Ad
of the Day: GE's Latest Brilliant Machine Is a Very Familiar DeLorean
General
Electric's technology is making time travel easier. Kind of. Not really. Still,
that hasn't stopped the brand from making a new ad based on Back to the Future.
The spot, from BBDO in New
York, part of the client's "Brilliant Machines" campaign, features
enough of the essential cues: the souped-up DeLorean with the
"Outatime" license plate; Marty McFly's scuffed Nike sneakers; and a
voiceover by Michael J. Fox. The commercial doesn't actually show Fox, perhaps
because it would shatter the illusion to see a middle-aged McFly droning on
about how you kids don't know how good you have it. Back in his day, it wasn't
so easy to find 1.21 gigawatts of electricity.
Instead, we get an animated
trip through the DeLorean's charging apparatus. McFly riffs about the wonders
of GE's hardware and software. Ultimately, we learn, the brand's technology
powers entire cities, as the camera zooms out to feature a bird's-eye,
Lite-Brite profile of New York City (bringing to mind the surreal Hurricane Sandy photo of a blacked-out lower Manhattan).
"The turbines of today will power us all into the future," says Fox,
as the sci-fi ride takes flight and disappears in a characteristic flash of
blue.
The pop-culture premise of
the ad is cool. The metaphor is a bit thin—the virtual ride through a power
grid and stream of buzzwords don't quite forge a convincing connection between
the classic work of fiction and the brand's products. On the other hand, the
dazzling, vague sense of warm and fuzzy that this ad is meant to spark may be
the best a brand like GE—which deals in such a wide range of hard-to-explain
technologies—can hope to deliver in 30 seconds.
Sure, if Doc and Marty had
had GE's 2013 technology, they wouldn't have had to chase lightning bolts up a
clock tower. That would have been a less interesting movie. Don't hate on GE
for trying to ruin classic films, though. It should keep paying famous actors lots
of money to rattle off 30 seconds of marketing speak, and make the brand look
nice.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=1QN79EvD_V8
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