Product placement became a hot topic a few years ago with the influx of placement on TV reality shows, taken to its most blatantly obnoxious peak by Donald Trump on NBC’s The Apprentice.
Product placement has been around for decades, perhaps getting most noticed by marketers back in 1982 when Steven Spielberg’s little alien ET expressed his preference for Reese’s Pieces. It could have been M&Ms, Milk Duds or healthy carrot sticks, but for a price — Reese’s Pieces it was.
Product placement on TV is nothing new. Game shows have been doing it forever, with companies paying hefty fees to have their products given away as prizes. Back in the early 1980s when I was doing PR for Jaguar, we had a press fleet in Hollywood that was used primarily for “placement” of the British cat in TV shows and theatrical films.
Originally, placement people had relationships with property masters and they made under-the-table deals so a bottle of Sprite might be in an actor’s hand instead of whatever happened to be in the prop closet. But the studios caught on and now fees from product placement are often factored into a film’s budget, alongside income from licensing and other marketing deals.
Now there seems to be something new in product placement — product placement in ads themselves. Say what?
I’m told there’s an ad running for a Dodge SUV that includes footage of guys drinking Pepsi. It doesn’t appear to be a cross-marketing tie-in. Since the Pepsi logo is shown clearly in the ad, could this be the start of a new wave of product placement?
I can imagine some possible benefits for the advertisers. For the primary advertiser who’s buying the time, placement income eases the burden of the buy and frees up money for other media buys or other marketing efforts. For the marketer buying the placement, they get the GRPs at a lower cost than going it alone. And both companies get a break by sharing the cost of production of the spot.
The company buying into someone else’s ad might also get the reflected glory or credibility from the primary sponsor.
I mentioned this online the other day, and Matt Dickman responded, suggesting sharing ads could work well for some categories such as the recent Nike Father’s Day spot featuring Tiger Woods. He thought an ad like that, where timely delivery is relevant, could easily showcase UPS or FedEx. Ryan Karpeles recalls seeing an auto ad recently where an iPod was clearly shown, but with no specific mention by name. An example of product placement or just coincidence?
I know the networks have rules regarding multiple sponsors in a single ad, so I don’t think we’ll get to the point of rampant clutter within a 30-second spot. But it does open some interesting possibilities, as well as some challenges. If done well, though, product placement in TV ads could work for all involved, including the viewing audience.
It could be the next frontier in product placement.
Related posts:
- ABC Tops for Most Effective Product Placement
- Product Placement Booming, Will Slow Slightly
- Nielsen’s Product Placement Study Informs New Place*Values Tool
- Sears, Camaro Tops for Product Placement Recognition, ‘Warm Fuzzies’
- Consumers Interested in Billboards, Product Placement
Tags: David_Reich, Marketing, Movies, product_placement, programming, television, TV
Hi David – I don’t think this is new either; look to coop ads from credit issuers in particular. But two more recent examples for your theory: Google/Pontiac and Apple/Nissan. I blogged about it here: http://www.beingpeterkim.com/2006/07/google_pontiac_.html
David,
Thank you for the update regarding product placement. As more and more of us Tivo our way through TV, businesses need to continue to find new ways to show us their products.
NASCAR, for example, has teamed up with UPS in an indirect way, through one of its drivers. Dale Jarret’s car is sponsored by UPS, and during the races you can see Dale driving a UPS truck like only a NASCAR driver can. Good for UPS and good for NASCAR, as the ad targets those of us watching the race. While we may not ever pay attention to a UPS ad, put a NASCAR driver behind the wheel, and you’ve hooked us.
This doesn’t relate directly to product placement in the way you discuss it here, but it does relate in a more subtle way. (Or maybe not so subtle.)
Thanks for the comment and the link, Pete. The examples you mention are interesting, although, as you say, Nissan didn’t pay Apple anything. Actually, it seems like Apple got the benefit and the free ride in that example.
Hi Lewis.
NASCAR is probably the king of product placement when you look at the cars and the drivers’ uniforms. There’s barely enough room for the team name or the driver name.
So it seems totally appropriate for NASCAR to do some product placement of its own with a ride in a UPS ad. But in that case, UPS already has a commercial tie with NASCAR, as a sponsor of a car.
I’m wondering if there are any other examples of totally unrelated brands getting visibility in someone else’s TV ad.
Actually M & M’s turned down the placement in the movie.
There was no payment for placement, only for promotional tie ins. One of the best product placement deals ever.
http://www.snopes.com/business/market/mandms.asp
Thanks for the link. Boy did the M&M folks blow it.
David,
This is very interesting and a trend that I could see increasing and evolving. In a time where ads are not as effective as they used to, do you think product placement in ads themselves will produce greater results than any one company could produce by themselves (the sum is greater than its parts) or will it just likely create more clutter and lack of credibility and trust?
What are your thoughts?
David,
This is very interesting and a trend that I could see increasing and evolving. In a time where ads are not as effective as they used to, do you think product placement in ads themselves will produce greater results than any one company could produce by themselves (the sum is greater than its parts) or will it just likely create more clutter and lack of credibility and trust?
What are your thoughts?
Product placement, from our point of view as a designer/manufacturer, is one of the best low cost, or free advertising options for us – we love it!
We even belong to a PR list that sends product placement leads for movies, TV and commercials
It’s been a crucial PR element for keeping our small business alive.
I appreciate the role that product placement has in media these days. What I don’t appreciate, however, is the way that it plays out. Seems that you can’t watch any “reality-based” shows any more without seeing oodles of black electrical tape covering up logos from companies that haven’t paid. Or, my favorite is when they blur out the logos on apparel, etc. as people are walking along. The end result? I pay MORE attention to the logos that are being blurred than the logos that aren’t being blurred out…
Ugh, can’t we just get back to simply filming people and environments the way that they actually are, instead of having to edit them out “just in case” someone should spot a Nike logo on my shoes?
Bill, I think it can very easily get out of hand. The smarter marketers, if they venture into this area, will do it well, without being piggy about it.
Those that go overboard will either not have their ads accepted by the networks or else they’ll be so cluttered that they’ll lose thgeir impact.
Bill, I think it can very easily get out of hand. The smarter marketers, if they venture into this area, will do it well, without being piggy about it.
Those that go overboard will either not have their ads accepted by the networks or else they’ll be so cluttered that they’ll lose their impact.
Kermit, I agree that in many cases product placement has gotten out of hand. To me, the most annoying, as I said in the post, is the blatant placement in Trump’s Apprentice series. To have The Donald touting the benefits of whatever product paid to be there has zero credibility, to me at least. But maybe some of those placements helped move product for a company.
David,
Much of the public does not have a clue about any kind of placement, credible or not. It’s no secret, but I’d bet many haven’t read an article about this or heard a discussion. This is why it works.
But placements in commercials?. I don’t know. [Do I sound like the PR person I am?] As a teen who smoked, I thought I was the most sophisticated person in the universe. But I didn’t smoke Marlboro because of the man on the horse. I smoked because many of the movie stars looked so great posing with their cigarettes, smoke twirling this and that way. And friends smoked Marlboro.
Jeanne, a strength of product placement is that most people don’t recognize it as a paid deal. They just see a product used in a show or a film and they don’t think about how or why it’s there. It’s just exposure and, in some cases, the glamour factor of having a product used by a star.
In a commercial, it may be a totally different thing, since people recognize commercials for what they are.