The New York Times Takeover

For 130 years, GE has invented the future of industry and pioneered technologies that have improved the lives of billions. In late 2021, the company announced its separation into three independent companies, bringing greater focus to the critical areas of growth and innovation of aerospace (GE Aerospace), energy (GE Vernova), and healthcare (GE HealthCare). 

To celebrate this historic moment GE collaborated with New York Times Advertising for an innovative first: a cover-to-cover ad takeover of an entire edition of The New York Times newspaper, a first in The Times’s 171-year history.

On December 6, readers were met with a print edition creatively centered around the theme of “focus,” a cover wrap showcasing GE’s three planned companies, ad placements revealing the impetus behind GE’s transformation, and a tribute to GE employees whose focus has helped develop key technologies. 

Inside, readers discovered interactive “focus breaks” dedicated to each new company. We worked with Guinness World Record-holder Ken Blackburn to create a paper airplane, New York Times puzzlemaker Brendan Emmet Quigley on a Vernova spiral crossword puzzle, and the creators of the patented Magic Eye 3D illusions on 3D medical imagery. 

The takeover included 22 custom-designed full-page color advertisements, in addition to five partial pages that ran across the print edition’s main news, business, and arts & sciences sections. 

In addition to print, the campaign also included ad takeovers across The Times digital homepage, “The Daily” podcast, newsletters, and The Times's opinion, business, science and DealBook sections.

The groundbreaking campaign reinforced GE’s belief that focus is a superpower, and became one of the most significant marketing activations in the company’s history, outperforming Kantar B2B benchmarks overall by 239%, earning over 100 million press impressions, and a 57% average increase in brand familiarity for all three companies.