Branded Entertainment in our market is the best in the world, but Branded Entertainment in this category is nonexistent. We converted a brief for a corporate manifesto into an unconventional short film and a real-time conversation with its star, through hundreds of live video tweets, Snapchat, Facebook posts and Facebook videos.

A baby is born, and emits an electronic “beep,” instead of a traditional baby’s cry. The doctors and parents are amazed and taken aback. But the mother and father hug the boy and love him dearly.

We see the boy growing up and the only noise he makes is the electronic “beep.” He can control gadgets, and toys and the TV around the house just by beeping.

His parents have taken him to a speech therapist. The speech therapist sounds out the vocal sound “aaaaaa” and the boy responds with “beeeeeep.” End of session.

He’s in the car with his mother and sister. Mom is flustered because they look like they are going to be late. As they stop at a traffic light, the boy looks at the traffic light and beeps. We see the lights all turn green ahead of them. Mom looks at the boy with suspicious astonishment, and drives on.

At school, he beeps to get the teacher’s video presentation to work. The kids snicker and tease, except for a girl he likes, who also likes him. Later, he beeps as she passes a vending machine and it drops a snack for her. She smiles.

During a stormy night, the town loses its power. The boy stands in the rain and beeps. The power is rerouted and neighborhood-by-neighborhood, the power goes back on. We pull out and show large swaths of the state’s power grid being readjusted to account for this huge, moving storm. A few neighbors clap from their porches. The word is out on the boy.

The boy is talked and written about in the media. He appears on a talk show. He’s a hit.

He is brought to factories, companies, hospitals, and airlines around the country and the world – and, one at a time, he makes them work better, faster, and more efficiently just by communicating with their hardware/machines.

It ends with him with the girl he likes on a blanket at night staring at the stars.

Girl: Look at the stars.

He beeps to make all the power go out…and thereby, make the stars pop.

Girl: Thank you.

Boy: You’re welcome.

They’re both amazed that he can now also speak “human.”

Super: When you speak the language of industry…

Super: …The conversation can change the world.

Super: GE logo.

The infomercial quickly went viral, reaching over one million views within three days online, and ultimately grabbing 1.36+ billion earned media impressions. Across mobile, desktop and social platforms, our ad garnered 57 million total views. In Facebook and on Twitter, we amassed over 46 million social impressions, with people declaring their love for the ad as well as their purchase intent for the bulbs. On average, consumers stayed engaged for 70% of the entire video, over twice as long as the industry average for time spent viewing videos. Fast Company and Entertainment Weekly listed this as one of the “Top Commercials of 2014” while Motley Fool praised the commercial for making “GE’s New Light Bulb Sexy.” Most importantly, six months’ worth of light bulbs sold out online only three days after our infomercial launched.