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With all the research my group and I have been doing on college students for our Pinkberry assignment, I was excited to read that it was recently announced that Nielsen is going to start counting the 18-24 range in their ratings. This will help tremendously for advertisers to reach this demographic not only through traditional commercials but also through product placement. This is especially important because this young generation is more likely to use the new technology such as TiVo and online episodes of their favorite shows. 
According to the article, two thirds of all college students own a television and over seventy five percent of these college students watch during primetime between 8 and 11 pm. Not surprisingly, the ratings for Grey's Anatomy is expected to increase quite a bit due to the amount of viewers within the age range. This is vital information for those who want to target "generation next". And targeting this demographic is a great opportunity to get young people to try brands and perhaps form relationships with certain brands that will last throughout their lives. This age group is also more likely to respond to product placement and try the brands that their favorite characters are using.I also found the article interesting because we have been learning about the ratings process in class. And although the Nielsen ratings aren't a perfect representation by any means, it will absolutely help paint a picture of the media habits of a group that previously has not been represented at all.
Read the article here!Or learn more about Nielsen at their site!
Recently I have found myself watching my favorite shows days later online more and more. With a busy class schedule and plenty of extracurricular activities, it is the perfect solution since I don't have TiVo or DVR. I jump online, type in the name of the show on google or yahoo, and there it is. It's as easy as that. And although I notice the three or four ads spread throughout each episode, especially because you cannot continue until the ads are finished, it doesn't bother me until they use the same exact three or four ads throughout.
I just read the article "Online Video Saves Commercials" from PC Magazine, and the author brings up a very good point. These few ads throughout the online airings of shows allow marketers to target a very specific audience who chose to watch the show and therefore will sit through the few ads to see the entire episode.
I got thinking about how this could relate to product placement. This provides a great opportunity to perhaps integrate your brand in to the actual episode through product placement, as well as advertise in the short commercial break. This of course would have to be done subtly or not too overwhelmingly as viewers could potentially get annoyed with the brand. Because traditional commercials are on the decline, this is a prospective idea for many brands to use to get their brand out there and increase their brand awareness and brand equity.
Want to see my current favorite shows online? visit ABC.com for Grey's Anatomy, Desperate Housewives, What About Brian, and Brothers and Sisters!
or check out Prison Break's Myspace to watch episodes of my number one favorite right now!
I also recently visited a few product placement and media related blogs out there and left comments promoting this blog. I'm learning quickly how this works!
After writing about Apple on Monday I decided to look into what other brands were leaders in the product placement category. I wasn't too surprised with what I found.
After reading an article called "Brandchannel's 2005 Product Placement Awards" on businessweek.com,
I learned that Ford, Gatorade, Audi, Coke, Ebay, and Calvin Klein were also fierce competitors in the product placement arena. Like Apple, these brands frequently use a form of barter or trade to get their products shown in film and television rather than paying for each appearance.
Ford, with 19 appearances in films during 2005, had 50 percent of all the number one films that were released. Gatorade has become a staple in all sports films and television. The article also brings up how during the superbowl teams sometimes dump the gatorade on the winning coach after the fourth quarter. Even that is great product placement for the brand, and to a huge audience! Audi is seen in many films as a sleek and sexy brand of vehicle. Calvin Klein brand clothing can be found on famous actresses such as Scarlett Johansson.
These products were doing this well in 2005 which only leads me to believe that they are probably still leading the market as the trend in product placement becomes more and more popular.
In an earlier post to this blog I discussed how I noticed that in each episode of Sex and the City, Carrie Bradshaw would sit and write her articles at her apple laptop. Today I read an article from the Washington Post, "Apple Gets a Big Slice of Product Placement Pie", and learned a lot more about the product placement that apple participates in. Some other popular shows that you can find Apple products in are 24, The Office, Las Vegas, and CSI. A recent episode of The Office even featured a storyline about an apple Ipod that apple did not even pay for. In fact, most of it's product placement is not paid for but rather made in exchange for something else with the networks or movies. I know personally Apple products are definately a brand that I notice a lot in the media. They have been using the technique for a long time, as they were one of the first brands to make product placement popular.I think it's very interesting that in the article they mentioned the proportion of product placement of these Apple products to how much market share Apple actually has is not equal. They make up much less of the market, but much much more of the product placement in the media. I personally think this works, however, because like the article mentions, Apple is known as the brand for creative people and creative personalities. In almost all of the product placement I have seen of the brand, this is the situation it is used in. Especially if they are not even paying for most of it, this is a great strategy to build brand awareness among consumers by the Apple company! 
As I was just flipping through channels, I happened to stop on CBS's The Price is Right. A woman was playing a game in which she guessed the price of certain items and her total had to be within $2 of the overall total of the products combined. As the camera scanned down each item, including Tidy Cats, Chunky Salsa, and Pringles potato chips, I found myself in product placement overload. The whole point of the game allows for brands to be showcased on the program and for everyday consumers to guess the prices.
As I never really paid much attention to it before, I was really surprised that I hadnt realized what a great opportunity for product placement the show is. Those that are watching are probably stay at home parents, retired people, or people who work night shifts meaning that they are likely the ones doing the grocery shopping. Although there are many many products shown on the program, if it is a product someone has never used before it may spark interest for the future if they see Bob Barker and the contestants interracting with it.
Also, the brands that people already use are reinforced because the whole point of the show is to know the price of the item and if you are already a user chances are high you will know that information. This in turn helps you do well in the show, and perhaps even makes you even more glad that you use the brand!
You can go to CBS.com and check out episodes of the show. See how many of the brands you use that you can spot!
Today while I was doing more research about product placement, I came across the website brandchannel.com. On this site listed by brand and by movie was all of the product placement in some of the biggest movies of each year from 2001-2007. It was really interesting to search through them to some of my favorite movies of the past six years and see what product placement was included. For each one I tried to remember if I had actually noticed the product in the film. Surprisingly enough, a lot of them I did actually remember. (Most of which were sports teams or cars)
For 2006 some of the movies with the most number of products integrated into the story were The Pursuit of Happyness, Borat, The Departed, Invincible, Talladega Nights, Miami Vice, Click, the Breakup, Mission Impossible 2, and Big Mama's House 2. Talladega Nights was the one with the most listed products, which I found interesting since it was not the most popular movie of the bunch. I was not surprised by the amount in the Persuit of Happyness or the Departed as both of those films recieved a lot of recognition over the past year. (including Golden Globe nominations!) For the most part all of the products placed fit well with the theme of the movie. Talladega Nights had a lot of Nascar and Auto type brands. Invincible featured numerous sports equipment brands. Miami Vice featured tons of popular cars and electronics. Overall I thought it was really cool to actually see how many brands were put in to each movie. For the most part I would say that all the brands worked well within the movies that they chose.
Today I read the article "Forward Thinkers Push Reverse Product Placement" and learned all about a form of product placement that I had never really thought of before. Reverse product placement is the idea of creating a fictional brand in a fictional environment (the article uses the idea of Duff brand beer, the favorite of Simpson's character Homer) and turning in to a real life product. Another example the article uses is that of Willy Wonka Chocolate Bars that are now being sold on every candy shelf but started out in the famous story of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. 
The reason I really found this concept fascinating was the fact that in class we have been talking about how to break through to the target market of young male consumers. Reverse product placement is perfect for this as it is commonly used in videogames. It is a great way to introduce a product, get people talking about it, and then selling it in real life. Although it may not be a huge opportunity, there is definitely something there, especially for reaching that hard to target younger male audience.Some other examples in this article of reverse product placement already out there are Bubba Gump Shrimp Restaurants from the Forest Gump movie, Potion drinks from FinalFantasy video games, and Bertie Botts Beans candy from Harry Potter. Judging by the popularity of all of these mediums, reverse product placement is bound to gain popularity in the near future.
Today I sat down to catch up on the latest episode of ABC's What About Brian, and I decided that through the entire one hour episode I would write down all of the product placement that I saw. At first I wondered if I would find any, and then the show literally opened with one of the main characters looking in to an empty cereal box and saying "who ate all my Kashi?". From there she went to the refridgerator, took out a carton of tropicana orange juice, and grabbed a package of pop-tarts from the cupboard. It was actually fun to pay attention, because I would have never normally noticed these things!
Watch ABC Shows! Although the product placement calmed down from there, some of the other brands that I noticed were Glade plug-ins in the wall, a bottle of Tabasco sauce on the table, and a bottle of Coffeemate creamer in the door of the fridge. One of the characters took his daughters fishing wearing a nice looking Carhartt jacket. Yet another character, a young trendy woman, carried her Vera Bradley luggage in to the cabin where all of the friends were staying for the weekend. I noticed that they were all drinking the same kind of beer throughout the whole episode, bottles with a yellow label with the word cervesa on it, but I did not recognize the brand. The same young trendy woman pulled up in a very new looking black and sporty Audi, while the family with three kids pulled up to the cabin in a Chevy Venture minivan.I was amazed by all the little things I could find when I was looking hard enough. And now, looking back at my list, I realize that all of the products were placed correctly with the right characters to tell the story of the brand. There is of course the family with the minivan, the outdoorsy dad in a carhartt, the young fit woman eating Kashi brand cereal, and the trendsetter woman with the designer bags and brand new Audi. It was very interesting to see what products could be seen in this show since it is not as popular as some of ABC's primetime dramas. I will continue to keep an eye out for all the product placement I can find!
I recently listened to a podcast on AdAge called "Audience Tracking Issues in a Time of Media Upheaval". It was an interview with MediaWorks Editor AnnMarie Kerwin, and she had a lot of very interesting things to say.
With the trends in media watching moving more towards interactive watching through downloads on cell phones, computers, TiVo's, etc, there are some difficulties in measuring audiences. This is causing a need to develop new ways to track who is watching what media. A lot of different ways of doing so are being developed today as these new forms of media continue to grow in popularity.
Because people are becoming more engaged with their media use, there is definitely the potential for advertising to become stronger. However, the industry will be chaotic for a period of time while we figure out how to adapt to these new methods.
I found this interview interesting because these changes will definitely have a large impact on the use of product placement. Without a doubt, there will be an increase in the use of product placement as well as developments in how it is done in order to adapt to the changing industry. It will be very interesting to see how everything takes place in the near future!
For audience research class we took a look at the speech made my Seth Godin at Google called "All Marketers are Liars". (Check it out!!)
I personally thought he had a lot of great things to say. Basically he focused on how marketers need to change from trying to sell products to people that do not have any interest in them at all and instead figure out the best ways to sell a story to people about products that they do have an interest in. Word of mouth is truly an amazing tool. Getting people talking about and excited about your product has priceless benefits. So instead of bombarding people with advertisements for things they do not need or use or are willing to buy, focus on marketing more effectively to your target and get them talking about what you have to offer. Get consumers interested in the story that you are selling with your product.
Obviously he talked mostly about online advertising on sites like Google since that is who his audience was, but I think that a lot of what he said can pertain to product placement as well.
When you give Carrie Bradshaw an apple laptop in each Sex and the City episode, you are selling a story of that brand of laptop to an audience who identifies with or is interested in that character's lifestyle. With marketing trends moving more towards product placement I think that there is a lot of opportunity for brands to get their names out there using placement in media that their target is watching. They not only will get the attention of more of their target, they will also sell the story that goes along with the product.
