An unexpected visual is certainly one means of getting to an extraordinary ad. However, it helps if this visual actually means something, which I’m kind of struggling with here. As in, what the heck do zebras have to do with locomotives, pray tell? (Aside from demonstrating someone’s facility with PhotoShop.)
Reading the body copy, which I know you can’t do here, doesn’t provide much illumination either. It tells us that the Evolution (TM) Series locomotive is a “beast” for whatever that’s worth. And then goes on to claim that this–the locomotive, not the ad–is “what happens when you let your “ecomagination” (sic) run wild.”
Oh, really? Well, I know one thing I’m not ecomagining is that GE’s stock has been flatter than a pancake recently. So much so that there’s an article in the upcoming issue of Fortune devoted to GE CEO Jeff Immelt’s struggle with this sore subject. A stuggle I don’t see ending any time soon, insofar as it was shortly after Mr. Immelt took the reins that GE abandoned its longstanding line: “We bring good things to life” and replaced it with the infinitely more ordinary “Imagination at work” and that dreadful coinage: “ecomagination”.
Could this be yet-another example of my “ordinary advertising = ordinary management” (and sub-par market performance) theory? Time will tell.
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