Product placement , or embedded marketing , is a form of advertisement, where branded goods or services are placed in a context usually devoid of ads, such as movies, the story line of television shows, or news programs. The product placement is often not disclosed at the time that the good or service is featured. Product placement became common in the 1980s.In April 2006, Broadcasting & Cable reported, "Two thirds of advertisers employ 'branded entertainment'--product placement--with the vast majority of that (80%) in commercial TV programming." The story, based on a survey by the Association of National Advertisers, said "Reasons for using in-show plugs varied from 'stronger emotional connection' to better dovetailing with relevant content, to targeting a specific group."
Early examples
Product placement dates back to the nineteenth century in publishing. By the time he published the adventure novel, Around the World in Eighty Days the French writer Jules Verne was a world-renowned literary giant to the extent transport and shipping companies lobbied to be mentioned in the story as it was published in serial form. Product placement is still used in books to some extent, particularly in novels.
Placement in movies
Although recognizable brand names probably had appeared in movies prior to the 1920s, the weekly trade periodical Harrison's Reports published its first denunciation of that practice with respect to Red Crown gasoline appearing in the 1919 Fatty Arbuckle comedy The Garage .
During the next four decades, Harrison's Reports frequently cited cases of on-screen brand name products, always condemning the practice as harmful to movie theaters. Publisher P. S. Harrison’s editorials strongly reflected his feelings against product placement in movies. An editorial in Harrison’s Reports criticized the collaboration between Corona Typewriter company and First National Pictures when a Corona typewriter appeared in the 1925 movie The Lost World . Harrison's Reports published several incidents about Corona typewriters appearing in movies of the mid-1920s.
Among the famous silent movies to feature product placement was Wings (released in 1927), the first film to win the Oscar for Best Picture. It contained a plug for Hershey's chocolate.
Another early example in film occurs in the 1932 film Horse Feathers where Thelma Todd falls out of a canoe and into a river. She calls for a life saver and Groucho Marx tosses her the Life Savers candy. The Marx Brothers, in the 1949 film Love Happy , Harpo Marx cavorts on a rooftop among various billboards and at one point escapes from the villains on the old Mobil logo, the "Flying Red Horse".
The 1946 film It's a Wonderful Life by Frank Capra depicts a young boy with aspirations to be an explorer, displaying a prominent copy of National Geographic.
In the classic 1949 film noir Gun Crazy , the climactic crime is the payroll robbery of the Armour meat packing plant, where a Bulova clock is prominently seen.
In other early media, e.g., radio in the 1930s and 1940s and early television in the 1950s, programs were often underwritten by companies. "Soap operas" are called such because they were initially underwritten by consumer packaged goods companies such as Procter & Gamble or Unilever. When television began to displace radio, DuMont's Cavalcade of Stars was, in its era, notable for not relying on a sole sponsor in the tradition of NBC's Texaco Star Theater and similar productions. Sponsorship exists today with programs being sponsored by major vendors such as Hallmark.
The conspicuous display of Studebaker motor vehicles in the television show Mr. Ed , which was sponsored by the Studebaker Corporation from 1961 to 1963, is another example of product placement.
Incorporation of products into the actual plot of a film or TV show is generally called "brand integration".
An early example of such "brand integration" was by Abercrombie and Fitch in 1964, one of its stores providing the notional venue for part of the Rock Hudson / Paula Prentiss romantic comedy film Man's Favourite Sport?.
A recent example is HBO's Sex and the City , where the plot revolved around, among other things, Absolut Vodka, a campaign upon which one of the protagonists was working, and a billboard in Times Square, where a bottle prevented an image of the model from being pornographic. Knight Rider , a TV series featuring a talking Pontiac Trans Am, is another example of brand integration.
The earliest example of product placement in a computer or video game occurs in the 1984 game Action Biker for KP's Skips crisps. Video games, such as Crazy Taxi feature real retail stores as game destinations. However, sometimes the economics are reversed and video game makers pay for the rights to use real sports teams and players. Today, product placement in online video is also becoming common. Online agencies are specializing in connecting online video producers, which are usually individuals, with brands and advertisers.
Categories and variations
Actual product placement falls into two categories: products or locations that are obtained from manufacturers or owners to reduce the cost of production, and products deliberately placed into productions in exchange for fees.
Sometimes, product usage is negotiated rather than paid for. Some placements provide productions with below-the-line savings, with products such as props, clothes and cars being loaned for the production's use, thereby saving them purchase or rental fees. Barter systems (the director/actor/producer wants one for himself) and service deals (cellular phones provided for crew use, for instance) are also common practices. Producers may also seek out companies for product placements as another savings or revenue stream for the movie, with, for example, products used in exchange for help funding advertisements tied-in with a film's release, a show's new season or other event.
A variant of product placement is advertisement placement . In this case an advertisement for the product (rather than the product itself) is seen in the movie or television series. Examples include a Lucky Strike cigarette advertisement on a billboard or a truck with a milk advertisement on its trailer.
Another variant is the widespread use of promotional consideration in which a television game show would award an advertiser's product as a prize or consolation prize in return for a subsidy from the product's manufacturer.
Product placement companies work to integrate their client company brands with film and television productions. Jay May, president of Feature This!, a branded entertainment company, explains the process: “The studio sends us the script. We break it down. We look for our clients’ demographics and then we tell our client this movie is available with this actor, with this director, with this producer, do you want it?”
Measuring effectiveness
Quantification methods track brand integrations, with both basic quantitative and more demonstrative qualitative systems used to determine the cost and effective media value of a placement. Rating systems measure the type of placement and on-screen exposure is gauged by audience recall rates. Products might be featured but hardly identifiable, clearly identifiable, long or recurrent in exposure, associated with a main character, verbally mentioned and/or they may play a key role in the storyline. Media values are also weighed over time, depending on a specific product's degree of presence in the market.
Consumer response and economic impact
As with any advertising, its effectiveness tends to be proven by the fact that advertisers continue to use product placement as a marketing strategy. However, some consumer groups such as Commercial Alert object to the practice as "an affront to basic honesty",, which they claim is too common in today's society. Commercial Alert asks for full disclosure of all product placement arrangements, arguing that most product placements are deceptive and not clearly disclosed. They advocate notification before and during television programs with embedded advertisements. One justification for this is to allow greater parental control for children, whom they claim are easily influenced by product placement.
The Writers Guild of America, a trade union representing authors of TV scripts, had raised objections in 2005 that its members are forced to write ad copy disguised as storyline on the grounds that "the result is that tens of millions of viewers are sometimes being sold products without their knowledge, sold in opaque, subliminal ways and sold in violation of government regulations."
According to PQMedia, a consulting firm that tracks the product placement market, 2006 product placement was estimated at $3.07B rising to $5.6B in 2010. However, these figures are somewhat misleading in PQMedia's view in that today, many product placement and brand integration deals are a combination of advertising and product placement. In these deals, the product placement is often contingent upon the purchase of advertising revenues. When the product placement that is bundled with advertising is allocated to part of the spending, PQMedia estimates that product placement is closer to $7B in value, rising to $10B by 2010.
A major driver of growth for the use of product placement is the increasing use of digital video recorders (DVR) such as Ti
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