Monday, October 17, 2011

Do You Remember How to Imagine?

Sally & Chris have been working over the past few weeks on a decidedly intriguing campaign. What happens when one of the largest corporations in the world devises a campaign around a word that doesn't even exist? Click...


ecomagination Case Study

17 comments:

Ari Morris said...

Chris & Sally,
First off, the PDF of the case study looks amazing! (Sally, I know that's your indesign skills were seeing :)) The use of color and graphics throughout the case study make it extremely easy to read, which is great for such a long piece.

Your section on Conducted Research is extremely thorough and essential for understanding the case study. You guys did a great job of touching on all sections of the campaign and I can't wait to see the presentation.

Excellent work guys!

Lauren Damone said...

Hey guys!

I have to say, I was instantly impressed with the presentation and organization of your case study. Additionally, the focus on background information helped us get an understanding on where GE is coming from and aiming for with their campaign.

It was interesting reading about the Ecomagination Venture Competition. This aspect of their campaign surprised me the most because of the invitation to outsiders to contribute to GE's actions and business plans.

Great job!

katie said...

While I tend to be skeptical of large corporations that adopt green initiatives, it seems that Ecoimagination was was done right, for the most part. I personally enjoy their twitter account, however, I do agree with some sentiments that their website is a bit too funky. The campaign is extremely well done and I think that if any corporation is going to pave way for green ventures and capital it is GE. They have the established reputation and the financial stability to take that plunge and ultimately find success. It is also a mark of success that the campaign has not been called out as "Greenwashing" by many environmentalists.

It is so successful that I'm sure the people who were around when GE dumped PCBs into the Hudson River for 30 years from 1947-77 don't even remember that happening.

It isn't surprising that the presentation is absolutely a work of art! Can't wait to hear about it in person. -KP

Lauren Williams said...

Sally and Chris,

Very difficult company to delve in to, especially with recent rise in pressure for companies like GE to produce products that are most economically beneficial. And I must say you both tackled this case study excellently.

Not only was the presentation easy on the eyes, it expanded upon so many topics, ideas and issues at hand facing GE. I also can appreciate the lengths that you both went to to review the foundations of the company, and expounding upon that.

One tactic in particular that I liked was the involvement with GE's ecomagination with the Beijing Olympics. I checked out the site and really even liked the slogan for the sponsorship: A Legacy for Beijing, you all touched on its effectiveness. I thought that was a great way to reach both audiences in China and the U.S.

Again, great job guys! I really enjoyed it and look forward to hearing your presentation.

Sara Caterina said...

Chris & Sally,

The appearance of the PDF is absolutely beautiful & definitely gave it a tone that matched that whimsical sense of imagination you spoke about in the beginning of the case study. I thought the first couple of paragraphs of your situation analysis were very fresh. In public relations we're taught to write as concise as possible and often times we sacrifice abstract ideas and the use of figurative language, but I thought this was highly relevant and a nice addition to your situation analysis.

You used the word ‘anomaly’ I believe to describe GE and I think that was right on the mark. While reading your case study, I kept reverting back to this anomalous idea that a huge corporation with a huge variety of services that aren’t necessarily environmentally friendly must be environmentally friendly to hold their place in the market. This idea is aligned with the company’s decision to not have a mission statement, but four ideals instead. Their fundamental mission is to make money (in an environmentally-friendly way or not), but there are ideal ways to do so, and they are trying their best to utilize them.

Also, I think the Ecomagination Venture Competition is awesome. Reading about it reminded me of what Obama had said during his speech when he came to Penn State. He had discussed how the future of America lay in creating an environmentally friendly economy. He hypothesized this would create jobs for students graduating school as well as for workers that have been displaced by the recession. This competition was so similar to the tactics Obama had shared.

Additionally, I read your evaluation and absolutely agree! As I read the case study, I kept thinking, ‘how did I not know about this campaign?’ Perhaps, this campaign is working for big businesses, but the everyday customer is definitely being neglected and don’t the spending habits and opinions of the everyday consumer directly affect the prosperity of big businesses? I think this is definitely something GE should reconsider.

Great job guys!

-Sara

Aly Kauffman said...

Hey guys!
This presentation was absolutely amazing. Of course, I couldn't have expected any less from the two of you. Beautiful layout and graphics, along with easy to follow text. I really enjoy watching you guys present because unlike many groups, you don't read off of the powerpoint and instead talk to the audience to keep us interested.
As for GE, I think its a really great campaign and am kind of shocked that I had not seen it or heard of it. After your presentation, I'm going to definitely look at GE as apposed to other companies while buying products! Thanks for your help and again, fabulous job.
Aly Kauffman

Catie said...

Hey Sally and Chris,

I thought you guys did an excellent job on your project. I thought the activity you made us do in class was really effective and interesting ("we'd hand out fliers and create a twitter page?"). Additionally, I thought your case study and presentation looked very professional.

One thing that really resonated with me after your presentation was the partnership between GE and the Beijing Olympics. At first, I was surprised that GE would put so much money into making the bird's nest so eco-friendly, but once I considered how much GE would have spent on advertising, it seemed like a very smart deal. It isn't often that we learn about business-to-business public relations in our classes (or B to B as I heard you calling it)and that made your case study particularly interesting to me.

Great job!

Yasemin Baris said...

Chris & Sally,

I think it is great that you have a personal connection to GE and the details to their marketing and communications strategies. You were able to gain some detailed insight on the way things really work at GE. The presentation was very interesting, and engaging. I think that with this particular case study, we can understand public relations and diverse audiences with a real world example being such a large and influential corporation. I also think it is interesting that a large corporation like GE has been able to have success tapping into the 'green movement.'

Morgan Ghinassi said...

Chris and Sally,

I loved your presentation and the information was very thorough, as expected.

The research was in depth and I thought the first hand information that Sally got from her father was impressive and personal.

I liked the entire concept of eco-imagination and the idea of such a large company going green.

Overall, awesome case study.

Mike Gordon said...

Chris and Sally,

Fantastic job on the GE case study. Your pdf is very well done and has such a professional quality to it.

You guys did a great job of clearly and thoroughly presenting the information. You had my interest for the entire time. I particularly enjoyed when you divided the class into countries for a little interaction.

Alicia Clarke said...

Chris and Sally,

This case study was really interesting and I learned a lot from it. I really enjoyed your activity and felt that the class got a lot out of participating in it.

I thought that it was really great that you were able to have such a good contact that knew so much about the subject and I really think your presentation showed how knowledgeable you both were about the campaign. Having access to this contact gave you the information needed to really give us a full explanation of how the company accomplished such great things. I have learned a lot about GE as a company in my other classes and their role in the mediascape but it was awesome to get an inside look at the operation.

Chris' diagram also helped the entire study come together and made a more complex campaign easy to understand. I know that other companies will use GE as an example to build up their own companies. They are leaders in the world and you both did a great job of explaining how they got there with this successful campaign.

Danielle Tawil said...

Ecomagination,

WOW! What a presentation. We expect nothing less from you two! Sally, the indesign is absolutely incredible, so eye-catching. Chris, your presence as a public speaker is something I have never seen from someone of our age and experience.

Ecomagination is definitely the most complicated case we've see thus far, and you all broke it down well for us. I enjoyed the group activity. In terms of the presentation content, I must say I was a little confused. Since GE is a corporation that has a hand in so many markets, I would have liked to get some more information explaining what exactly GE does. You touched on it briefly, but I would have liked to see more.

EXCELLENT JOB!

Alicia D said...

Chris and Sally,

This presentation is aesthetically pleasing and very well organized. The information was presented in a way that flowed naturally and was easy and interesting to read. The background research seemed very extensive and I also liked that you included a section on "learning about going green."

I agree with your evaluation that the campaign is not geared towards the everyday consumer, but instead a consumer involved in the eco-friendly community. However, the campaign is still understandable even with little knowledge on the subject.

The tactics were explained in depth and delved into the core of what the Ecomagination campaign was trying to achieve.

Overall, great work and congratulations to both of you!

Brittany Lorenz said...

First of all, the PDF for this case study is extremely professional in both design and content.

While I was unfamiliar with this campaign before your presentation, your animated presentation brought the Ecoimagination campaign to life. I feel that the material presented in this case study is definitely more complex and more difficult to understand than some of the other campaigns the class has been studying, but your group was very clear throughout the presentation, which made the information much more accessible to the audience. Your group’s personal connection to General Electric also definitely helped to break down this information better.

Additionally, your presentation impacted my personal view of General Electric. I had no idea that this powerful company was working on these positive projects, and I commend General Electric for doing so.

Giulia Carando said...

Chris and Sally,

great job on your presentation. Not only were the presentation aesthetics extremely eye-catching but the content was extremely detailed. I believe you did a great job giving us a clear picture of where GE was coming from and what were its motivation for the launch of this campaign.

It was really interesting to learn about the tactics that GE used to achieve its goal. It seems like they touched on different aspects ranging from large exposure to partnering in the achievement of a great goal, getting the people involved and find proactive ways to improve the GHG emission.

Thank you for uncovering all this is in a clear way!

Good job

Giulia

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