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By Kathryn Kranhold
6 April 2006
The Wall Street Journal
OPENING ON BROADWAY this week: General Electric.
GE is marking World Health Day tomorrow with a splashy one-day New York event
aimed at getting consumers to think about their health -- and to remind them that GE
is a big maker of health-care technology.
In the past, GE has relied heavily on advertising in mainstream media such as television, newspapers and magazines. It
spent $1.1 billion on major-media advertising last year, according to TNS Media Intelligence.
Now, GE is looking for new ways to create buzz. Last fall the company created a small marketing group called the PT
Team -- partly inspired by P.T. Barnum, the master promoter who lived near GE's Fairfield, Conn., headquarters -- to
come up with novel ideas to market the company and its technology and services.
One of the team's first projects was to send performance artists dressed in white hooded outfits with the GE monogram to
a conference of radiologists in Chicago in November. Portraying "molecules," the artists carried plastic balls and cubes on
the street, in hotel lobbies and in bars where conference attendees congregated.
The Broadway debut, also devised by the PT Team, is a much larger effort that includes adorning 30,000 theater-seat
backs with linen covers featuring photos of Bernadette Peters, Bebe Neuwirth and Brian Stokes-Mitchell, with captions
describing what the stage stars do to stay healthy.
GE also will use seven digital billboards in Times Square to flash photographs submitted by people from more than 50
countries, showing them engaged in healthy activities. Meanwhile, GE has hired people to hand out eight-ounce water
bottles, with a bright-purple label that says, "Drink This Much Water Eight Times a Day."
Jennifer Walsh, global director of digital media, says GE is promoting its Broadway event on online culture sites such as
Daily Candy and Flavorpill. She says GE is trying to reach "hipsters" that don't normally interact with GE.
These marketing methods, aimed at sparking word-of-mouth discussion about a company, are more commonly used by
start-ups than industrial giants, says Allan Steinmetz, chief executive of Inward Strategic Consulting, a marketing firm
based in Newton, Mass. Integrated with high-tech electronic billboards and online media such as blogs, he says, "you
have a very powerful campaign."
"Healthcare Re-Imagined" brings together the company's efforts to change health care as both a buyer and provider of
services. GE Healthcare is a $15 billion-a-year unit whose major products are diagnostic equipment and informationtechnology systems that assist in research and add efficiency. GE Healthcare Chief Executive Joe Hogan says the
campaign is designed as an "upbeat message" about detecting diseases earlier.
The first stage of the campaign, which began in November, was aimed mostly at business and health-care professionals.
GE is now looking to get consumers to think about being healthy -- as well as about GE's role in health care. The
consumer push began during the Olympics with four TV ads on the theme of "early health" and a print campaign.
GE also is working with big employers to contain health-care costs and promote efficiency. It has several programs to
encourage its more than 300,000 employees to live healthier lives.
Robert Galvin, GE's director of global health care, says tomorrow's event is designed to be fun. "People are more able to
take information in when it's a positive initial experience," he says.