Thoughts
GE's "Ecomagination" Campaign
By Todd Brashear
With its latest corporate image campaign, General Electric, or GE as it’s more commonly known, claims to be “ecomagining” a whole new way of doing business, joining the countless brands around the world that have jumped aboard a marketing bandwagon that has been colored green, figuratively speaking, using zero-VOC, not-tested-on-animals, non-toxic paint. Having produced a handful of television spots, print ads, an enormous website with all the bells and whistles, press releases, media kits, fact sheets and something tabbed an “Ecomagination Report,” GE wants us to believe that it’s not only bringing good things to life but that it’s doing its part to save the planet, too.
The campaign covers a lot of communication vehicles, highlighting a number of GE projects and products. For the sake of simplicity, and because you’ve likely already seen them, I’ll address the television commercials.
The campaign started out solidly enough a year or more ago, with a child capturing a jar of wind, then traveling across the countryside by foot, by train and by motorcycle, protecting his precious, airy cargo until he arrives home to help his grandfather blow out the candles on his birthday cake. The spot ends with a claim that GE is harnessing the power of wind, “some of the cleanest, renewable energy on Earth.” It’s a great piece of advertising. It’s creative and heart-warming and just as important, it’s true. Thumbs up to BBDO New York, the ad agency that created the spot.
But here endeth the lesson in good “green” marketing because after “Jar,” GE’s ecomagination campaign went awry. The company’s two current TV spots, in my opinion, were ill-advised for a number of reasons.
For starters, the television spot “Fishing” works not to build a positive impression but more so to offend environmentalists’ sensibilities. As Norwegian fishermen haul a massive net full of water bottles aboard their ship, a voiceover mentions something about a GE desalination plant. GE’s fault here is two-fold. First off, no one is going to experience an environmental warm-fuzzy while seeing trash pulled from the ocean. If anything, that’s outright disturbing. Secondly, bottled water is perceived as one of the least green consumer products available. So, if anything, the audience has formed a negative impression before GE even gets to its point. So much for a positive brand image, a casualty of poorly researched creative.
The other current spot is a bit of a mixed bag. Appropriately named “Tree,” the commercial shows a beautiful tree as it uproots itself, sidles across the landscape, scampers across the highway and embraces a home that’s equipped with GE products. The payoff? An older witness explains this oddity to a young man with one word: “Househugger.” This one isn’t outright bad. In fact, as creative goes, I think it’s solid work. Funny, although not as heart-tugging as “Jar.” So what’s wrong with it?
In a word, messaging. And this goes to the most difficult issue facing any company that markets itself as green – that is, saying that your company is green doesn’t necessarily make it so. At least not entirely so.
Specifically, in the “Tree” spot, the home is equipped with solar panels, which are certainly green. And it features energy-efficient lighting and appliances. Products like these play a role in green housing; however, they do not make a “green” home. Green homes are more about construction and insulation and building materials and less about anything GE makes, e.g. a dishwasher that uses two fewer gallons of water. Not that you’d understand that from the GE commercial.
Then, there’s the smaller issue of word choice. With only one word of dialog in the entire commercial, that word needed to be awfully powerful. To some people, the term “treehugger” is a point of pride. To others, it’s an insult. By adopting a variation of that term, GE is not communicating one clear message to its audience. Those who perceive the “househugger” punchline as an insult could be left thinking of energy-efficient products in a negative light.
Finally, there’s the biggest mistake of all – not how the commercial “Tree” was made but making it in the first place. As messaging goes, “Jar” and “Fishing” work to varying degrees because they’re not trying to sell the audience anything other than a feeling. They’re image pieces about wind turbines and desalination plants, neither of which are available to the general TV viewer. But in “Tree,” it’s clear that GE is torn – is it a company that’s committed to “ecomagination” or does it just want to sell as many electronic products as possible? And all this on top of the reality that GE makes a lot of products for applications that many people consider decidedly ungreen, such as nuclear power, oil and gas exploration, “clean” coal and military weapons systems. Considering all that, GE’s newfound environmentalism is a pretty tough sell.
“Welcome to our vision of a healthier world” … “a better place to live for everyone”… that’s what GE says.
Seems to me their ecomagination got the best of them.
E-mail the author: Todd Brashear