My last post...

Over the past semester I have been able to experience blogging for the first time, as well as learn all about product placement in the process. I am glad that I picked this topic for my blog, because I have learned a lot about an area that is increasing in popularity very quickly as I am getting in to the field.

It would be a really long post for me to go over everything that I have learned about in my research, but here is a quick summary of what I found most interesting:

• Movie product placement-- The bottom line? It's a great idea! (If you can make your product fit within the plot of the film, of course) When you think about it, think about how large of a budget films have to spend promoting their release. Now if your product is within that movie, all that promotion equals more people seeing your brand. Not to mention, when a film comes out for rental or purchase, it will cause people to view the film several times and increase exposure. Think of all the old movies you rent because you haven't seen them in awhile. You product is forever within a movie that people could potentially be viewing for years!

• Television shows -- Very similar situation. People simply aren't watching traditional commercials anymore. They have their TiVos and they have the online versions of shows with much fewer commercial breaks. So how do you reach them? By putting your product in to the show itself. This again will get the repeat exposure because people can watch many shows at any time online or record them to watch multiple times on DVR's, etc. Also, with the popularity of TV shows in DVD sets, your product can live forever within the show rather than being shown once during the first airing and never again.

• Video Games -- What better way to reach that hard to get audience of young males than by inserting your brand in to their favorite video games? Even with this audience that does not watch as much television and does not respond to commercials, you can get them exposed through video, computer, and online games by finding a way to integrate your product with the theme of the game.

• Other Avenues -- As the idea of product placement grows, so does the arenas in which it can be found. For example, the Fall Out Boy music video which I wrote about in an earlier post. (watch "Thnks fr th Mmrs" at falloutboy.com) There is also reverse product placement, in which a brand creates the show, much like the Gillette reality show discussed earlier in this blog.

Overall what I have learned in a nutshell is that product placement is growing fast. It's a great alternative to traditional advertising that has grown in popularity because it seems to be very effective. (to learn about how it is measured, check out iTVX.com) The main goal of product placement, however, should be to find a show in which the product or brand fits seamlessly so that it is not even noticed as product placement. Like I have said earlier, the Nascar themed movies and shows are a great example of this as Nascar is based off of sponsorships. Finding the perfect show or character to link your brand or product with is the key to successful product placement.

I highly recommend checking out www.brandchannel.com, as it is one of the best product placement websites I have found over the past few months.

On another note, what I learned from doing this blog over the semester is that you really have to promote yourself to get your blog out there and read by others. I posted comments and sent one email to a few other blog owners, but did not ever receive a response or a post back. If I were to do it over again, I would make more of an effort to find other great product placement and media blogs and promote my own through them.

This has been a great experience for me as I got to learn all about blogging and all about product placement. I hope you've enjoyed reading it!

Keds in Top Model

Keds brand shoes has done some product placement over the years, in shows like "The OC", "Alias" and movies like "Little Miss Sunshine" and "The Aviator". They are trying to revamp the brand and appeal to a younger audience, so the recent placement in "America's Next Top Model" was perfect for the brand.

They were featured on the show as the incentive for the winner of the week's challenge. The winning model received the opportunity to star in a full page ad in Seventeen magazine. I thought this was unique too because they used their product placement to support a magazine that they were going to be in, hopefully in turn driving up sales of the issue. And what better vehicles to use to increase sales among the young markets than a teen magazine and a CW show that is very popular among young females.

The brand also has a line of men's shoes that will be featured in an upcoming Brad Pitt film. The movie is called "The Curious Case of Benjamin Buttons" and will show Pitt's character wearing the sneakers throughout. That will come out in 2008.

It seems like Ked is one brand that is definitly on top of the product placement game. They have found great ways to integrate their product in to plots without being too in your face about it.

read the article

Perfect Stranger full of Product Placement

Today I read a few articles reviewing the new movie "Perfect Stranger" starring Halle Berry, Giovani Rivisi, and Bruce Willis. While the movie is not getting very good reviews, the product placement within it is getting plenty of attention.

Bruce Willis plays a murder suspect who works at an advertising agency - the perfect chance for products to integrate themselves within the plot. According to the article "So Far From Perfect" in the Pittsburg Post Gazette, there is "no need to position cans of soft drinks, labels to the camera, when you can plug Victoria's Secret or other companies serviced by the ad agency. It's like watching a very special Apprentice." The other major brand that got in on the idea is Reebok, who is also featured as a product that Willis' agency is working on.

According to the articles that I read, the product placement is not very subtle at all, but it works well because of the agency setting that it was written in to. Even though it sounds like the movie isn't impressing too many people, I'll have to go see it and check out the product placement!

To read more about it, check out these articles:
"So Far From Perfect"
"A Perfect Stranger? What's His Real Story?"
"Avoid this Perfect Stranger if you Can"

Grey's Anatomy

Today in class we talked about Grey's Anatomy being one of the shows benefiting from college students now being included in the ratings process. Because we are targeting that age in our project and it is one of my favorite shows, I decided to watch the latest episode to see how much product placement I could spot.

I didn't find as much as I thought I would, although I am sure it is a very expensive show to place products on. What I did see included:

1. Pringles brand chips on the counter in the background of the main character's house. They have such unique packaging I could tell right away what they were.

2. On the fridge there was the logo for Breast Cancer Awareness, the pink ribbon. Although this isn't really a product placement, it is an easily identifiable logo for a good cause that is associated with a medical show. It fit well.

3. Starbucks coffee. With the hectic schedules in the hospital, it is no wonder the characters drink so much coffee. What I noticed, however, was that four times they showed the easily identifiable Starbuck's cup in a main character's hand. It's a great fit for the lifestyle of the characters.

4. One character, a man in the hospital, was talking on a Nokia cell phone. This one I found a little out of place since you cannot have cell phones on in the hospital, but hey I noticed it still!

5. While doing research for a surgery, I noticed the dell logo on a laptop that one of the interns was using.

6. While two characters were out to dinner in a sports bar type place, there was a lit sign for Falling Rock Ale in the background. I am not sure if this is a real brand or not but I noticed it.

7. Although it was not shown, there was a mention of PowerPoint in the episode as well as the residents were doing presentations for promotions.

And finally, though it was not product placement, I noticed that Nissan sponsored the episode on ABC.com. The Nissan logo was displayed above the screen for the entire thing, with three short ads thrown in to the episode. The commercials did not bother me even though they are impossible to close without watching the entire thing. I think Nissan did a great job because they made the ads interactive, which wasn't as boring as just sitting through them. It also helped that they were not the same ad each time but different ones.


To watch Grey's Anatomy, go to ABC.com.

Forget commercials, produce shows!

Today's USA Today featured an article that is all about how the Gillette brand is going to sponsor a new show called "Fast Cars and Superstars: Gillette Young Guns Celebrity Race" that is an entire show based on the idea of product placement. The show will be on ABC, which carefully decided whether or not the show was going to be effective entertainment and not just a long infomercial for the brand and NASCAR.

The current traditional advertising of Gillette features several young NASCAR drivers, including Carl Edwards and Ryan Newman, that will now be the stars of the ABC show. In each episode, they will train celebrities how to drive cars (covered in the typical NASCAR branding) and eventually how to participate in time-trials. The article compared the show concept to that of "Dancing with the Stars" except with fast cars instead of ballroom dancing.

Because NASCAR already has so many brands associated with it and people are used to seeing their favorite drivers and cars plastered in ads, this show seems like it will work without being too "in your face." Much like the movie Talladega Nights which I wrote about earlier on in this blog, viewers may not even realize so many brands are being shown to them during each episode.

The concept of creating a show around a brand really isn't new since that is how soap operas got their start. It has, however, started to become much more popular as an adaptation to the change in traditional media viewing, etc.

Some other brands that also are trying out the show producing arena are Toyota, Axe, and Bombardier Recreational Products.

It will be interesting to see how many viewers the show can generate. My prediction would be quite a few since NASCAR is so popular and people are still in to reality based television. Good for Gillette!

To read the article, click here!

Measuring Product Placement

So all this research on product placement, where it is, and how its growing has led me to wonder how exactly the effectiveness can be measured. I did some research and found iTVX which is a company designed to measure the quality of product placement for brands. Their website is full of a lot of interesting and helpful information.

Here is what i learned:














iTVX will be using the Q-ratio system, which is a measurement system similar to CPMs. It is a system with over 50 factors that will be used to determine how effective and how high quality each product placement is. Once the Q-ratio is more popular and better established it will be easy for companies to use the system to set benchmarks. In addition to the Q-ratio the company also offers services such as the iTVX Instant Access Player, the Media Pro Valuator, and Strategic Consulting to help with all of a brand's product placement evaluation needs. To read all about it, go to their site!


iTVX also has an awesome section on it's site called "Featured Product Placements of the Week" and an index of great articles on product placement! The site is a great resource -- check it out!

Are music videos next??

You may have not noticed it yet, as I certainly have not, but product placement is slowly making its way in to the music industry. Because of the changes with music and a large decline in cd sales, bands have to come up with better methods for producing expensive music videos. Enter product placement!

According to the New York Times yesterday, the pop/rock band Fall Out Boy was able to significantly lower production costs for its latest video by teaming up with Proctor and Gamble's Tag Body Spray brand. Their video features the brand throughout and is also downloadable on the band's website thanks to the partnership. According to the article, the video has already been viewed more than 100,000 times!




The product placement works well in this case because the band really liked that the typical ads for the brand take a sarcastic and edgy theme, which works with the image of Fall Out Boy. When I watched the video, I only noticed the Tag Body Spray in one quick frame but I also noticed that the band members were continuously using Nokia Slider cell phones. The article doesn't mention their part in the sponsorship, but it is something that stood out to me.

I think this is yet another great opportunity for product placement and I also think this is definitely going to become more popular very quickly. It not only helps brands become seen by an audience that is not receptive to commercials, but it also helps the music industry because of the enormous costs associated with producing music videos today.

I wasn't aware that this was going on within the music video world, but I am now going to keep an eye out for other brands taking advantage of the opportunity!

Want to read more about Fall Out Boy's partnership with Tag? Click Here.
To see the video for "Thnks fr th Mmrs" or just learn more about Fall Out Boy, check out their site!