Inventors’ Day is recognised on different days in different countries (and not by all). Getting February 11 as its day in the US this year was bad luck. It came and went while most people wear paying attention to red roses and gooey ways to say, “I love you”.
But not GE.
GE is intent on highlighting the science behind its products and seized on Inventors’ Day to have its agency, BBDO NY, launch new campaign, Unimpossible Missions.
“As a brand, we are constantly thinking about what’s new and next for the world with our technology, and to mirror that it in our marketing and the way we tell our story. It is representative of how we think as a company — it’s in our DNA,” stated GE’s chief marketing officer, Linda Boff.
To create the campaign, BBDO gave GE engineers the job of disproving three popular idioms about things unlikely or impossible to ever occur – snowball’s chance in hell, catching lightning in a bottle and like talking to a wall.
The aim was to show off GE’s problem solving capabilities as well as its forward thinking technology. It was also recruitment campaign, according to GE chief creative officer, Andy Goldberg, to put GE “on the radar of future creators, scientists and engineers.” Advertising is not the only industry competing now with Silicon Valley for the world’s best thinkers.
Snowball’s chance in hell was chosen as the hero idiom, highlighting the prowess in GE’s aviation, power and healthcare divisions.
Each video – a documentary meets action thriller – has both entertainment and enlightenment in its DNA.
“All three experiments had great levels of risk. We tested them all at GE’s Global Research Center and made sure they would all work—but there’s always a risk of things not working when you’re filming live,” Goldberg noted.
In Snowball’s Chance in Hell, filmed in a foundry in Kazakstan, the mission of GE’s scientists and engineers is to make a snowball survive the closest thing to hell that exists on earth – molten metal that has a temperature above 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Hint: it is housed in a container made from a super-alloy the company normally uses to build jet engines that have to endure extraordinary temperatures.
In Catching Lightning in a Bottle, the bottle is fashioned from a super capacitor used to harness power from sudden bursts of electricity (as in MRI machines). The lightning is created with a power generator using a charge of about 2 million volts. To prove that it was captured, the bottle is used as a power source to start up a car.
Like talking to a Wall uses the remaining sections of the Berlin Wall at the Berlin Wall Memorial. GE engineers attach sensors (accelerometers normally used to detect potential problems in jet engines and other equipment) to one side of the wall and speakers to another side. At the Memorial no man’s land remains between them. The sensors pick up the vibrations of a man’s voice reading a story and transmit them to speakers on the other side of the wall, where school children listen to the story.
Each of the videos is produced under the umbrella, GE Theater, a revival of the prime-time television series, General Electric Theater, that General Electric sponsored in the 1950s. It was hosted by Ronald Reagan and starred actors like James Dean, Bette Davis and the Marx Brothers in adaptations of novels, plays and short stories.
In its modern form, it will present “meaningful content that people actually want to read, listen to, watch and consume,” Goldberg stated.
The campaign is running on GE’s social sites among other sites like Mic.com where it held a one day global site takeover, as well as Periscope and Snapchat, where GE is providing behind-the-scenes content and interviews with the experiments’ GE scientists.
CREDITS
Agency: BBDO New York
David Lubars: chief creative officer, worldwide
Greg Hahn: chief creative officer, New York
Michael Aimette: executive creative director
Gary Du Toit: creative director, copywriter
Lance Vining: creative director, art director
Dave Rolfe: head of production
George Sholley: executive producer
Production Company: Bullitt
Luke Ricci: executive producer
Elicia Laport: head of production
Jon Dawes: Producer
Director: Diego Contreras
Editing: Rock Paper Scissors
VFX: A52
Post production: Company 3
Original music, sound design: Barking Owl Sound
Mix: Sonic Union
Client: GE
Andy Goldberg: chief creative officer
Lindsay Stein: associate global creative director
Gina Vitale: senior specialist, brand experience and creative
