When was the last time you saw a good commercial for lightbulbs? Let’s face it, people don’t really get excited about bulbs. I don’t remember seeing a good light bulb ad ever in my life, until this: GE’s commercial entitled “Enhance Your Lighting” for their GE Link Lightbulbs featuring the very funny Jeff Goldblum. (check out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egIY7ushchU)

Goldblum plays the character of a “Famous Person” who is very rich, has servants, and benefits tremendously from good lighting (care of GE). This actually reminds me of Austin Powers (his hair, bachelor pad, attractive ladies), except Goldblum doesn’t have a British Accent.

This commercial is a little over 2 minutes long — over 4 times the regular 30 second TV spot. What’s remarkable is that it’s been released only 6 days ago via GE’s Youtube Channel but it already has over 1.5 million views. Commercials this long, especially for the highly commoditized lightbulb industry, don’t usually get this popular. Talk about going viral!

The smart way of integrating humour with the product’s ease of use, control via the Wink Hub, and justification of spending over $14 for a single light bulb (vs $1-$2 light bulbs) proved to be effective in getting people’s attention. In fact, I went out to buy 6 new LED light bulbs after watching this in Home Depot. Unfortunately, only the US Home Depot stores have this, so I ended up buying Philips bulbs instead.

With the clever humour used by GE in this commercial, I predict that it will reach the level of popularity of the Old Spice Man ads. I imagine GE doing a series of mini-ads with Goldblum promoting the lightbulb in other parts of his home, in his outdoor garden, his vacation house (a.k.a castle), and other weird places like the “Hot Tub Room” in the ad.

I can’t wait to see more of this. Good job, GE!