Cadillac is the exclusive title sponsor of Season 2 of HBO and Max’s Sex and the City spinoff. However, a partnership that fits better than a pair of Manolo Blahniks doesn’t happen… just like that.
“Advertisers just don’t want to be tagged on a commercial. They want to create a deeper experience,” Laura Galietta, evp, integrated ad sales marketing, Warner Bros. Discovery, told Adweek. “Clients like fewer, bigger, better. They want to partner with the people who really get them and who can create some sort of content that you can’t get anywhere else.”
In Cadillac’s case, it wanted to showcase the 2024 Lyriq, its new luxury electric vehicle, in an iconic fashion. And with Max over-indexing with the Cadillac audience, it was looking for an equally iconic series to get behind.
“What they wanted to do was show the relevance of their electric vehicles, and what I thought was great about the brief was they wanted to create an emotional demand, and they wanted to figure out a way that we could get across what the brand ethos for Cadillac was,” Galietta said. “They talked to us about words like big, bold, ambition, bravery and reinventing yourself, so there’s no better show than one of my favorites, And Just Like That.”
The auto brand’s title sponsorship for the 11-episode second season of the HBO and Max original series, which kicked off on June 22, includes a fully upfront pre-roll ad experience on the ad-supported tier of Max (known as Max’s InFront offering). The InFront ads allow Cadillac to sponsor an exclusive ad-free experience for viewers by eliminating all mid-roll advertising.
“We thought And Just Like That was the perfect platform for them because it really is all about reinventing yourself. And it is all about being bold and ambitious, and I think that so many people have an emotional connection with this cast, with this show, because of their long history with them,” Galietta said. “That’s what made it a good fit. It’s an obsession for the people that are the fans, and that’s what they’re trying to create for their electric vehicle.”
The title sponsorship allows for a brand to own a 100% share of voice for an HBO or Max Original series throughout its flight. And Cadillac’s InFront ads included front-loaded, custom creative from Warner Bros. Discovery’s in-house branded content studio, Courageous, which coordinated with Cadillac agency Carat, a Dentsu company.
“We developed custom videos that featured the show’s costume designers, Molly Rogers and Danny Santiago, who share their story of their design process,” Melissa Grady Dias, Cadillac CMO, told Adweek. “It aligns so well with our values at Cadillac, which focus on outstanding design, which is apparent on the 2024 Cadillac Lyriq, the brand’s first all-electric vehicle.”
Max’s branded content is designed to complement the overall viewing experience and maintain the integrity of the programming on the platform, blurring the lines between content and commercial. So for a project to work, Max, the client and the team behind the particular series all need to align on the vision and approach.
Conversations were first initiated months ahead of And Just Like That’s Season 2 launch, with everything coming together to creatively showcase the design of Cadillac’s electric vehicle as well as the design story of the series’ costumes.
“Cadillac is always looking for fresh and exciting ways to reach customers in an authentic way,” Grady Dias said. “Being able to tell the Cadillac story, along with the costume designers for And Just Like That, felt like a creative approach to highlight the Cadillac Lyriq in a way that the And Just Like That audience would appreciate.”
Max-imizing the experience
The custom creative comes in 90-, 30- and 15-second spots for distribution across Max and social media.Â
In addition, the campaign includes Takeover experiences, allowing an advertiser to be the first ad that users see on the platform, and Brand Block experiences, which allow brands to exclusively own every ad moment within a piece of content.
“We are here to be in partnership with our clients in a deep way, and we’re excited about it. This is still a relatively new company, and there are so many opportunities to unlock,” Galietta said. “We said in our upfront presentation that we want to invite you to dream bold, and that’s what this is.”
