Product placement

Product placement, or embedded marketing, is a type of advertising, in which promotional advertisements are placed by marketers using real commercial products and services in media, where the presence of a particular brand is the result of an economic exchange. It is also known as product integration, especially when the product becomes integral to the plot. When a product is not part of an economic exchange, it is called a product plug. A few countries, notably the United Kingdom, do not permit product placement in domestically produced films.

Product placement appears in plays, film, television series, music videos, video games and books. Product placement occurs with the inclusion of a brand's logo in shot, or a favorable mention or appearance of a product in shot. This is done without disclosure, and under the premise that it is a natural part of the work. Most major movie releases today contain product placements. The most common form is movie and television placements and more recently computer and video games. Recently, websites have experimented with in-site product placement as a revenue model.

Early examples

Product placement became common in the 1980s, but can be traced 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.

Possibly the first film 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 1946 film It's a Wonderful Life by Frank Capra where a young boy with aspirations to be an explorer displays a prominent copy of National Geographic. Another is in the 1949 film Love Happy, in which 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".

Still another example is the conspicuous display of Studebaker motor vehicles in the television show Mr. Ed, which was sponsored by the Studebaker Corporation from 1961 to 1963.

The earliest example of product placement in a cartoon occurs in the Comedy Central show: Shorties Watchin' Shorties.

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. Sponsorship still exists today with programs being sponsored by major vendors such as Hallmark. Incorporation of products into the actual plot of a TV show is generally called "brand integration". A recent example is HBO's Sex in 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 becomming 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.

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",[3] 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.

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 TiVO which enable viewers to skip advertisements. This ad skipping behavior increases in frequency the longer a household has owned a DVR.

Products

Certain products are featured more than others. Commonly seen are automobiles, consumer electronics and computers, and tobacco products.

Automobiles

The most common products to be promoted in this way are automobiles. Frequently, all the important vehicles in a movie or television serial will be supplied by one manufacturer. For example, The X-Files used Fords, as do leading characters on 24. The James Bond films pioneered such placement. The 1974 film The Man with the Golden Gun featured extensive use of AMC cars, even in scenes in Thailand, where AMC cars weren't sold, and had the steering wheel on the wrong side of the vehicle for the country's roads. The last two Bond films had used vehicles from Ford or its subsidiaries. In Bad Boys 2 and The Matrix Reloaded, almost every car was made by General Motors, the only exception being the Ferrari in Bad Boys 2.

Other times, vehicles or other products take on such key roles in the film it's as if they are another character. In Desperate Housewives three of the characters drive Nissans, and the camera view often focuses on the Nissan symbol on someone's car, also the character Gabrielle Solis can also be seen driving an Aston Martin DB9 Volante prominently. Nissan cars also feature prominently in the 'Heroes' TV show, the logos often zoomed in/out of or whole cars shown for a few seconds at the beginning of a new scene. In The Matrix Reloaded, a key chase scene is conducted between a brand new Cadillac CTS and a Cadillac Escalade EXT. The chase scene also features a Ducati motorcycle in the getaway. Three of the James Bond films starring Pierce Brosnan featured a BMW car before fan outcry pressured the producers to return to using the traditional Aston Martin. In addition, a Shelby GT500 is used very extensively at the beginning of I Am Legend. In the 2008 movie Taken Liam Neeson drives AUDI cars, first an A3 and a S8 in the final high speed scene on the streets of Paris. All of the cars in the video game Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 are manufactured by Dodge.

Consumer electronics and computers

The 2006 film Casino Royale features many Sony product placements throughout: A BD-R disc is prominently portrayed at one time, all characters use VAIO laptops, Sony Ericsson cell phones and GPSs, BRAVIA televisions, and a character uses a Cyber-shot to take photos.

Apple's products frequently appear in films and on television, Apple has stated that they do not pay for this.. (Notably, recognizable Apple products have appeared in newspaper comic strips, including Opus, Baby Blues, Non Sequitur, and FoxTrot, even though paid placement in comics is all but unknown.) In a twist on traditional product placement, Hewlett-Packard computers now appear exclusively as part of photo layouts in the IKEA catalog in addition to placing plastic models of its computers in IKEA stores, having taken over Apple's position in the Swedish furniture retailer's promotional materials several years ago. Hewlett-Packard also put their computers in the US production of The Office.

In video games, products that most often appear are placements for processors or graphics cards. For example in EA's Battlefield 2142, ads for Intel Core 2 processors appear on map billboards.

Tobacco

The James Bond film Licence to Kill featured use of the Lark brand of cigarette and the producers accepted payment for that product placement. The studio's executives apparently believed that the placement triggered the American warning notice requirement for cigarette advertisements and thus the movie carried the Surgeon General's Warning at the end credits of the film. This brought forth calls for banning such cigarette advertisements in future films. Later releases of License to Kill, especially for video and television releases, had the Lark pack replaced with a similar-looking, generic pack.

Within the United Kingdom, product placement is banned. A recent EU directive would have allowed it, however culture secretary Andy Burnham refused to accept it, and it appears likely the UK will introduce laws to fully outlaw it, whereas in the past it was only regulated by OFCOM.

Reviewing previously secret tobacco advertising documents, the British Medical Journal concluded:

The tobacco industry recruits new smokers by associating its products with fun, excitement, sex, wealth, and power and as a means of expressing rebellion and independence. One of the ways it has found to promote these associations has been to encourage smoking in entertainment productions.1 Exposure to smoking in entertainment media is associated with increased smoking and favourable attitudes towards tobacco use among adolescents.2–8

While the tobacco industry has routinely denied active involvement in entertainment programming, previously secret tobacco industry documents made available in the USA show that the industry has had a long and deep relationship with Hollywood. Placing tobacco products in movies and on television (fig 1Go), encouraging celebrity use and endorsement, advertising in entertainment oriented magazines, designing advertising campaigns to reflect Hollywood's glamour, and sponsoring entertainment oriented events have all been part of the industry's relationship with the entertainment industry.
-- How the tobacco industry built its relationship with Hollywood, BMJ 2002

Extreme and unusual examples

Overkill

The film I, Robot, though set in the future, makes heavy use of product placements for Converse trainers, Ovaltine, Audi, Fedex, Dos Equis, and JVC among others, all of them introduced within the first ten minutes of the film. One particularly infamous scene borders into an actual advertisement in which a character compliments Will Smith's character's shoes to which he replies "Converse. Vintage 2004" (the year of the film's release). Audi invested the most on the film, going so far as to create a special car for the film, the Audi RSQ. It was expected that the placement would increase brand awareness and raise the emotional appeal of the Audi brand, objectives that were considered achieved when surveys conducted in the United States showed that the Audi RSQ gave a substantial boost to the image ratings of the brand. The Audi RSQ is seen during nine minutes of the film, although other Audis like the Audi A6, the Audi TT and the Audi A2 can be seen sprinkled throughout the film. I, Robot was ranked "the worst film for product placement" on a British site.

The film The Island, directed by Michael Bay, features at least 35 individual products or brands, including cars, bottled water, shoes, credit cards, beer, ice cream, and even a search engine. The film was highly criticized for this. In movie's DVD Commentary track, Michael Bay claims he added the advertisements for realism purposes.

The comedy film Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby also contained a high amount of product placement. Characters repeatedly mention brands under the disguise of NASCAR sponsorship. The movie contains possibly the first instance of an actual television commercial in a movie. It was intended to mock the controversy with NASCAR fans under the Unified Television Contract 2001-06 where they criticised the excessive number of commercial breaks during races.

Bill Cosby's film Leonard Part 6 was widely criticized for its Coca Cola product placements, as was The Wizard for Nintendo products.

The 2001 film Josie and the Pussycats featured a large amount of blatant product placement for brands such as Puma, Target, McDonalds and TJ Maxx. This appears to be done ironically, as the plot of the film revolves around subliminal messages in advertising. The film's general message can also be construed as an anti-consumerist one.

The Japanese animated series Code Geass is sponsored by the Japanese branch of Pizza Hut. Despite the fact that the series is set in an alternate reality, at least one main character is depicted ordering and receiving a Pizza Hut pizza on several occasions. The company's logo also appears throughout the series.

Self-criticism

The pilot episode of the NBC sitcom 30 Rock prominently featured General Electric's Trivection oven, which many people believed was an example of product placement. However, Tina Fey, the show's creator, stated in an interview that the oven was included purely as a joke, although this didn't stop GE from running ads for the oven during the commercial break. Allison Eckelkamp, a spokesperson for GE, said that GE chose to do this to make sure viewers knew it was a real product. In the first episode of season two, Tina Fey's character endorses a cellular phone service, then turns to the camera and asks "Can we have our money now?", breaking the fourth wall and still managing to underhandedly endorse the product.

The 1988 film Return of the Killer Tomatoes utilized the concept in a parodic manner -- at one point, the film stops, as money to produce it ran out. The film's producer (portrayed by George Clooney) steps in, suggesting product placement as a way to recoup the losses. This was followed by several scenes with blatant product placement, including a Pepsi billboard installed in front of the villain's mansion.

The film Minority Report, makes heavy use of product placement, including Coca-Cola, Gap, and Lexus. Director Steven Spielberg also uses one scene to criticize advertising: the main character (Tom Cruise) is harassed by personalised advertisements calling out his own name.

The film "Wayne's World" included a parody in which both Wayne and Garth decry product placement while at the same time clearly endorsing products.

The film Fight Club, directed by David Fincher, bit the hand that fed it by depicting acts of violence against most of the products that paid to be placed in the film. Examples include the scene where the Apple Store is broken into, the scene in which Brad Pitt and Edward Norton smash the headlights of a new Volkswagen Beetle, and trying to blow up a 'popular coffee franchise', a thinly veiled dig at Starbucks.

The film Superstar, starring Will Ferrell and Molly Shannon, shows every resident in town driving VW New Beetles. However, it is possible that this was done for comic effect.

The comedy film Kung Pow! Enter the Fist also attempted to spoof its product placements, clearly pointing out the anachronistic inclusion of a Taco Bell in the film. In a similar vein, in Looney Tunes: Back In Action the main characters stumble across a Wal-Mart while stranded in the middle of Death Valley and get all necessary supplies for their endorsement of the company.

Faux product placement and parodies

The 1998 film The Truman Show utilized the concept although in a manner different than other films. The film's focus, a 24-hour television broadcast called "The Truman Show" that focuses on the life of Truman Burbank, uses faux product placement. His wife places products in front of the hidden cameras, even naming certain products in dialogue with her husband, all of which increases Truman's suspicion as he comes to realize his surroundings are intentionally fabricated.

Some filmmakers have responded to product placement by creating fictional products that frequently appear in the movies they make. Some examples:

• Kevin Smith - Nails Cigarettes, Mooby Corporation, Chewlees Gum, Discreeto Burritos
• Quentin Tarantino - Fruite Brute, Red Apple Cigarettes, Big Kahuna Burger, Jack Rabbit Slim's Restaurants
• Robert Rodriguez - Chango Beer
• Pixar Animation Studios - Pizza Planet, Dinoco
• Warner Brothers - Acme Corporation
• Coen Brothers - Dapper Dan Hair Wax

This practice is also fairly common in certain comics, such as Svetlana Chmakova's Dramacon, which makes several product-placement-esque usages of "Pawky", (a modification of the name of the Japanese snack "Pocky", popular among the anime and manga fan community in which the story is set) or Naoko Takeuchi's Sailor Moon, which includes numerous references to the series Codename: Sailor V which Sailor Moon was spun off of; the anime makes further use of this meta-referential gag, going so far as having an animator on a Codename: Sailor V feature film be a victim in one episode.

This practice is also common in certain "reality-based" video games such as the Grand Theft Auto series which feature fictitious stores such as Ammu-Nation, Vinyl Countdown, Gash (spoofing Gap. Another spoof was made in GTA: San Andreas with Zip), Pizza Boy, etc.

Reverse placement

So-called "reverse product placement" takes "faux product placement" a step further, by creating products in real life to match those seen in a fictional setting. For example, in 2007, 7-Eleven rebranded 11 of its American stores as "Kwik-E-Marts", selling some real-life versions of products seen in episodes of the Simpsons such as Buzz Cola and Krusty-O's cereal.

In the 1984 cult film Repo Man, a reverse form of product placement is used, with an exaggerated form of 1980's era generic packaging used on products prominently shown on-screen (these include "Beer", "Drink", "Dry Gin" and "Food - Meat Flavored"). Reportedly, this was done out of necessity after an intended advertiser, who was to have used product placement, backed out in mid-production.

Virtual placement

Virtual product placement uses computer graphics to insert the product into the program after the program is complete.[4][5]

As of 2007, a new trend is emerging in product placement, the development of capabilities that permit dynamic or switchable product placement. Previously post production tools have permitted one time insertion of new product placement images and billboard advertising, notable in televised at baseball and hockey games. As of 2007, startups are offering or developing the ability to switch product placement. First generation virtual product placement has tended to be based upon sports arenas where the geometrical relationships of camera and the surface of the flat area onto which the billboard is projected, can be easily calculated. Second generation product placement or dynamic product placement is more focused upon commercial products. Third generation virtual or dynamic product placement allows targeting of customers with different products that can be dynamically switched based upon such factors as demographics, psychographics or behavioral information about the consumer.

Also of interest are hypervideo techniques that can insert interactive elements into online video.

Their name in lights!

2004's Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle was one of the first films to be completely centered around a product or product retail store, even going so far as to include the restaurant name in the title. The White Castle fast food chain, though very regional, enjoyed a high rise in exposure when the film was released.

Another example is The Coca-Cola Kid a 1985 movie about an employee of the Coca Cola company. In this case, however, the film was not sponsored by the company. Similarly, Kodak and Nikon did not have anything to do with Paul Simon's decision to write a song about his Kodachrome film and his Nikon camera though, presumably, they benefitted from the exposure.

Reality TV

Recently there has been an increased number of subliminal messages and product placement examples in reality tv-shows. For example the well-known Russian television show Dom-2 (similar to Big Brother often features one of the participants stating something along the lines of: "Oh, did you check out the new product X by company Y yet?" after which the camera zooms in onto the named product. It has been stated that the participants get paid for it, however it is unclear whether the show itself has anything to do with it.

Product displacement

According to Danny Boyle, director of 2008 film Slumdog Millionaire, the makers had to resort to something he calls "Product displacement" when companies such as Mercedes refused to allow their products to be used in non-flattering settings. While they didn't mind having a gangster driving their cars, they objected to their products been shown in a slum setting. This forced the makers in post-production to remove logos digitally, costing "tens of thousands of pounds".

Further reading

1. Balasubramanian, Siva K. (1994) "Beyond Advertising and Publicity: Hybrid Messages and Public Policy Issues," Journal of Advertising, 23 (4), 29-46.
2. Balasubramanian, Siva K., James Karrh and Hemant Patwardhan (2006), "Audience Response to Product Placements: An Integrative Framework and Future Research Agenda," Journal of Advertising, 35 (3), 115-141.
3. Pascal Schumacher: Effektivität von Ausgestaltungsformen des Product Placement, Fribourg 2007
4. Russell, Cristel A. and Barbara Stern (2006) “Consumers, Characters, and Products: A Balance Model of Sitcom Product Placement Effects,” Journal of Advertising, 35 (1), 7-18.
5. Russell, Cristel A. and Michael Belch (2005) “A Managerial Investigation into the Product Placement Industry,” Journal of Advertising Research, 45 (1), 73-92.
6. Russell, Cristel A. (2002) “Investigating the Effectiveness of Product Placements in Television Shows: The Role of Modality and Plot Connection Congruence on Brand Memory and Attitude,” Journal of Consumer Research, 29 (3), 306-318.

External links

• Brand Cameos - Tracks product placement in blockbuster movies.
• Brandspotters - Examples of product placement in movies, television shows, and vlogs.
• Fast Company - Plinking as Emerging Web Jargon.
• iTVX Product Placement Glossary of words
• BrandBrigade - Digital Product Placement Specialists
• Seesaw Media Ltd - Product Placement Specialists
• MirriAd - Embedded Advertising Specialists
• Product placement example.
• Product placement in famous video clips.
• PlaceVine - Web-based info service connecting marketers to content producers in film, tv, and online.
• Product Placement News and Measurement
• Kluger Agency - Brand Integration and Product Placement in Music (Agency)