Cadillac’s recent ascent onto the global luxury stage is a breath of fresh air in the industry (and a source of sleepless nights for some German, Japanese and Italian folk), after decades of being second rate, held together almost entirely by the strong resonance of its name and the now meaningless marketing slogans that stood true for its products back in the day.
Now, they have some really attractive metal lined up, that would almost sell itself, yet they seem to be unsure of their ELR and have therefore adopted a… patriotic point of view as the basis for their first commercial dedicated to the range-extender EV coupe.
Thus, they have enlisted the help of actor and producer Neal McDonough to whom they’ve assigned a distinctly patriarchal and pro-American persona. He is portrayed as the head of the family, living in an architectural jewel of a modern house, with a pool so big it even has grass on one side… He plays a rich stuck up board meeting lover who’s “worked hard” and has managed to become the owner of an ELR because “he believed anything was possible” and “only took two weeks off in August.”
The ad is okay and worth the sixty seconds you spend watching it; McDonough’s perfect suit exudes businessman-like confidence and his performance here is excellent too.
Bottom line: the ELR is a nice car, a unique model not only for the manufacturer, but the entire industry as it currently stands, and it’s sad that Cadillac still wants to cram the whole lifestyle they think you should have up your throat.
This commercial sticks to the same guidelines as thousands of other uninspired and repetitive car ads that are shot in a specific type of house (which gets bigger with the vehicle’s price tag), with carefully chosen characters that speak in ambiguous code (with clothes and language also get nicer the higher the car’s price is) whose sole purpose is to try and appeal to you if what you’re already living is a match to what you see onscreen.
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