G.E. Launches Elaborate, Risky Campaign Aimed At New Media

In the ’50s, “General Electric Theater,” a long-running television show hosted by Ronald Reagan, showed off the home of the future using a medium that was still in its infancy. Today, G.E. and ad agency BBDO are hoping “One-Second Theater” will do in a moment what it took a half-hour a week to accomplish back then — using all sorts of new media gimmicks keyed off ads featuring Elli the elephant and her friends. The multimillion-dollar campaign launching Friday includes:
— ads with embedded material that only shows up frame by frame on DVRs. It’s called a “commercial within a commercial.”
— podcasts purporting to be from the animals featured in the ads.
— a microsite for the campaign, including examples of how the embedded ads work and a schedule of NBC shows where the ads are appearing. (Ads will be on other NBCU networks and non-GE owned networks, too.) Click on “Meet Elli” and the link goes offsite to …
— A MySpace profile for Elli; she’ll “work for peanuts,” favorite music is “Tusk,” etc. At some point, this gimmick is going to be overplayed by companies.
The campaign’s success hinges on capturing interest in watching still-frame ads. Stranger things have happened, like a TV host becoming president.

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