Cedric Brown

Lately there’s an emphasis on public relations professionals to know other communications disciplines such as advertising, marketing and journalism. We talked about the idea, otherwise known as integrated marketing communications, a few weeks ago in my PR Theory course at Newhouse, where the discussion began with this question: What is the difference between PR and IMC?

As I understand it, integrated marketing communications encompasses everything in the mix to help an organization sell itself, while PR largely focuses on building relationships with those who’re involved with the organization. So it’s no surprise that PR is part of the IMC mix as building relationships with stakeholders in turn helps you better sell your products and/or services to them.

As demonstrated in their latest advertising campaign, GE understands the need for communications to be integrated. In their recent string of commercials on TV, GE use advertising as a tool to educate stakeholders on what it is they actually do through the life of a young professional, named “Owen,” who deals with skepticism from family and friends when he tells them about his new job with GE as an industrial internet developer.

Without delving too much into the nature of the commercials, here’s why I think it works:

It personifies an era – The genius behind GE’s campaign is that the character Owen is a millennial entering a new profession in traditional corporate establishment. For GE to build interest in the next generation’s workforce to be excited about their opportunities, it makes sense to cast a character who speaks to their culture. Overall, GE ties a new and exciting field (technology development) with their staple offering (sustainability) in a way that merges generations.

It educates – With most campaigns in PR, the goal is to raise awareness for a cause or an issue. In GE’s case, they use commercials to indirectly enlighten their audience that they’re not just an industrial company anymore, and that the scope of what they do is much broader. Putting this message into their commercials not only allows GE to reach the millennials they’re trying to target to work for them, but also older generations who’ve known GE to be something else.

It’s funny – Humor can be a slippery slope when your message is meant to communicate something of value. Everyone’s sense of humor is different and what may be funny to one person may be offensive to another. GE makes the wise choice to go with subtle humor in each of its commercials for its campaign. Whether it’s the competition between Owen and his friend who’s also a developer, or his father who assumes he can’t pick up the hammer, it’s hard not to chuckle a bit when you’re forced to empathize with Owen’s struggles to get his point across.

As IMC becomes the new trend for companies to get their message across, you’re going to see more companies like GE utilize various mediums to get their PR campaigns across to their audience. Gone will be the days where advertising is strictly used to sell products and services, but rather used a starting point for an even greater brand conversation. After all, why else would a brand like Twitter, who doesn’t sell anything tangible other than advertising, take out a commercial like this?