• by Tanya Gazdik , March 18, 2021

Cadillac is continuing its foray into celebrity marketing, this time enlisting a range of well-known actors, musicians, dancers and comedians to illustrate its hands-free Super Cruise driver assistance technology.

A social effort breaking today includes actors Sofia Vergara, Joe Manganiello and Tiffany Haddish, musicians the Jonas Brothers, and dancers Stephen Laurel "tWitch" Boss and Allison Holker, all stepping into the driver’s seat and letting go of the wheel. 

The General Motors luxury brand projects that the effort will reach upwards of 167 million Instagram users and 48 million Twitter users based on the collective number of followers of all the celebrities, who also include director Elizabeth Banks. 

The content series, breaking today, gives viewers a front-seat view when the celebs engage Super Cruise for the very first time and the vehicle handles a curve in the road, brakes or changes lanes, all touch-free.

“The team was brainstorming about this last year, and what came up was that one of the things that is so memorable, whether you are driving or watching, is the the first time someone takes their hands off the wheel,” Cadillac CMO Mellisa Grady tells Marketing Daily. “And so the idea came about: What if we showed people who are very expressive and who haven't been in Super Cruise before? What if we showed them having their ‘let go’ moment? That was the impetus for this campaign.”

A 90-second “hero” video includes all the celebrities, as does a longform “behind the scenes” video. A larger content series will include additional talent-specific cuts to roll out through the remainder of the month. 

The creative has some parallels to Chevrolet’s “Real People” campaign, Grady acknowledged. But celebrities have a lot more reach. 

The effort was created by Cadillac’s internal marketing team, with support from PR agency Weber Shandwick.

“I think that with this technology specifically, there's no better way to educate someone about it than to show it being used,” Grady says.