Show & Tell Lifestyles and the Cadillac Manifesto

There are two types of lifestyle spots: the kind that show you a lifestyle you aspire to and think you can live if you have the product (or pretend to live if you have the product); and, the kind that tell you who you are or would be (and maybe give you a glimpse, too) if you have the product. The latter are somewhere between a horoscope and a manifesto, both in quality and truth.

Beer commercials are some of the more prevalent lifestyle spots. Interestingly, Dos Equis’s “most interesting man in the world” is more of a “manifesto.” When they started showing the lifestyle instead of telling you about it, it stopped working.

Cadillac’s new in your face “two weeks of vacation” spot is also a manifesto. Though they show a wealthy guy in his beautiful house, the spot is about what he is saying, not showing. Interestingly, it has received some backlash because it sounds like Cadillac wants the one-percenters back. Even though the spokesman looks older than he is, that’s not the target. Or is it? Clearly, Cadillac can’t make up its mind.

A couple of weeks ago, they announced they were modifying their logo, getting rid of the olive branches and elongating the shield to supposedly attract a younger audience. But it’s long been a truth about the post-Boomers that they eschew the Type A, 80-hour week for a more balanced lifestyle that is much more European or Australian than it is American.

So, who would go for this Cadillac manifesto? Guys who missed the point of “Wolf of Wall Street” (or “Blue Jasmine” or even “American Hustle”) and want to grow up to be like Leonardo’s character? The spot even looks like a trailer for WoWS. Yikes!

I tell you what, marketing folks from Cadillac, and your pals at the ad agency Rogue. You need a vacation. Take four weeks off. Maybe longer.