Despite rave reviews, the Cadillac CTS has been slipping in sales. Sales in July slipped 29 percent, while August saw another 35 percent drop. This is a the opposite of what is happening in the luxury marketplace as sales are currently up six percent. A possible cause to this is the base price of the CTS has climbed $6,000 from the previous model.
“While it may have been a terrific car, it may not have been perceived as having earned its stripes for that kind of pricing against the Germans. Cadillac has just not earned its way to charge the kind of premium that the Germans can get,” said Michelle Krebs, senior analyst with Autotrader.com.
Uwe Ellinghaus, Cadillac's chief marketing officer said in a recent interview that the brand may have been too ambitious” in raising prices on the CTS. To fix this, Ellinghaus considering adding more standard features or offering some features like heated seats as stand-alone options.
"These are things that we can do relatively quickly," Ellinghaus said.
Also being changed is Cadillac's ad campaign. Ellinghaus explained that company will move away from the current messaging of comparing Cadillac to Germans, and instead focus on on its American roots.
“We definitely cannot build a brand on being as good as,” “We are not German -- and that’s a good thing. We are American. We need to build this brand on what differentiates Cadillac from our German competitors,” said Ellinghaus.
Source: Bloomberg
William Maley is a staff writer for Cheers & Gears. He can be reached at [email protected] or you can follow him on twitter at @realmudmonster.
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