series.
One commercial shows the car negotiating more than 100 hairpin corners on a three-mile stretch of the Atlas Mountains in Morocco.
Another shows it speeding through the ancient, narrow Guoliang Tunnel in a remote part of China.
"What you see in this campaign is befitting of something as ambitious as the task at hand from a business standpoint," says Jim Vurpillat, Cadillac's global marketing director.
The campaign, dubbed Cadillac ATS vs. the World, marks one of the brand's most important launches in decades. The success of the ATS, Cadillac's first true compact sedan since it introduced the widely panned Cimarron in 1981, is critical to GM's goal of elevating Cadillac into a global luxury player.
The spots are accessible online and will debut as TV commercials during the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games this week.
The ATS is expected to arrive in showrooms by the end of August. It starts at $33,990, including shipping.
The campaign, crafted by Cadillac's creative ad agency, Fallon, touts the car's performance bona fides, noting that it's the lightest in the compact-luxury segment. Two of the 10 commercials GM plans to air explicitly call out the 3 series, long the volume leader in the United States and nationally.
You can reach Mike Colias at mcolias@crain.com.
