In February 2014 Cadillac launched a television ad for its ELR car during the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics. The actor Neal McDonough stands by his pool and asks, “Why do we work so hard? For what? For this? For stuff?”
He says that other countries “take August off. Off!” Then he answers his own question: “Because we’re crazy, driven, hard-working believers, that’s why.” The ad ends: “As for all the stuff? That’s the upside of only taking two weeks off in August, n’est-ce pas?”
Cadillac called the ad a “brand provocation.” Some viewers praised it as “an unapologetic ode to American values.” Others called it “Ugly American chest thumping at its worst.”