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Ninety-three years ago, Cadillac used a groundbreaking words-only advertisement in the Saturday Evening Post. More recently, its television commercials featured the pumping strains of Led Zeppelin.
The Cadillac brand evolution could be considered a microcosm of how General Motors Corp. advertising work has changed. It experienced early growth, glory years, rough times and renewal. It still faces challenges.
The Detroit-based carmaker is about to turn 100, and for much of that time "The General" has relied on the Detroit offices of a trio of agencies - they've evolved into Campbell-Ewald, Leo Burnett Detroit and McCann Erickson - to craft the advertising campaigns that have come to define GM's brands, and often moved into the popular culture. But, over time, a growing share of the work has moved out of Motown and out of the hands of Detroit agencies.
In 1915, "The Penalty of Leadership," a onetime-only print ad by copywriter Theodore MacManus, appeared in the Saturday Evening Post and became part of advertising lore. A response to criticism of Cadillac's V-8 engine, the ad didn't mention Cadillac, or even cars - but it was a resounding success, earning its way onto Advertising Age's Top 100 ads of the 20th century.
"The leader is assailed because he is a leader,"the ad read, "and the effort to equal him is merely added proof of that leadership."
MacManus later founded his own agency that would undergo several mergers and acquisitions. He also mentored a young Leo Burnett, and today he is the namesake of The MacManus Group advertising holding...