GE: Imagination at Work

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Now, I’m not the kind of person who uses this word often, or without truly meaning it – infact, I’m having second thoughts about using it now – but I suppose it really is the only word that I can use to describe these pictures: cute.

These pictures are the <a title=”Sneezing Panda” href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNYfZd8iV2k” target=”_blank” rel=”nofollow”> Sneezing Panda of the ad world.</a>

The pictures themselves are beautifully shot. The colours have been de-saturated slightly so as to give the pictures this magical-fairytale-forest-at-dusk kind of feeling (something you don’t happen across every day). They’ve all been framed in the same way, with the subject of the ad (the flowers, the jar) on the left side of the ad, and beautiful scenery on the right. This gives them a sense of organization, you can tell they’re all from the same set.

The strategy is simple, and quite a popular one nowadays. When you can make a claim that a product is energy efficient, good for the environment, or otherwise “green”, then you can quite easily play on peoples guilt. Just as with organic foods people are willing to pay for peace of mind, even if it costs a little bit extra. The images of beautiful forests and scenery all elicit this sense of “God that’s beautiful, I should really do something to preserve that”.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think this a bad thing – anything that gets people to start thinking about something other then themselves is a good thing, – I’m just saying that it’s also a powerful marketing technique. If you’re really interested in helping to create a sustainable planet, you should really do some research on the product or company that produces it. I myself was just enlightened to the fact that Chapters (a large Canadian book-store chain) contributes money to a fund that sends Israelis overseas to enlist in the army. Now, I’m not pro-Israeli or Palestinian, so I definitely don’t want to be supporting one or the other when I buy a book.