- I feel like as marketers,
what we need to strive for
are stories
that are as interesting and compelling and engaging
as the best thing that we're streaming on television.
And that is a ridiculously high bar,
but I feel like that's what good storytelling is,
is how do you make people fall in love, with your brand?
- Hey, I'm Sarah Franklin,
and welcome to "Connections,"
where we hear from
some of the most innovative leaders in marketing.
Thomas Edison is known as America's greatest inventor,
breaking new ground in mass communications,
sound recording, and motion pictures.
That spirit of innovation is in the DNA of General Electric,
the company he co-founded in 1889.
And it continues today under their CMO, Linda Boff.
You grew up in New Jersey.
- Yeah, I'm across the river, so to speak.
It's nice to be in New York, but I'm a Jersey girl.
I'm the oldest of four girls.
So I kind of start there because in some ways
my family experience, as much as being from Jersey,
I think, if I look back, kind of shaped
who I am as a marketer.
So I was so fortunate to be born into a family
of a mom and a dad who were obsessed with theater.
And having that experience so young,
I think really stayed with me,
and in some ways kind of shaped my love, of storytelling.
- I love that.
And so you also have what we would call,
or you might call, the homegrown MBA.
I think you had like, was it eight internships?
- I think I hold a Guinness World Record in it.
- You need to write that in your book, right?
- I really do.
You know, I went to a liberal arts college
in upstate New York called Union College
and I loved college, but I always wanted to work,
fine student, great worker.
And I think the way I explored that was, you know,
starting sophomore year or so, I thought,
okay, I can get some experience.
And I went to Washington and did the
summer internship on the hill.
I went and worked at,
I don't know,
three or four radio stations in the Albany area
as an intern.
And each time,
I got a little closer
to knowing this is something I'm interested in,
or, a little further away,
this is something I don't want to touch again.
You know, to me, internships were ways to
see what might be beyond the game board,
and just get a couple of glimpses of it.
- You got incredible experience
in marketing and communications for 18 years
before you went to GE,
what did you do?
- Just about everything!
- ABC, radio networks, I went to a publishing company
when magazines were pretty popular.
- All right.
- They were all the rage. They were all the rage.
I worked at a big institute called
the American Museum of Natural History,
and then went to Citigroup in a,
in a startup job, inside a big company,
starting a financial service company for women.
And it sounds, it sounds like popcorn as I'm describing it,
it sounds like a potpourri of jobs,
but the story-line for me was always something
that was a creative challenge,
that at least, Sarah, to me felt as though
I kept borrowing from what I had done before,
even though the fields were non-linear, right?
- Yeah.
- What does the American Museum of Natural History
have in common with Citigroup?
But I think it's a way of thinking.
It's a way of thinking of audience-backed,
which is always really important to me.
It's discovering the DNA of an organization,
and what makes that special, and interesting,
and unique, differentiated.
- Well, it sounds like a steel thread
is that you love ideas, and you've come to GE
where like you bring ideas to life.
What is that like to work at such an iconic company?
- I feel like I work at Thomas Edison's company.
Edison famously said,
"I figure out what the world needs, and then I invent it."
To work at a company that's focused on the future of flight,
decarbonization and the energy transition, precision health,
you know, what treatment, for what person, at what time?
I pinch myself in the morning.
It's really a goosebump kind of company.
And the people who go to work at GE
are folks that aren't looking for an easy job.
So there's almost a sense in the culture
of give me your tough problems,
give me the things that are kind of hard to do.
I'm going to figure it out.
And, as a marketer,
I don't have an MBA, and I've learned it on the job,
from the business people I work with,
from the engineers who are problem solving,
and I think most of all, from trying to figure out
how to bring to life a brand,
in a way that is interesting to such a panoply of audiences.
- GE has incredible stories.
How, as a marketer, do you tell those stories?
- So, I think storytelling's everything.
Any company has a set of facts, and a set of stories.
Data's so important, but without a narrative,
data's dull.
- Yeah, it's boring.
You're like- - It's boring!
- What's the difference between ones and zeros?
- Right, exactly!
- And at the same time,
if you only have a narrative, and you don't have data,
that's sort of like an air balloon that floats away.
So I think of storytelling, I think of our narrative,
as this journey into ourself, into what is different.
When I'm looking at work, I always am looking for:
one, what's the connection with the audience,
two, is it simple enough?
Are we making people work hard to get us,
or are we making it easy for them to get us?
And then, is it differentiated?
Or, could our competitor do it and change the name
and it would be the same thing?
- 'Cause that's the worst.
- It's the worst, it's the worst.
But I think it can be easy sometimes
to fall into the trap
of, okay, this is a pretty good way to say something,
versus, nobody else can say it this way.
- What are the challenges of taking a legacy brand
and making it relevant today?
- I think, to me, the challenge of being around for so long
is keeping it fresh, keeping it relevant,
while still drawing on what's made us
trusted, respected,
a company that our customers count on, 24 hours a day.
There's a perennial GE story, about innovation,
about health, energy, aviation,
and I think the challenge is keeping it fresh
and finding ways that connect with you.
- As a long established brand,
you're still trying things and experimenting.
Actually, I don't know if you knew this,
Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell,
did experiments here in this building
that we're at.
- I so love that we we're
sitting in a building- - That's so cool!
- where experimentation had its flames, and it's moment.
That is just so perfect.
- How do you embrace
his spirit of innovation and experimentation today?
- I think in some ways, experimentation is part of
what has kept our team, and our brand, rejuvenated.
For instance, GE was the first brand on Vibe.
We did a little science experiment
and we posted it on Vibe,
and we invited others to experiment with us.
I use that example, it's this big,
it's a teeny, teeny little example,
but it's kind of in our DNA to think about
how do you light a flame, and maybe invite others,
and turn that flame into a campfire?
I'll go back to Edison,
since once upon a time he was somewhere in this building,
this idea of, you know, with a light bulb,
he tried a thousand things that didn't work,
but then there was something that did.
- Then something did.
- And I think that's true with marketing,
not everything's going to be a hit.
And I think you have to try see
what captures people's attention,
what they're going to spark too.
So to me experimentation is,
I think of it as in some ways the lifeblood of storytelling.
- How important is it to you to be
on these digital platforms and to, to be the first,
to have the courage to go out there?
- Being first isn't about the shiny object for us;
it's about reinforcing that GE's a company of innovation.
I think the fact that we are willing to experiment,
whether that's six seconds on Vine,
or a six hour show on Nat Geo,
with Brian Grazer and Ron Howard,
looking at the science of breakthrough and discovery.
There are ways that bring our brands to life
that reinforce who we really are:
a company of innovation, a company of invention,
a company that's excited about what's next.
- That's so interesting.
And I've heard you use this word. I hope I can say it well.
It's interesting-ness.
- Yes.
- So what is that?
- So first of all, Sarah, I don't even know if it's a word.
- I looked in the dictionary.
- I messaged you, did you see it?
- I was like there's-
- To me, there's something about getting deeply comfortable
with who you are as a company, as a brand, as a service.
Because I think without that, you're building a false house.
So it starts with, in our case,
what is super interesting about us?
Our interesting-ness is different than yours,
is different than Pepsi's,
is different than Peloton.
There's something about interesting-ness
that as a storyteller, I find really compelling.
Like, what's that thing that's going to make you say,
"Wow. I'm going to remember that.
That was a story well told, based on who we really are."
- You mentioned brands like Peloton, Pepsi.
How do you do that, as a brand, and as a marketer?
- I'll tell you something we did early
that I think was remarkably helpful to us.
I dispatched a couple folks
to just go and wander around our facilities.
To literally go, and walk our factories,
smell the machinery, talk to people, hear their stories.
It is amazing how,
when you're sitting across from somebody who's
the machinist on a heavy duty gas turbine,
you learn something that you could never learn
sitting in a corporate office.
And then from there we built dozens and dozens of stories.
- And how open do you have to be, with the beginner's mind,
when you, when you hear what's really coming back?
- There's a wonderful question.
I think the beginner's mind, in some ways,
is why I personally try to surround myself with people
from all different industries, startups,
lots of agency partners,
because I think that beginner's mind,
fresh eyes, gets worn off quickly.
And then all of a sudden you're sort of,
saying the same stuff, saying stuff the same way.
- You're not interesting any more.
- You're not so interesting anymore.
Goodbye interesting-ness.
So I think that outside-in point of view
is really important.
And I feel like our team at GE, my team at GE,
has that combination of, you know,
some people have been there a little while,
a lot of people have come from the outside,
and just have a fresh approach.
To me marketing is always exciting.
It's always the next thing.
It's always waking up the next morning,
and seeing what's Salesforce doing.
What's another company doing? Oh, that's really interesting.
I haven't thought about it.
- You've been a huge part of GE's transformation.
What's your advice to other leaders navigating change?
- I feel like as marketers, what we need to strive for
are stories that are as interesting and compelling
and engaging, as the best thing
that we're streaming on television.
And that is a ridiculously high bar,
but I feel like that's what good storytelling is,
is how do you make people fall in love, with your brand?
- You're so innovative.
What is your advice to marketers
that are trying to stay one step ahead of the curve?
- You know, sometimes as marketers, we like to talk,
- We do like to talk. - I like to talk.
- but I think listening to our audiences
and figuring out where they're spending time,
is a way to kind of look into the future a little bit.
I can't predict where the next big thing is going to be,
but I can watch where people are spending time.
And so I think it's listening to the marketplace
and taking your cues from your audience.
I think if you're not on the playing field,
if you're not using the tools
and spending time where your audiences are,
you're never going to learn anything.