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In the 2000s, GE launched campaigns like "Imagination at Work" and initiatives like "Ecomagination" and "Healthymagination" to promote its investments in green technology and healthcare. These campaigns

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Deshna Kochar
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292 views2 pages

Ge PDF

In the 2000s, GE launched campaigns like "Imagination at Work" and initiatives like "Ecomagination" and "Healthymagination" to promote its investments in green technology and healthcare. These campaigns

Uploaded by

Deshna Kochar
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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GE

Thomas Edison founded the Edison Electric Light Company in 1878. The company, which soon changed its
name to General Electric (GE), became an early pioneer in lightbulbs and electrical appliances and served
the electrical needs of various industries, such as transportation, utilities, manufacturing, and
broadcasting. GE became the acknowledged pioneer in business-to-business marketing in the 1950s and
1960s under the tagline “Progress Is Our Most Important Product.”

As the company diversified its business-to-business product lines in the 1970s and 1980s, it created new
corporate campaigns, including “Progress for People” and “We Bring Good Things to Life.” In 1981, Jack
Welch succeeded Reginald Jones as GE’s eighth CEO. During Welch’s two decades of leadership, he helped
grow GE from an “American manufacturer into a global services giant” and increased the company’s
market value from $12 billion in 1981 to $280 billion in 2001, making it the world’s most valuable
corporation at the time. Over the years, GE has exhibited a keen understanding of the business market
and the business buying process by putting itself in the shoes of its business customers. For example, the
company understands that buying an aircraft engine is a multimillion-dollar expenditure that doesn’t end
with the purchase. Customers (the airlines) face substantial maintenance costs to meet FAA guidelines
and ensure reliability of the engines. In 1999, GE pioneered a new pricing option called “Power by the
Hour,” giving customers an opportunity to pay a fixed fee each time they run the engine. In return, GE
performs all the maintenance and guarantees the engine’s reliability. When demand for air travel is
uncertain, “Power by the Hour” provides GE’s customers with a lower cost of ownership. In 2003, GE and
its new CEO, Jeffrey Immelt, faced a fresh challenge: how to promote its diversified brand with a unified
global message. A source at GE explained, “(Immelt) wants advertising that’s more hightech, more
innovative and contemporary. Something that will make GE look more advanced, out in front.” So, after
24 years and $1 billion in financial support, GE dropped its signature slogan “We Bring Good Things to
Life” for the new tagline “Imagination at Work,” highlighting its renewed focus on innovation and new
technology. The award-winning new campaign promoted units such as GE Aircraft Engines, Medical
Systems, and Plastics, focusing on the breadth of the company’s product offerings, and it got results.
“Research indicates GE is now being associated with attributes such as being high tech, leading edge,
innovative, contemporary, and creative,” stated Judy Hu, GE’s general manager for global advertising and
branding. In addition, survey respondents continued to associate GE with some of its traditional
attributes, including trust and reliability. In 2005, GE evolved the campaign into a companywide initiative
that continues today, “Ecomagination.” Ecomagination highlighted the company’s efforts to develop
environmentally friendly “green” technologies such as solar energy, lower-emission engines, and water
purification technologies. GE initially set several aggressive goals for the new initiative, including doubling
the revenue from “Ecomagination” products to $20 billion in five years and promising to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions by 1 percent within seven years. The company believed then and still believes
that embracing innovation around Ecomagination is critical to its growth. Immelt made some strategic
restructuring decisions that helped the company survive the worldwide recession of 2008 and 2009 and
also helped shift it even more in the B-to-B direction. GE moved from 11 divisions to five and sold off some
of its consumer-focused businesses, including 51 percent of NBC Universal (sold to Comcast). This shift
allowed the company to spend more resources on innovation, green initiatives, and its growing businesses
such as power generation, aviation, medical imaging, and fuel cell technologies. GE understood that it
needed another huge initiative to help pull the conglomerate out of its current poor financial situation.
Management believed there was huge growth potential in affordable health care around the world. As a
result, the company embraced a $6 billion company-wide initiative called Healthymagination. The
business strategy aimed at growing GE’s health care business by providing innovative solutions to more
people around the world, and the company launched an integrated marketing plan for it. GE’s B-to-B
marketing savvy has helped it lock in the top position in the Financial Times’s “World’s Most Respected
Companies” ranking for years. The company’s in-depth understanding of each of its business markets has
kept its B-to-B marketing strategies progressive, relevant, and effective. In addition, its global marketing
campaign helps keep brand equity strong. GE was ranked sixth in Interbrand/BusinessWeek’s “Top 100
Global Brands” report, with a brand value of $45 billion. “The GE brand is what connects us all and makes
us so much better than the parts,” Chief Marketing Officer Beth Comstock said. Today, General Electric
operates in a wide range of industries, including power and water, oil and gas, energy management,
aviation, health care, transportation, home and business solutions, and capital. As a result, the firm sells
a diverse array of products and services from home appliances to jet engines, security systems, wind
turbines, and financial services. Its revenues topped $146 billion in 2013, making it so large that its largest
business units could rank separately in the Fortune 200. If GE were a country, it would be the 50th largest
in the world, ahead of Kuwait, New Zealand, and Iraq.

Questions

1. Discuss GE’s B-to-B marketing strategy. Why has the company been so successful over the years at
targeting such a large business audience?

2. Have “Ecomagination” and “Healthymagination” successfully communicated GE’s focus on its newer
endeavors? Why or why not?

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