Just Imagination?

I stopped in my tracks when I saw the TV advert for GE's "ecomagination" campaign last Thursday, turned to my wife and asked aloud: was that really GE? The GE Wind advert with water skiing norsemen using wind in their sails to breeze by their competitors (pardon the pun) I noticed during my slow MBA days.

So today's effort in the WSJ was impressive: third news short bullet on cover page "What's News?", p. 2 "General Electric Plans Broad Push on Green Issues" with advertising full page colour on eight (8) pages pushing locomotives to "clean coal". Based on the media work we did at the John Templeton Foundation in Jan/Feb this year, a full page colour advert in the WSJ costs
$275,089.98, making the 8 page spread across all editions - including the online edition - a $2.5m bet.

Meanwhile, reading from the p.2 article, we find (as wtih cover page bullet) GE restating its earnings for 2001-2004 and Q1 2005 'amid increased scrutiny over derivatives deals". The classic SRI analyst's dilemna: looking better on some policies related to extra-financial factors, while fumbling on the financial side. Think Royal Dutch Shell, even Enron's philanthropy record.

It really is conflicting. Amity Shlaes in the FT described it plainly: a bet. "On Monday afternoon in Washington DC, Jeffrey Immelt, GE's chairman and chief executive, will make a historic bet: that "what the world needs" today, as much as it once needed the light bulb, is green technology".

My first reaction is: should we believe it? If we believe it, is GE's initative too early or too late? GE since buying Enron Wind assets has always been interesting. I respect their strategic foresight, as you would expect from a leader in many businesses. But telling for me that the WSJ article was on the same page as GE restating earnings. I don't want GE to greenwash me, so I'm checking this slowly. While they tout their GE Scores Perfect 10.0 Rating from GovernanceMetrics International on the investor relations site, they're on the cover page re-stating earnings.

But it is positive. Now how do we capture it and hold the firms to the new model? The market reacted equally ambivalently: moving from $35.80's to $36.20's. You look, listen, and decide (to quote one of Stimela's best tracks) - check out the analyst call. The play on the "imagination" of the campaign does also scarily remind me of the catchy but thin track from the early 1980's by a high-pitched 2 boy band; "Imagination". Let's hope the GE campaign lasts longer...