'Small but growing': GE's CMO Linda Boff reveals why it's finally embracing programmatic advertising tactics after years of shunning them

GE's Linda Boff at
IGNITION 2015
Business Insider /
IGNITION 2015

• 
  GE
  has evolved its position on
  programmatic advertising, CMO Linda Boff told Business Insider,
  and has started to use some programmatic tactics.
  


• 
  While it's not buying through programmatic ad exchanges
  yet, i
  t has started to experiment with
  different ways of targeting and using first-party data, such as
  by pixelizing websites, learning about customer behavior, and
  then driving readers to its own websites. 
  


• 
  These programmatic advertising tactics comprise under
  10% of GE's overall spend, Boff said.
  


• 
  "(It's) small but growing, so under 10%," she said.
  "But you know, a year from now, if we can find a way to drive
  great results and great brand so that we have both awareness,
  consideration, and ultimately, we're nurturing leads, that's
  pretty exciting."
  


• 
  The shift in tactics comes as GE
  focuses on a narrower set of businesses. 
  

---

In an era where a majority of marketers rely on buying ads across
thousands of websites using automation and a few simple clicks,
GE has maintained its distance from buying ads programmatically —
until now. 

The industrial tech giant's position on programmatic advertising
has evolved, Linda Boff, the company's CMO and VP of learning and
culture, told Business Insider
in a recent interview.

"What we've started to do is think about some of the programmatic
tactics, but apply them in our way," she said.

While GE hasn't yet taken the plunge and started procuring ads
through programmatic exchanges, it has started to experiment with
different ways of targeting and using first-party data.

"When we're introducing something ... and we want to reach a
certain audience, we're serving content, we're driving them to a
website, we're pixelizing the website, we're learning about their
behavior, and then we're nurturing those customers within our own
stream," said Boff.

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"So rather than having the boomerang of now we're going to serve
you ads in your feed for giant power plants — we try to drive
customers through the funnel using behavioral tactics, using the
right kind of content," she said.

This kind of an approach is quite a shift for GE, which has thus
far chosen to work with publishers directly on bespoke native
advertising deals. Over the years, GE has worked with The
Economist, Quartz, Business Insider, and even National Geographic
to create its own TV
show.

"So initially, the reason we chose to sit out was that so many of
the media programs ... have been highly customized, really
bespoke, almost hand-stitched," she said. "Something I often say
is that I like to buy what isn't for sale ... And that's in some
ways the opposite of programmatic."

But dabbling in these tactics makes sense for GE because it's not
a company that markets its products to mass audiences, she
said. 

"Every brand is different — what might not work for us might work
beautifully for a consumer packaged goods company," she said.
"But as a marketer that markets to sometimes very finite customer
pools, you want to develop that relationship."

GE opening up to programmatic is natural, given that digital
advertising is becoming a bigger chunk of its overall advertising
budget. These programmatic advertising tactics comprise under 10%
of GE's overall spend, Boff said.

"(It's) small but growing, so under 10%," she said. "But you
know, a year from now, if we can find a way to drive great
results and great brand so that we have both awareness,
consideration, and ultimately, we're nurturing leads, that's
pretty exciting."

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