|
On February 17, 1997 GM's Cadillac division responded to pressure from some of
its female employees and pulled its ad for the Cadillac Catera off the
airwaves. Cadillac spokesman James Williams said, "we've pulled it for the time
being
from our national schedules so we can study it more."
Cadillac wants to attract younger buyers, and the Catera, introduced last
November, is supposed to appeal to affluent Baby Boomers. Additionally,
Cadillac hopes that half of its Catera customers will be women.
Tom Wilkinson, GM's PR man for the Catera said, "the intention was to do an ad
that was high camp. It just didn't work out as well as we hoped it would. There
were a few GM executives who were uncomfortable with the ad and felt it was
sexist."
The original celebrity Cadillac hoped to recruit for the ad, singer Barry
White, had to back out of the project.
Jean Halliday, Detroit bureau chief for Advertising Age said Cadillac spent at
least $2 million on the spot. Taking into account the segment GM was targeting
with the Cadillac ads, Halliday questioned GM's reasoning: "It shouldn't take a
genius to figure out that Cindy Crawford in high leather boots and a short
skirt wouldn't appeal to educated professional women. I think it's just another
example of how male-dominated the auto industry is. It took female GM
executives after the ad was running for a month to convince Cadillac to pull
it."
|
