Cadillac needed to challenge antiquated brand perceptions and announce its new EV to the world – the Cadillac LYRIQ. The brief was to reach a broad audience to create new product awareness, and to begin to shift perceptions of the car buying public at large. In order to make a big enough splash, the biggest platform would be required – the Super Bowl. And if you want to get noticed in the Super Bowl, you’d better bring something special.

The idea was simple. Cadillac offers a state-of-the-art hands-free feature in their vehicles. And who better to show how that innovative feature can change the way we see the world than a person known for not having human hands, but instead, scissor hands? So, we decided to reimagine the Edward Scissorhands world 30 years after the release of the original film. In our story, the original Kim Boggs character is now a single mother to Edgar. While he has inherited some more human characteristics from her, he has most notably inherited scissor hands from his father. Naturally, life isn’t always easy for a person with scissor hands. He doesn’t exactly enjoy a life of excitement due to his manual limitations, that is, until his mom shows him a car that doesn’t require steering.

We had an important message about the new all-electric Cadillac LYRIQ and its hands-free technology, Supercruise, but a traditional approach wasn’t going to cut it. Knowing the audience is overloaded with info in this cluttered environment, we crafted a two-pronged approach: Generate intrigue then leverage the cultural currency.

We generated talk value by creating intrigue around “something” happening related to the movie “Edward Scissorhands.” We sent influencers topiaries, who posted about them inquiringly. This jumpstarted the conversation.

Next we leveraged the cultural currency. We knew from the 30th anniversary of “Edward Scissorhands” that there’s plenty of interest culturally. But we also chose Timothee Chalamet to take on the role of Edgar, as his star in Hollywood continues to grow and social presence (12 million followers) gave us significant reach. These points of interest generated massive earned media, from Vogue to Vanity Fair, from celebs on Twitter to Jimmy Kimmel Live.

Given that we needed to bring luxury car buyers into the know about the new Cadillac, there was only one stage big enough: The Super Bowl. That meant that everything about the campaign needed to live up to the scale of the setting. As Edgar Scissorhands started to come to life over the course of three months, we knew it had to be treated as more than another commercial during the game. It needed to feel like a glimpse into a new movie, set in a modernized Scissorhands world, and so, everything about the film was approached with that in mind. From tapping into the original cast to finding the perfect Edgar, and from hiding nods to scenes from the original film to updating the town for a new audience.

Cadillac generated over 1,200 earned placements, including Variety, Vanity Fair, and Vogue, and was mentioned on Jimmy Kimmel Live. The spot trended at #2 on YouTube, and set engagement records on social channels, and visitation records on the website.

Brand Opinion lift was achieved 22% above benchmark.

And best of all, it drove demand for the new vehicle. The yet-to-be-released Cadillac LYRIQ shot to #1 on car shopping sites Edmunds.com and Cars.com, with an overall increase of 963% in auto shopping activity for the brand at large.

Perhaps most interestingly, it ignited discussions within Hollywood around a potential sequel film.