Melissa Grady Dias: On Driving Marketing Differently
The Global CMO of Cadillac explains how she markets the maverick luxury brand with heart—and math.
“We understand what someone's interests are and figure out how to bring the vehicle into that environment and do something unique. That's going to make people want to hear about it, if we tell a story in the way they like to listen.”
By E.B. Moss
Cadillac’s Global CMO, Melissa Grady Dias, is a marketer's marketer, a master of math and of insight-driven creative. That approach to brand and demand marketing, matched with General Motors’ mandate for inclusivity, is likely what contributed to selling out pre-release orders for the brand’s first all-electric SUV within a day.
In this conversation, Grady Dias reveals how she balances brand and cause marketing, and uses data-driven insights as the basis for electrifying campaigns, from the experiential “Electriq Kitchen” to 6-second ads and 60-second documentaries, to gaming and YouTube takeovers. Her rationale for “flipping the funnel” is logical; her definition of equity and inclusion and its place in brand messaging is moving.
You've talked about how you find it important to “show up differently.” What does that mean?
We understand who our audience is: our future Cadillac owners. So, I try to understand where they're going to be, how they're consuming media, how they're entertaining themselves. Then I try to be in those places but do it in a different way so that it really breaks through. We understand what someone's interests are and figure out how we are going to bring the vehicle into that environment and do something unique that's going to make people want to hear about it.
“I try to understand how and where my audience is consuming media and how they're entertaining themselves. Then I try to be in those places, but to do it in a different way so that it really breaks through.”
A recent example is how we launched the Lyriq, Cadillac's first electric vehicle. We looked in our database at who our future EV owners are, and culinary indexed really high. So, we asked the question: If that's true, what would we possibly do that would make those two things collide? And we created the “Lyriq Electriq Kitchen.” We had the Lyriq designers show two Michelin star chefs the vehicle who then came up with dishes that were inspired by it, like effervescent foods motivated by the Lyriq grill pattern.
VR depiction of the Lyriq created for Cadillac Live site
From that content we created videos and 60-second documentaries about the chefs. There are over four and a half million views to date of this content.
You’ve said you actually used to take the GMATs as your form of entertainment—like doing crossword puzzles! How did your love of math get applied in your career and how have you married that with creative?
I used to watch Who's the Boss and I loved Angela and I wanted to be like her. So, I was going to study advertising in the integrated marketing communications master’s program at Northwestern. A week before graduate school started a student mentor really changed the direction of my life by saying, ‘If you like math at all, you should go into the database, direct and e-commerce program because you're still going to learn advertising.’ I fell in love with statistics. I learned how to code and how to build models and I got very into it, which really led me into understanding how a lot of technology works.
It’s like you followed your North Star!
I definitely followed my North Star and OnStar led me here! My brain likes to take things apart and then understand how to put them together. That helps me drive solutions, and sometimes solve marketing problems. So, as we're looking at, ‘How are we going to measure things?’ or ‘How are we going to use marketing technology and data?’, all of that is underlying. But at my heart and soul is this love and passion for advertising and creativity and building a creative that people love.
"Cadillac is also a bit of a maverick: we’ve always stood for those people who have big dreams and bold ambitions. Really, they’re the changemakers."
There are many initiatives that GM corporate embraces: Pride, Black Lives Matter, environmentalism. How does Cadillac manifest or adapt the GM values?
Cadillac really embodies all those values when you look at the brand and who we are. From the sustainability environment perspective, Cadillac is almost 120 years old and has really stayed at the forefront of culture and people's minds and set the standard of the world by being an innovator.
GM is looking to go all EV. We're working towards a world that is 0, 0, 0: zero emissions, zero crashes, and zero congestion, and Cadillac is at the forefront of that. We will be the first all-EV brand at GM. We will potentially be the first luxury brand that's all EV.
After our CEO Mary Barra made her statement that she wants General Motors to be one of the most inclusive companies in the world, what's been really amazing to me is the conversation that's driven; understanding what the reality of the situation is, and then driving change. People often make sweeping statements, and what really impresses me is the way her statement has come into almost everything that we do at GM. Outwardly we're doing that, whether it's on social, in a campaign or how we're spending our money, and where everything starts is inside.
There was an analogy that came about that I absolutely love: When we say inclusivity, what's the definition? You have diversity, which is just “everyone,” and you have equity, which is treating everyone the same and fairly. So, if there's a dance, everyone's invited to the dance. Inclusion is being asked to dance. We all know that moment of feeling on the outside—and that moment when someone asked you to dance. Starting with that really gives us a strong foundation in everything that we do.
That leads to one of your sweet spots—empathy for the consumer. And that's where your expertise in data really helps inform your creative. Can you talk about that?
To me where those things come together is where the beauty happens. With our consumers right now, we started with the data exercise. We built a model to predict who these future Cadillac owners are. And so, we took the entire US and we built a model, and we scored everybody, all in a clean room, data and privacy safe.
We also applied segmentation, and we got to understand who those people are. I talked about us being a bit of a maverick. When we went into our database, one of the most interesting facts that we had within this group was that we had a lot of people with the title “President” or “CEO.” It way over-indexed to the general population [compared] to other luxury. The reasoning is because we have a lot of entrepreneurs, changemakers, people who are driving change in the world.
“I definitely followed my north star. And OnStar got me here!”
You've also said that insights are nothing if they're not applied properly.
Yeah. The big thing there about empathy is, once you understand what the message is that you're trying to get across and who you're trying to give that message to, empathy and understanding helps you figure out what creative is then going to resonate with that person.
We wrote a brand manifesto that talked about how we are the brand that is always driving forward, trying to make the world a better place. When Regina King read it, she could relate it to her story. It's about hitting a moment, celebrating yourself and then thinking, ‘Now, how do I keep making the world better? How am I going to keep moving forward?’ That's how the “Never Stop Arriving” campaign was born. And it inspires me to be a better person, too.
Marketers are challenged by the fact that almost 70% of buying decisions are made before the seller can even talk to their prospect. What do you do about that?
As people are going through [the Lyriq’s buying journey], I'm always trying to understand how they are consuming that information and how they want to consume it. How do I make that a more joyful, fun, celebratory experience, versus something that's either not fun or painful? We all know those digital experiences where we've been frustrated trying to do something. You want to try to explore a vehicle, so instead of throwing up a page of specs I want to make almost a video game for you so that you can play with the vehicle.
We also know that more test drives happen on YouTube than in a car dealership. So, understanding that, what content are we going to put up and who are we going to partner with? For the presale program for Lyriq, we did 24 hours of Cadillac Live, our live video tours, and it was the first-ever streaming to run on YouTube’s masthead.
Your star-studded ad for your hands-free driving Super Cruise made hearts pound about the thought of taking your hands off the wheel.
We all talk about this moment when you're driving down a highway and you take your hands off the wheel. You've got to trust the vehicle and you see it start to turn in the curves of the road. And then that fear and trepidation turns into a little bit of elation when you're like, 'This car is really driving itself!’ Watching Tiffany Haddish or Sofia Vergara go through that, and understanding your own fear of taking your hands off the wheel, really brought it to life in an emotional way that wouldn’t happen with just an instructional video.
You've also used six-second ads, which is the counter-opposite to longer videos. Is that a trend that you see sticking around?
A lot of advertising is interruptive and disruptive, and I'd rather just give someone a moment of happiness and then let them be on their way. Instead of skippable ads or making those first couple of seconds exciting so someone's not going to skip, let's just get the point across in six seconds, like we did to play off the XT6. And I think they really do a good job.
Other media trends you’re a fan of?
I do love podcasting. I think it's a great way to feel connected and have conversations. And obviously in the pandemic TikTok really took off. There’ so much creativity there. And now we're looking at how we authentically connect with people in a game.
One thing that's really fun is, since we don't yet have enough Lyriqs to be able to show people [in-person], we used a gaming engine and built a VR Lyriq for something we have called Cadillac Live. That’s basically a one-way video conference with a product specialist. You can ask about all our vehicles: the Escalade, the XT6. You can ask about them and we can put golf clubs in there. We can have someone tall sit in the back. It’s really innovative and the car looks incredible, and it’s always fun to do those new things that will give people an experience that maybe they didn't expect.
Big brand question: “Caddy” or “Cadillac”?
Well, we don't usually say it, but I don't have a particular aversion to it. But I think, especially as we're moving into ‘Cadillac electric,’ all of our EVs end in “IQ,” with Lyriq being the first.
You recently took a walk down the aisle. Did you drive away with cans tied to the bumper of a Cadillac?
No, I wish that we had. But I did get to be driven home in a big Cadillac Escalade!
“follow your passion. The truth is, when you're passionate and excited about something, you bring a different energy to it. As a leader, when you have that energy, it attracts that energy in people around you.”
What’s the secret sauce of Melissa Grady Dias that you would bottle to help future CMOs?
I’d say three things. The first is to follow your passion. The truth is, when you're passionate and excited about something, you bring a different energy to it. As a leader, when you have that energy, it attracts that energy in people around you.
Always keep learning. I went to school for what I do, but everything that I learned is obsolete. The world has changed so much and things are going to keep changing at a faster and faster speed.
And, the last thing is: always prioritize yourself and your health. Make sure that you have time for the people around you. Make sure you have time to take care of yourself because if those things aren't okay, then nothing else matters.
Check out the full interview with Melissa Grady Dias:
November 17, 2021
