Consumer Lighting

GE Puts An End to the Light Bulb Guessing Game

CLEVELAND, Oh -- The saying "practice makes perfect" could hardly apply when purchasing light bulbs since the typical consumer only shops for light bulbs four times a year. The fact is, when consumers shop for light bulbs, they are often uncertain how to select the correct bulb for a particular application and many times buy the wrong bulb for the application. Now, GE takes the guesswork out of buying light bulbs and the light bulb shopping experience has never been easier.

"Most lighting products are displayed according to technology," explained Robert Stuart, General Manager of Consumer Lighting for GE Consumer & Industrial. "With that system, consumers find fluorescents displayed together, halogen lights together, incandescent lights together and so forth. GE has created a retail system that displays lighting products by how a consumer might use them and the packaging has simple graphics that show the correct application, wattage, and bulb hours. For example, a consumer can look in the Outdoor or Decorative category and then chose from a variety of benefits," he continued.

GE used the knowledge from over 25 consumer studies conducted over several years to design new packaging that gives information that helps consumers, as well as to develop a retail system with categories and product placement that are key to making the shopping experience easier for consumers.

According to the research studies, the typical light bulb shopper:

• Wants to buy light bulbs where they shop everyday.
  
• Does not know much about lighting
  
• Is looking for a quick, simple solution (typically replaces with same product)
  
• Depends on the package for information and solutions

• GE Soft White bulbs offer "regular soft light"
  
• GE Reveal® bulbs provide "premium enhanced vivid light"
  
• GE Edison® bulbs offer "exceptional rich, bright light"

• Outdoor
  
• General Purpose
  
• Decorative
  
• Track and Recessed
  
• Specialty
  
• Fluorescent

GE Consumer & Industrial spans the globe as an industry leader in major appliance, lighting and integrated industrial equipment, systems and services. Providing solutions for commercial, industrial and residential use in more than 100 countries, GE Consumer & Industrial uses innovative technologies and "ecomagination," a GE initiative to aggressively bring to market new technologies that help customers and consumers meet pressing environmental challenges, to deliver comfort, convenience and electrical protection and control. General Electric (NYSE: GE) brings imagination to work, selling products under the Monogram®, Profile™ GE®, Hotpoint®, SmartWater™ Reveal®, Edison™ and Energy Smart™ consumer brands, and Entellisys™ industrial brand. For more information, consumers may visit www.ge.com.

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