GE is invading New York City’s Times Square today with a multi-tiered marketing campaign which takes its Picture a Healthy World promotion to the street.
The campaign, which takes place on Military Island, a highly trafficked area in Times Square, coincides with today’s World Health Day celebrations. The celebrations give the company’s GE Healthcare division the opportunity to build awareness of its products and services.
GE-costumed street teams invite visitors to take photos in a giant-size studio with a variety of props that signify health. The photos will be simultaneously splashed across seven digital billboards in Times Square, including Reuters, NASDAQ, ABC, NBC, MTV, Yahoo and the Toys ‘R’ Us Times Square GeoffreyTron LED.
NBC’s Weather Plus, a digital broadcast network, will also broadcast live from the site during the campaign.
“The promotion is really a part of a larger campaign called Healthcare Re-Imagined, which is a global campaign aimed at helping consumers, as well as our customers like clinicians, see the way GE sees the world from a healthcare perspective,” said Jennifer Walsh, digital media director at GE.
To that end, visitors can take an amusement-park-style motion through the human heart.
“Heath care is everyone’s business…and we’re trying to raise awareness about global health care,” Walsh said. “We wanted to create experiences for [consumers] so they can have one-on-one interaction with our brand and take away that GE is about imagination at work.”
The Picture a Healthy World promotion launched during the Winter Olympic Games in February. Consumers were invited via TV and print ads to post photos and stories describing what they do to stay healthy to GE.com/health. So far, the site has collected 2,225 images, which get play for a month on Times Square’s 45-foot high by 27-foot wide Reuters sign beginning today.
The Fairfield, CT-based company will also use Times Square’s bustling Broadway show community to activate an in-theatre promotion that will reach an estimated 30,000 theatergoers. Thirty Broadway theatres will place co-branded GE commemorative souvenirs on seats during performances tonight. The souvenirs feature Tony Award-winning actors Bernadette Peters, Bebe Neuwirth and Brian Stokes-Mitchell telling people what they do to stay healthy. GE partners with Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS to reach the audiences and will make a donation to the organization.
Ads in New York City newspapers and magazines support.
Interference, Inc., New York City, and Stuart Weissman Productions, Armonk, NY, both handle the onsite elements of the promotion. Frog Design’s New York City office and Beverly Hills, CA-based Blitz handles the online advertisement component. New York City-based OMD handles the ad placement in media. GE also partnered with the World Health Organization, The League of American Theatres and Producers and Playbill.
GE serves customers in more than 100 countries and employs more than 300,000 people worldwide. The company’s 2005 earnings from continuing operations totaled $18.3 billion.
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