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Definitions of Product Placement
· BusinessDictionary.com: Product placement is “an advertising technique used by companies to subtly promote their products through a non-traditional advertising technique, usually through appearances in film, television, or other media”.
· Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary: Product placement is “when a company advertises a product by supplying it for use in films or television programs”.
· MediaDictionary.com: Product placement is “a form of marketing in which a branded product is prominently featured in something such as a film or television show.”
· Ofcom: “Product placement is when a company pays a TV channel or a program-maker to include its products or brands in a program”.
Product Placement (PP) is something that I have been interested, concerned and intrigued with for an extensive period of time, prior to my arrival at university, and long before the Nestlé SA's Dolce Gusto coffee maker appeared on ITV PLC's "This Morning'" television show! Which you can see in the video below, humorously pointed out by The Telegraph.
In this example it is clear that BusinessDictionary.com has got it correct in suggesting that PP is the subtle promotion of products which was so slight that it has been suggested by Barnett, The Telegraphs Digital Media Editor, that the “Marketing chiefs at Nescafe surely will be praying that This Morning’s producers encourage their presenters to cast even a cursory glance at the white Dolce Gusto”.
I believe that this particularly subtle example of PP in UK television was done in order to coax the masses of the United Kingdom into believing that this is how product placement will continue to be, and that it will not become garish and blatant, thus lulling them into a false sense of advertising security. But that is just what I am thinking, how about you?
Well I’m afraid, and sorry to be the first advertising practitioner to cast the first stone, but if we continue along the trail of thought that the UK is always 2 years behind the USA and that “Britain and America governments read from the same page” (Apollo) then it is only going to be 2 years until the clip you see below, becomes a regular occurrence in Coronation Street, Hollyoaks or any other of your favorite TV programs, providing that they abide by Ofcoms PP rules and regulations.
And going back to the comment that British and American governments read from the same page – I do hope not because you can see what page the American government is reading from... One that seemingly wanted the president of the Unite States of American (at the time George Bush) to do a bit of product placement for Dell.
PP is also happening in films that are aimed at the children of the UK. I only mention this because Ofcom have made it seem as if the new legislation in the UK isn’t going to harm or reach children e.g. “Products cannot be placed in… children’s programmes”.
But what is the point in this legislation if PP is already occurring in one of the most exciting and current blockbusters, that is ultimately aimed at children e.g. Transformers.
Transformers has been ‘transformed’ (pardon the pun) into a vehicle for PP. The PP was so frequent and obvious within this film that it has even been suggested that Transformers was “Not a film” but a “commercial!” for numerous different brands (vdrinker08). See if you can notice them (leave a comment and see if you noticed them all).
So taking Transformers as a foundation example, isn’t Columbia Pictures blockbuster ‘the social network’ an entire film dedicated to the product placement of Facebook? Is it not completely and utterly advertising the pants out of the Facebook brand?
From the front cover, the name of the film, and the entire storyline, the social network is definitely “a form of marketing in which a branded product is prominently featured in something such as a film” (MediaDictionary.com) even if it is indirect, thus making it an example of PP that “will cost Mark Zuckerberg more than $100M” (Tyrrell).
PP is even being used for techniques of digital communication and digital advertising as you will be able to see in my previous blog ‘QR Codes to the Rescue!’ and the QR Codes CSI moment.
If PP is so common and has been seeping and peeping into our everyday lives, for a long period of time, and generally goes unnoticed, and more often than not unchallenged, why is it that we are uncomfortable for PP to occur during our (DDI)‘Daily Digital Interactions’?
Well trust me (or don’t) if people knew the truth they would be twice as more ‘uncomfortable’ with Digital PP. So I thought I might assist with that. Sorry!
Did you know that companies such as Marathon Ventures “can place a product, virtually any size, in almost any location”, they “could place one product in a first-run telecast, a second product when that program is rerun, and a third product when the show goes into syndication, and another product when it goes on cable,” says Brenner, the president of Marathon Ventures, in: ‘Product Placement goes digital, gets lucrative’. The process is called (DBI) digital brand integration and it is the newest form of PP.
Ultimately the only advertising worth its salt is that which; arrives to its audience via the correct media vehicle, at the correct time, in the right way for the given product. PP and particularly DBI do this in many ways. It embodies all of the ideas around the ‘celebrated celebrity’ (celebrity endorsement), ethos advertising, credibility, trend setting, consumer appropriation, appropriate media, proliferation and fragmentation of audiences and their viewing times, and provides them in one costly, but potentially very effective advertising package, don’t you think?
And with that my concern is heightened, but will fall on deaf ears, my interested is stronger than it has ever been, which I cannot see declining in the near future (especially with the new UK PP legislation) and my intrigue, similar but not exactly the same as my interest, has grown in the sense that I want to know where it all ends, but that discussion is for another blog.
I’ll have a think!
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