Yes, because this one ad will make GE more than any of these people employed at the company made them. It's about leveraging its strong brand equity. GE has a strong brand equity, and they need to preserve this brand equity, even when times are tough. Just because GE may be down, does not mean they are out! More people will be shown the GE brand, and more impressions for this brand will be shown than 26 employees who each were paid $100,000. So, this ad may cost $2.6 million for the company, but would make more for the company, and be more memorable than 26 employees would. Not saying employees are not powerful, yet GE has a brand to maintain, and a strong brand that can be shown with more impressions at the Superbowl than by employees who where laid off.
Source(s):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brand_equity
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb6517/is_200405/ai_n25859676

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Of course they should show it. The money was spent a year ago before they knew these economic problems were coming.

Not showing it would be wasting the money already spent.
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Even though it is difficult to measure the effectiveness of traditional commercials/advertisements in terms of ROI, companies comtinue to spend money on Advertisement with the assumption that for every 100$ spent, there will be a 100+ $ return, which will inturn increase the Profit of that company which will in turn allow the company to hire more people at at later stage.

Just my thoughts.
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