Cadillac moved the needle on Super Bowl Sunday.
All it took was a pair of scissor hands and a friendly joust with Norway over electric vehicles.
Judging by shopping activity on third-party sites and search traffic across the Web, Cadillac was a big winner thanks to two Super Bowl spots that showcased the upcoming electric Lyriq crossover.
The luxury brand revived the Edward Scissorhands universe for a brand spot that centered on his son, Edgar, and highlighted Cadillac’s Super Cruise driver-assist technology. In a corporate spot for General Motors, the Lyriq grabbed screen time as actor Will Ferrell took on Norway after learning the country sells more EVs per capita than the U.S.
“The [Scissorhands] concept really worked for the vehicle and the features they were promoting,” Kevin Krim, CEO of analytics firm EDO Inc., told Automotive News. Brands can have success if they “promote the right kind of vehicle or the right kind of product, more generally, and have a flashy, big idea with celebrities that are authentically engaging with the brand or the product in the ways that you want. That’s what Cadillac did really well.”
Cadillac’s traffic data surged on major third-party shopping sites Autotrader, Cars.com and Kelley Blue Book after the spots aired.
The brand saw a 30 percent lift in searches on Autotrader after GM’s “No Way Norway” ran. Cadillac saw an even bigger lift of 67 percent on the site after the Scissorhands spot ran in the fourth quarter. On Kelley Blue Book, traffic to Cadillac’s new-vehicle pages rose 103 percent. Cadillac traffic on Cars.com leaped 194 percent.
Cars.com said it analyzed site traffic patterns to advertised vehicle model pages during the eight minutes before each spot aired and again eight minutes after. The lift percentages for Kelley Blue Book and Autotrader are calculated by looking at the shopping activity an hour before the game vs. an hour after the ads ran.
On Cars.com, GM’s focus on electric vehicles had another side effect: It lifted total EV searches on the site. The Will Ferrell spot ignited a 77 percent increase in EV searches on Cars.com.
Hummer searches also saw a bounce after the electric version appeared in GM’s ad with “Saturday Night Live” actor Kenan Thompson and actress Awkwafina. But the Hummer EV isn’t out yet, so the gasoline-powered Hummer models of yesteryear got a bump. Searches for used Hummers jumped 41 percent on Cars.com.
GMC experienced a 39 percent bounce in new-vehicle page views on the Kelley Blue Book site.
The traffic gains weren’t limited to GM. Jeep’s spot, which starred iconic musician Bruce Springsteen, and Toyota’s ad that centered on Paralympic swimmer Jessica Long also garnered attention.
Jeep’s call for unity, “The Middle,” led to a 93 percent traffic spike for Jeep brand pages on Cars.com. Autotrader searches for Jeep increased 36 percent, while the brand saw an 11 percent rise on new-vehicle pages on Kelley Blue Book.
Toyota searches on Autotrader were up 18 percent Sunday night after its ad aired.
Krim thought Toyota, a sponsor of the Olympics and Paralympics, made a smart move to focus on its partnerships while it’s between vehicle launches.
“For a company like Toyota, they don’t need it to be an immediate payoff,” Krim said. “The reach, the attention and engagement are all super strong in this environment.”
EDO, which measures online search traffic across the Web, found that Jeep and Cadillac led the way for the auto ads in the firm’s search engagement index. The index is the company’s proprietary measure of the increase in online search activity for a brand or product in the minutes immediately following a TV ad airing.
EDO found that Jeep’s spot and Cadillac’s spot ranked third and fourth, respectively, in their search index. The rankings included each ad that ran during the game.
Vroom, the used-vehicle shopping platform, ran its first Super Bowl spot this year and ranked 15th in EDO’s index. GM’s Ferrell ad came in at No. 23, while Toyota’s spot ranked No. 50 on the night.
There were only four Super Bowl spots from manufacturers this year — two from GM, one from Jeep and another from Toyota — marking one of the lightest years on the auto side in recent memory. The game itself drew 96.2 million viewers, according to Nielsen, the lowest number since 2007.
“The one other thing to note is the incredible lengths that people had to go to to produce these spots during COVID,” Krim said. “The Jeep spot, the Cadillac spot and the GM Norway spot and the Toyota spot were all super-high production value. Those were expensive, well-produced ads. To do that is a heroic feat in this kind of environment. By the way, that also shows why, in this year, if you didn’t have that big idea, the obvious call was to stay home.”