To support the release of its first fully all-electric vehicle, the LYRIQ, later this year, Cadillac is building a story around the future of luxury with an immersive experiential installation traveling to iconic sporting properties and industry events. Dubbed The ELECTRIQ Theater, the unit is a tall cubed structure with LED surfaces inside and out, that offers content and incentives for visitors.
Inside, the floor, the walls, and the ceiling all come to life with moving graphics and gesture recognition, like bright circles that follow attendees’ physical movements around the floor. Next, a 360-degree cinematic film begins detailing Cadillac’s 120-year history in luxury and its role in the all-electric future. The experience activated at the Miami Open tennis tournament, March 22 through April 3, and the PGA Tour, July 7-10, and will pop up later this summer at the brand’s experience center at The Americana at Brand in Glendale, CA, with the call to “escape the mundane and explore the sophisticated design and technology of EVs at the Cadillac ELECTRIQ Theater.”
The LYRIQ is one of “many” EVs the brand plans to roll out over the next few years, according to Victoria Gagliardi, brand partnerships and experiences lead at Cadillac. We spoke with Gagliardi about The ELECTRIQ Theater and marketing in the EV space.
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Victoria Gagliardi, head of partnerships and brand experiences at Cadillac
Event Marketer: Walk us through the concept of The ELECTRIQ Theater.
Victoria Gagliardi: As a brand, we can’t necessarily define what the electric future will look like, but we certainly have a larger marketing vision for what we feel our role is in that, and so we’re really working hard to create an environment that reinforces us as not just a sponsor, but as an iconic brand that’s at the forefront of culture. Cadillac is always reinventing what luxury automotive can be, and so we asked ourselves—how can we tell our story, embrace this blank canvas to do so, and build upon on where we’re going in EV. It wasn’t just about selling cars. We knew we needed to connect with people in an emotional way. I like to say this experience has a heartbeat, and it’s kind of always calling you in. It’s something you can see from across the event footprint.
EM: And what are the specific marketing goals for the program?
Gagliardi: This year, we’re focused on brand opinion and consideration lift and this idea of “a brand for me.” What we loved thinking about as we were working on this process is the idea of brand affinity—that people can fall in love with your brand before they even know what you sell. We wanted the experience to be bright and colorful and exude this type of energy that was indicative of where the brand is going. You’ll see that even in our advertising we’re changing how we showcase ourselves by experimenting with color, lights, and sound to start to shake up how people feel about us.
EM: Any key takeaways for your team as you’ve launched this experience?
Gagliardi: I would say in incentivizing the experience in a way where we’re saying, “Come experience what we’re offering and let us reward you in that.” We’ve been fortunate to have some really great partnerships that help us engage fan bases on their home turf. We know that consumers for Cadillac index really high in tennis and in golf, and we’re there as kind of the topping on the cake. We incentivize them into our spaces by providing them a little nugget of fun to use at the PGA shops or the Miami Open shop—something small to show them we know their time is valuable at these events.
EM: Can you share a few results so far?
Gagliardi: We’ve seen overwhelmingly positive responses. We’ve exceeded all of our throughput objectives in terms of the number of guests we hoped would experience this. We have double-digit brand lift. So, we’ve seen that the “brand for me,” that “emotive response” is really working for us and people are connecting with the brand in a special way. And then our satisfaction ratings have been through the roof. We have a 95-percent satisfaction rate across the board in people attending and experiencing our activation.
EM: You mention storytelling, and how that’s a critical tool in developing campaigns in the EV space. Talk about that creative process for Cadillac with this messaging.
Gagliardi: We needed to break the mold and move forward in a way that can reach audiences that not only have always loved Cadillac, like my father and grandfather did, but that also can touch younger audiences, too. And so, the storytelling around what we’ve created had to be something that was exciting and intriguing. The experience is true entertainment and they walk out amazed by all the sounds and the immersive environment they were just in. And then they’re greeted by the LYRIQ, and its beautiful lighting sequences and structure and design, and truly think of us differently to where they say, “I never expected that from Cadillac.” It really is an exciting time to be in experiential for automotive. Agency: Jack Morton Worldwide.
Explore the ELECTRIQ Theater:
