Cadillac To Air Novice Film During Academy Awards Commercial Break

DETROIT, MI - One more person will bask in the Oscar glow on February 27 when their novice film is broadcast during the Academy Awards. Devin Doyle, 20, of Athens, OH entered a five-second film in the CadillacUnder5.com contest in hopes of winning a 2005 Cadillac CTS-V. Although the grand-prize winner will not be announced until the first week of March, the top 20 finalists will be revealed via the website on Sunday. Doyle's film was randomly selected from over 2500 submissions to air during a 30 second Cadillac ad featuring the XLR-V.

Titled, "Ready For Winter," the highlighted film is about a boy who is desperate to go sledding, despite the current weather conditions.

"We felt like getting ready for winter was something that lots of people can relate to," said Doyle of his film. He shot the film along with fellow Ohio University video production majors. Doyle, who has been interested in filmmaking since he was five years old, says winning a CTS-V would be an added bonus.

CadillacUnder5.com, a contest first announced during the Sundance Film Festival, called on people to create a film no longer than five seconds in length. The idea stemmed from Cadillac's new V-Series line up of vehicles. The CTS-V, STS-V, and XLR-V are each capable of running 0-60 mph in under five seconds. The contest, which opened on Super Bowl Sunday, asked consumers, "What can you do in five seconds?"

To further promote the contest, Cadillac collaborated with MGM studios and director, F. Gary Gray. Gray's new movie, "Be Cool," includes several Cadillac references and therefore characters from the movie host the Cadillac website. Appearances by John Travolta, F. Gary Gray, Cedric The Entertainer, and Christina Milian populate Cadillacunder5.com including scenes from their upcoming film. Entrants are competing for a chance to win a trip to "Be Cool" movie premiere in London and a 2005 CTS-V.

"This contest has proved to be successful in increasing awareness of the Cadillac brand, " said Jay Spenchian, marketing director for Cadillac. "In the early stages of development, it didn't look like we would be able to pull this off but it turned out to be well worth the effort."

By the end of the 12-day submission period, over 2500 films were posted to the site and traffic to Cadillac.com was up an average of 300 percent over the same time last year.

On the night of the Academy Awards, Cadillac will air one 60-second commercial and four 30-second spots. The spots will advertise Cadillac's V-series performance cars and its SRX SUV.

Cadillac is the luxury division of General Motors Corp. (NYSE: GM) and produces vehicles such as the STS performance sedan, the XLR convertible roadster, the SRX midsize utility, and the CTS entry-level sedan. In addition to selling the popular DeVille nameplate, Cadillac also sells the popular Escalade, Escalade ESV and Escalade EXT. More information on Cadillac and its products can be found on www.gm.com www.cadillac.com or media.gm.com/division/cadillac.