NEW YORK, USA — GE Lighting, a Savant company’s rebranded smart home line CYNC™, formerly C by GE, releases a very strategic, yet highly comical new campaign that plays off the brand’s legacy and consumer trust to show homeowners how connected technology today can make their lives more convenient, comfortable, safe and more—at home.
The first three films of the new online and social efforts by L&C New York take a humorous approach to show how the practicality of CYNC’s smart home technology would have seemed like magic in decades past. The ads use nostalgia to create emotional connections, with the tagline “Back then, it would have been magical. Now, it’s just practical.”
“Thief in the Night” is set in the early 1900s, with a farmer and his wife solving the mystery of noises in the middle of night by using CYNC’s outdoor flood light, motion sensor and indoor camera to spot a hungry chicken rummaging through the kitchen.
In “Birthday,” set on a 1950s winter night, a family gets the Hawaiian luau party started by kicking up the CYNC thermostat control, turning on mood lighting, and activating the indoor smart plug to start the music.
“Aerobics” features two women in 1980s-style workout gear, including brightly colored tights, leg warmers and hair scrunchies. After popping the latest exercise VHS tape into the vintage VCR, one character uses a workout scene set in the innovative new CYNC app to cool the room with the ceiling fan control and change the mood with colored lighting and then shows off a little more with the CYNC app’s TrueImage™ feature that showcases lights and screen images that coordinate.
The CYNC brand includes innovations that make the many benefits of a smart home more accessible and personalized—all while being easy to install and operate. This year, GE Lighting, a Savant company ventured beyond lighting and into the outdoors with its introduction of new products including an Indoor Smart Camera and Outdoor Smart Plug.
“Our goal was to find a way to connect with consumers’ needs around safety, comfort and convenience that the CYNC smart home family of products could solve,” said Rochelle Hartigan, Marketing Director, GE Lighting, a Savant company based in Cleveland.
“This campaign concept provided a clever way to remind the audience of the long-time relationship with the GE brand while causing them to wonder how they ever lived without the CYNC smart home system. The ads take a fresh approach to nostalgia and humor to explain how we’ve transitioned this year from a smart home lighting brand to one offering a full smart home ecosystem, simplifying consumer choice and shopping,” she added.
“The well-known GE brand is the perfect vehicle to emphasize the practicality and ease of the new CYNC smart home products,” said Gian Carlo Lanfranco, CCO and Co-Founder of L&C, formerly known as Lanfranco & Cordova. “Consumers have a fond association with this brand, and the campaign plays off the trust people have in GE in an entertaining, relatable way.”
The films were shot by The Colony’s David Gaddie, recently ranked as the number four director in North America by The One Show Global Creative Rankings 2021.
“It wasn’t so much about being period accurate as it was conjuring the vision of the periods that we all identify from popular movies and television,” said Gaddie. “Performance, lighting, sound and music from movies and television shows from each era were key reference points. A lot of elements had to be right for the audience to believe we were in the past, even though the characters are using modern technology.”
CREDITS:
Client: GE Lighting, a Savant company
Brand: CYNC
Marketing Director: Rochelle Hartigan
CYNC App Product Manager: Danielle Shrider
Brand Public Relations: Mary Ann Milo
Brand Consultant: Katharine Ricci
Agency: L&C New York
Chief Creative Officers: Rolando Cordova / Gian Carlo Lanfranco
Managing Director: Tara Levine
Copywriter: Ana Lins / Greg Collins / Gian Carlo Lanfranco
Art Director: Rolando Cordova / Ana Lins
Executive Producer: Camden Elizabeth / Oscar Thomas
Consumer Insights & Strategy: Rachel Eden
Head of Innovation: Jayson Fittipaldi
Production Company: The Colony / Open Flame
Director: David Gaddie
Executive Producer: Andrew Swee
Line Producer: Mark Krumper
Production Designer: JT Camp
Post Production / VFX / Edit / Color: Afterparty VFX
Post Producer: Joe Durkin
Editor: JP Cadaveira
Colorist: Anastasia Cipolla
Motion Graphics Designer: Shruti Ashok
VFX: Brendan Fitzgerald
Assistant Editor: Kogan Lee
Music + Sound: Squeak E. Clean Studios
Senior Sound Designer + Mixer: Stuart St. Vincent Welch
Senior Post Producer: Angelina Phengphong
GE and C by GE are trademarks of General Electric Company. Used under trademark license.
L&C, a minority-owned creative agency cofounded by Lanfranco and Rolando Cordova, with offices in New York and Lima, was recently named 2021 Top 10 Independent Agency in North America, according to The One Show Global Creative Rankings 2021.
