Cadillac: Cadillac Live

 

Campaign Summary

Cadillac set out to revolutionize the luxury car shopping experience by meeting the luxury car shopper online.

Strategy

Objective and Context:

Google research indicates that more than 90 percent of car buyers begin their shopping online. However, online car shopping is tedious, disjointed, and impersonal. Shoppers maneuver through countless endemic sites, consumer reviews, videos, brand sites, and dealer sites, all to make the dealership experience as quick and painless as possible. In addition to that, today's luxury car buyer is more time-starved and discerning than ever.

Cadillac set out to revolutionize the luxury car shopping experience by meeting the luxury car shopper online. By making every interaction more seamless and meaningful, Cadillac believed they could achieve their objective of driving a favorable opinion of the brand.

Cadillac Live began as a beta in 2019 serving only Canadian luxury car shoppers. Once refined and optimized, it brought the experience to the U.S. in January 2020 to differentiate the brand in one of the most competitive luxury car markets in the world. Though "Cadillac Live" launched pre-COVID-19, the timing was optimal for society to embrace a move towards livestream video.

Target Audience:

To ensure "Cadillac Live" met consumer expectations, the brand needed to reach the modern luxury car shopper. This shopper is one who values material goods and meaningful experiences. To do so, it identified an audience with luxury auto ownership. This audience is made up of consumers who are mostly married, 50/50 male/female, and tech enthusiasts, who prefer to be entertained by watching sports and live events form home. Their household income is more than $100,000 and they utilize mobile devices as often as laptops.

Creative Strategy:

With such a discerning luxury car shopper, Cadillac aimed to make Cadillac Live one-part personal shopper, one part live interactive digital showroom. Cadillac Live was a breakthrough platform that offers luxury car shoppers the ability to conveniently connect 1:1 with a real person from any device and shop Cadillac from anywhere.

Cadillac transformed a 10,000-square-foot film studio into a first-of-its-kind digital showroom and the epicenter of the future of luxury car shopping. It broadcast live through the Cadillac Live website directly to consumers. The outreach was brought to life organically on the Cadillac website as well as through paid search.

Execution

Overall Campaign Execution:

Cadillac Live is accessed online at live.cadillac.com and features a rotating lineup of vehicles, allowing consumers to shop on their own terms. Cadillac Live agents give shoppers live video tours with dynamic views of the vehicles, so they can explore every detail and ask any question, without the need to leave home or wear a mask.

At the end of a session, consumers are given the option to connect with a local dealer to continue their journey with a test drive, bringing together human connection with digital innovation seamlessly from start to finish.

The campaign, which ran from February through April, was executed only through paid search, the Cadillac website, and word-of-mouth. The paid search efforts were supported by a modest $55,000 budget, delivering more than 11 million impressions (46 percent of those impressions were in mobile).

Mobile Execution:

There is no Cadillac Live app to download. Cadillac Live is device and browser-agnostic. It simply works by visiting live.cadillac.com on any internet-enabled device. Users can see the live agent, but the live agents cannot see users. Users can speak via a device microphone, chat via an instant message tool, or see vehicle specs through an on-screen interface. Cadillac also insisted upon not collecting user information (name, address, phone number, etc.) to truly provide an optimal experience. These decisions lowered the barrier for entry, increased usage, and increased session time.

Results (including context, evaluation, and market impact)

Before Cadillac Live, consumers shopping online for a luxury car were limited to outdated digital shopping tools without the chance to interact and ask unique questions tailored to their lifestyle. Shoppers could only gather the information shopping tools provided in the first place, unable to add their own context to the shopping experience.

Cadillac's consumers embraced the Cadillac Live experience. The brand saw more than 11,000 one-to-one sessions with live agents in just three months. Visitors spent an average of more than six minutes in Cadillac Live sessions, which was more than three times competitors' average session length across their entire websites.

Through a post-experience survey, Cadillac saw incredible performance, via the following results:

  • More than 80 percent of visitors would recommend Cadillac Live to friends and family
  • 65 percent of visitors said the experience evolved their opinion of the brand
  • More than 50 percent of Cadillac Live visitors stated that the experience enhanced their likelihood to buy a Cadillac
  • 40 percent of visitors stated the experience actually accelerated their purchase timing

Categories: | Industries: | Objectives: Pivot Marketing | Awards: X Gold Winner