Shubham Choudhary

A B-to-bMARKETINGGIANT

•Founded in 1878 by Thomas Edison

•Became the acknowledged pioneer in B-to-B marketing in the 1950s and 1960s under the tagline

“ Progress is our most important product”

•Diversified its B-to-B product lines in 1970s and 1980s

•New Corporate Campaigns

“ PROGRESS FOR PEOPLE “ “WE BRING GOOD THINGS TO LIFE”

• To promote its diversified brand with a unified Global message, it launched

“IMAGINATION AT WORK”

•Highlighted its renewed focus on Innovation and new Technology

• In 2005, introduced the campaign

“ECOMAGINATION”•Highlighted company’s efforts in developing green technologies

• In 2006, launched “HEALTH CARE RE-IMAGINED” featuring GE health care products for detecting, preventing and curing diseases.

• To survive the

Recession of 2008 and 2009, GE moved from 11 divisions to 5

• Shifted more in B-to-B direction.

• Introduced “HEALTHYMAGINATION” to communicate its advances in medical technologies

FIVE MAJOR DIVISIONS

•ENERGY•TECHNOLOGY INFRASTRUCTURE•GE CAPITAL•NBC COMMERCIAL•CONSUMER AND INDUSTRIAL

IN TERMS OF

REVENUE, IF GE WAS A

COUNTRY, IT WOULD BE THE 50th LARGEST,

AHEAD OF KUWAIT, NEW ZEALAND AND

IRAQ

Largest revenue generator

HOWEVER, IT

HAS NOT BEEN ALL

ROSES FOR GE

CERTAIN TIMES, THEY

WEREN’T SEEN AS GLODEN

GOOSE OF INNOVATION

By 1984, GE produced more

parts for nuclear system in US than

any other company and

promoted nuclear weapons to the

government

In 1984, Kelle Louaillier started a campaign “CORPORATE ACCOUNTABILITY INTERNATIONAL” to stop GE from producing nuclear weapons

•By 1986, people started boycotting GE goods.• To defend its brand image, GE increased its advertising budget by 4 times.•By 1990, the campaign spread to Canada and western Europe and 4 million people had boycotted GE.

•In 1993, GE pulled out of Nuclear business.•By that time, it had lost 50 million $ in lost medical equipment sales

•

•The decision to let go of nuclear business helped save company its brand image and revenue.•GE started focusing on green technologies since then.•From 1996 to 2015, it has been in top 10 in Fortune top 100 companies.

So what changes did GE make to its business model that helped it recover ?

CREATIVE CONTENT

MARKETING

GE is not only positioning itself as a leader in generating innovative ideas, but they also manage to tug at viewers’ heart

strings.

Taking B2B blogging to a new level

The company’s blog features stories about moon

power, digital pathology, 3D printing done by hand and

other tech.  This type of editorial content offers easily digestible material that gets

people excited about the future of technology and science

while forming an association with GE as a company.

Collaborating with

influencers

Collaborated with slo-mo guys to produce a series of videos showing everyday processes at the company

in slow motion, most of them have been viewed 500,000 times or more!

This shows a B2B company needn’t be boring. Its all a

game of marketing!

So, What was this presentation all about?•How GE grew rapidly till the 80s and its various campaigns•The trouble it faced due to indulgence in Nuclear business.•How it affected their revenue•The changes made in the business model

DISCLAIMERThis presentation was created by Shubham

Choudhary, ISM Dhanbad, during a marketing

internship under Prof. Sameer Mathur, IIM Lucknow.