GE's Superbowl Ads

Like a lot of other Americans, I watched the Superbowl last night. And like a lot of other Americans, I paid as much attention to the advertising as to the game.

Some of the ads were terrific, like the Doritos ads. I would rate some as a swing and a miss, like the Audi commercial featuring the vampires. Sure it was a cute concept, but if I'm going to spend over $35,000 buying an expensive imported sedan, I sure want more features than LED headlights. Sadly, no other selling point of the car was mentioned.

But the ads that had me scratching my head were the spots from General Electric. One was an ad featuring employees at a Schnectedy turbine factory talking about how they love their jobs. What was really weird about this ad is that 2/3's of the way through it morphs into a Budweiser ad.

The other GE ad was similar, featuring interior shots and voiceovers from employees of Appliance Park, where they build appliances. Mind you, this ad wasn't pushing GE appliances, it was pushing GE factories.

The two commercials totaled a minute and a half of running time, which means somebody at GE headquarters greenlighted spending $10.5 million of the shareholder's money on this boondoggle. I find this decision absolutely inexplicable. If you're selling beer, it makes a lot of sense to try and reach 100,000 million Americans at the same time. If you're selling power generation turbines, there has got to be a more cost efffective way to reach the 50 or 60 people who will be making that purchase this year than advertising on the Superbowl.

But really, these ads weren't even selling GE's products. They were selling the concept of General Electric itself. This kind of corporate image advertising belongs on the Sunday morning news shows, or maybe CNBC. But the Superbowl? I just don't get it.

For God's sake, next time but a dog into the commercial, okay.