BBDO New York’s ad for GE is topsy-turvy – upside down, back to front and surprising.
Both the visual and the narrative delivery of the new GE commercial, Time Upon a Once, are mnemonics that also symbolise its idea. That’s an above average way to get your idea across.
Which wouldn’t matter much if the idea was weak. But it’s not. The idea is that GE solves problems by turning them “inside up down to approach them newly.” That it leads with innovation and surprise. It’s not a unique idea.
But its delivery is. It’s really hard these days for any brand, and especially for a company, to have a unique selling proposition. The next best thing is to own the most appealing one.
BBDO New York, you have most likely achieved that for GE.
While you’re riveted to the visuals, you’re surprised to realise that you can understand the narrative. In fact, it’s rather fun to listen to:
“Time upon a once, people approached problems the way same—always start at the starting, and questions the same asking…
“But that only resulted in improvements small. So we step a took back, and problems turned these inside up down to approach them newly. And that’s when we it solved.”
It’s also an ad you could watch twice, three times or the twenty times that an aggressive media buy will inflict on its audience.
Both GE and BBDO wanted everything in the ad to be made as practical and shot in-camera as much as it could be. That involved tilted rooms, harnesses, backwards walking and actors hanging upside-down.
The ad launched (cleverly) in cinemas before screenings of Tomorrowland. [Note, the idea was clever. The movie leads with imagination and surprise. The media buyers could not have known it would rate poorly.]
It will run in cinemas in the US until the end of June and on TV and online until next year.
Creative director, Michael Aimette, commented, “This one is different to Childlike Imagination, which is different to our Ideas creature, which is not quite like Invention Donkey or our Jeff Goldblum GE Lighting spot. All of these executions define GE in some way, but they’re all held together by the core belief of the singular tagline, Imagination at work.”
The brand and agency wanted everything in the ad to be made as practical and shot in-camera as possible. “Tilted rooms, harnesses, backwards walking, actors hanging upside-down
Creative credits:
Agency: BBDO New York
Chief creative officer, worldwide: David Lubars
Chief creative officer, New York: Greg Hahn
Executive creative director: Michael Aimette
Creative director/copywriters: Tim Roan & Levi Slavin
Director of integrated production: David Rolfe
Group executive producer: Diane Hill
Executive producer: George Sholley
Head of music production: Rani Vaz
Production Company: Biscuit Filmworks
Director: Andreas Nilsson
Executive producers: Shawn Lacy, Colleen O’Donnell & Holly Vega
Line producer: Vincent Landay
Editing: Rock Paper Scissors
Visual Effects: A52
Executive producer: Patrick Nugent
Producer: Heather Johann
VFX supervisor: Andy Rafael Barrios
Sound: Heard City
Music: The Ski Team
Composers: The Ski Team
Animation: Renegade Animation
