Environmental Leader

GE sees its sponsorship of the Beijing Olympics as a way to “prove to potential customers and shareholders in the developed world that G.E.’s creativity is translating into big sales in the developing one,” The New York Times reports.

The company is building an imagination center in the middle of the Olympic Green, a two-story building that is half fun house, half museum exhibit. And it is putting the finishing touches on a series of print ads and commercials that put an Olympic spin on its effort to bring desalination technology to the Middle East, X-ray technology to China and heart monitoring gear to India.

On the ground, the Olympics is a big international business convention, according to the article, with sponsors bringing in large numbers of clients – the people GE will be targeting with much of its marketing. The Olympics could serve as a way for GE to reach universal brand awareness, which the article says the company does not yet have.

The company has a big advantage when it comes to reaching television viewers too. GE owns 80 percent of NBC, which has the U.S. broadcast rights for the Olympics.