Everything about Product Placement totally explained
Product placement is a type of
advertising, in which
promotional
advertisements 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. When featuring a product isn't part of an economic exchange, it's called a
product plug. Product placement appears in plays, film, television series, music videos,
video games and books. It became more common starting in the 1980s, but can be traced back to at least 1949. 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's 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.
In early media, for example 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
Time 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.
Actual product placement, according to ERMA.org, a Hollywood product placement association 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.
A very early example of product placement 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". In addition, the first film to win the Oscar for Best Picture,
Wings (released in 1927), contained a plug for
Hershey's.
Another very early example potentially occurs in Jules Verne's
Around the World in Eighty Days in which transport and shipping companies lobbied to be mentioned as it was initially published in serial form.
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 computer or video game occurs in the
1984 game
Action Biker for
KP's
Skips crisps.
The earliest example of product placement in a
cartoon occurs in the
Comedy Central show:
Shorties Watchin' Shorties.
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Modern use
As of 2007, product placement in online-video is becoming more and more common. Online agencies are specializing in connecting online-video producers, which are usually individuals, with brands and advertisers
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.
Product placement is also used in books (particularly novels) and
video games, such as
Crazy Taxi, which featured numerous 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.
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.
Product placement can be seen as a modern version of the exhibit displays seen at world's fairs, concerts, sporting events, or anywhere that large numbers of potential customers gathered.
Product examples
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're 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
More recently,
Apple's products frequently appear in films and on television, Apple have stated that they don't 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.
Placement examples
The series
ER exhibits product placement in an average of one every 3 episodes. Some product placement tactics include: A bag of chips sitting in the desk counter with the label facing the camera, a soft drink from the machine in the hospital waiting room, a credit card logo seen at the register of
Doc Magoo's, and so on and so forth.
Bill Cosby's flop film
Leonard Part 6 was widely criticized for its
Coca Cola product placements, as was
The Wizard for
Nintendo products.
The film
Superstar, starring
Will Ferrell and
Molly Shannon, shows every resident in their town driving VW New Beetles. However, it's 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 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.
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. The
White Castle fast food chain, though very regional, enjoyed a high rise in exposure when the film was released.
The film
I, Robot, loosely based on the story collection by
Isaac Asimov, makes heavy use of product placements for Converse trainers, Audi, Fedex, and hi-fi companies among others. One particularly infamous scene borderlines into actual advertisement territory in which a character compliments Will Smith's character's shoes to which he replies "
Converse. Vintage 2004" (the year of the movie's release). The film was subject to negative criticism
(External Link) and as a result is being ranked as the worst film for product placement on one site.
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The film
The Island, directed by
Michael Bay, features at least 21 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 film, directed by
Adam McKay, 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.
Critical examples
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.
(External Link) However,
Tina Fey, the show's creator, stated in an interview that the oven was included purely as a joke,
(External Link) 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.
(External Link)
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 1988 film
Return of the Killer Tomatoes utilized the concept of product placement, in a parodic way. At one point the film stops due to money shortage and we see George Clooney as the producer suggest product placement. Follow several scenes with too-obvious product placement, like a big Pepsi billboard installed in front of the villain's mansion
The 1998 film
The Truman Show utilized the concept of product placement, 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 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.
The film
Minority Report, loosely based on the
Philip K. Dick short story of the same name, 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.
Tobacco product placement
Reviewing previously secret tobacco advertising documents, the British Medical Journal has 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
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 picture 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.
Controversy
Some consumer groups such as
Commercial Alert object to product placement as "an affront to basic honesty",
(External Link) 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.
Market
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's 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.
Faux product placement
Some filmmakers have responded to product placement by creating fictional products that frequently appear in the movies they make. Some examples:
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 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 with Zip), Pizza Boy, etc.
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.
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.
Virtual placement
Virtual product placement uses computer graphics to insert the product into the program after the program is complete.
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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, for example at baseball or hockey games. As of 2007, new 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 for example demographics, psychographics or behavioral information about the consumer.
Also of interest are hypervideo techniques that can insert interactive elements into online video.
The Wizard
The 1989 film,
The Wizard was a rare case in product placement, where the prime moviegoers were interested in the product, video games, and didn't care about the story. There have not been many after this, and many consider this movie to be a complete failure. However, most people will remember this movie as the first time they saw with their own eyes,
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