Despite Millennial-Wooing BMW, Mary Kay Stays True to Pink Cadillac
Cadillac may be struggling to revive its sales and redefine its brand, but there's no doubt about the value of Cadillac to Mary Kay Cosmetics. The leader in multi-level beauty-products marketing has proudly entered its 45th year of awarding pink Cadillacs to its top salespeople. The Mary Kay Pink Cadillac even has its own Twitter feed.
In fact, GM has painted more than 100,000 custom cars for Mary Kay over the decades since founder Mary Kay Ash purchased five Cadillac Coupe de Villes, had them repainted to match the "Mountain Laurel Blush" in a makeup compact that she carried and rewarded the company's top five salespeople, according to marketing blogger David Meerman Scott.
For Halloween, the Cadillac "dressed up" in various costumes and fans could vote for their favorite online, Scott reported. (No surprise: Miss Piggy won.) By staging promotions such as these, the brand's Twitter feed "helps modernize the brand by making its icon retro cool," the blogger added.
Also in the holiday season, Mary Kay was preparing to make its annual donation to the Today Show annual Holiday Toy and Gift Drive on NBC and presented a donation of more than $3 million on the show this morning.
Interestingly, however, some things are changing at Mary Kay on the auto partnership front. While not replacing the pink Cadillac as a loaned prize for its top performers in building a big and successful sales team, Mary Kay has changed up the automotive prize that goes to its second-tier "premier" directors who are working their way from black to pink. Until lately, that car was a black Ford Mustang, Bloomberg reported.
But at a sales meeting early this year in New Orleans, Mary Kay revealed that it has replaced the Mustang with a black BMW 320i. The move is aimed in part at appealing to younger Mary Kay salespeople. Even so, the news service reported, a pink Cadillac will remain the ultimate prize.
