Product Placement in Advertising

Nobody is surprised anymore that movies and TV programs seek payment for allowing brands to make appearances in programs. Just as journalistic war reporting has become ‘embedded’ with the military, so too has brand advertising become ‘embedded’ with the mass media. When the current movie “Sideways” eulogized pinot noir wine, USA sales of it for January (2005) shot up 22%. After release of the movie “About Schmidt” in 2002 starring Jack Nicholson, child sponsorships for aid agency ‘Plan International’ quadrupled. (Nicholson played a retiree whose world is falling apart and by sponsoring a young Tanzanian boy, Ndugu, he finds something to live for.) While ‘Plan International’ did not pay to be in the film, it illustrates the potency of product placement! Is it any wonder that brands and companies are prepared to pay to get into the movies?

Product Placement has gone mad.

In the USA in the first nine months of 2004, more than 8,000 "occurrences" were recorded on network TV alone for just the top 10 brands. With the release of each new blockbuster movie comes another chance to play ‘spot the paid product placements’. Not so long ago, they were fewer and often not paid for.

The paid ones were harder to spot but nevertheless there if you looked closely. Product placement (as traced by Howstuffworks.com) dates back to at least the early 1950s when Gordon's Gin paid to have Katharine Hepburn's character in "The African Queen" toss loads of their product overboard.

It has been on the increase ever since and nowhere is this more evident than in the James Bond movies. Never shy about product placement, these have featured a proliferation of brands including Aston Martin, BMW, Motorola, Microsoft, Omega and Bollinger (check out the details here).

Now suddenly, product placement is everywhere. Reality programs like ‘American Idol’ and ‘The Apprentice’ are infested with it. It is even in cartoons and pop songs. It is anticipated that in the next few years, product placement is likely to be prevalent in 75% of all prime time shows.

But Why Now?

Obviously, product placement has been around for decades but it was never mainstream – until now. Why is it happening so prominently now?

An important reason why it has been catapulted into the mainstream is that it works! This was evident early but only to the few savvy marketers prepared to experiment and take a risk with it. However, in 1998 Business Week featured a ‘Product Placement Hall Of Fame’ and as a marketing tool, it really began to take off about then.

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