Has anyone seen GE’s jet engine commercial? Bizarre! I was fast-forwarding through commercials the other night and when I saw the blurry images of the engineers singing, I just had to rewind to see what the commercial was about.

DegrmEK_VzA

I never understood this kind of commercial. Let’s say you see a commercial for Coke or Pepsi. You, the viewer, might actually go out and buy a Coke. With this commercial, the viewer isn’t going to buy a jet engine. I’m not going to call Southwest Airlines before booking a flight and ask, “Does the jet for flight XYZ to Chicago have one of those GE engines? I only want to fly on a jet that has one of those.” (I guess I’d want it to have at least 2 of those :D)

Why does GE advertise like this? Is it something to do with their stock? Just curious.

They are doing a lot of these types of commercials for all of their businesses.

My guess is that it's a parallel to the Intel and BASF(?) ads (we don't make the products you buy, we make the products you buy better). The idea here of course was/is to influence the consumer to buy end products that have the supplier's parts in them. In the case of aircraft engines it may be a psychological appeal to the aircraft builders - and government - to purchase engines that "have high consumer confidence or name recognition". (Kind of the reverse of the Intel/BASF type ads?) Do you know who the other two main engine makers are? do most people? does it matter to Boeing or Airbus? I don't know, but I've seen Mad Men!!!

Of course marketing isn't practised as an exact science...

And maybe it does make the employees and shareholders feel better about GE...I know when I worked at Intel many of the new ads had a bit of a morale boost for the employees - it's nice to work at a well known cool & hip company after all...

Aren't they in trouble for dumping into a river or bay in New York? I believe they are and this is kind of damage control thing....