Reflective Blog Post: Product Placement

With all the recent news coverage on product placement it’s easy to assume that product placement is a fairly new concept. However, it dates back as early as the 1930s when Proctor & Gamble broadcasted soap operas on the radio featuring their soap powder brands (Williams et al. 2011, p.3). Product placement was also being used in feature films as car brands offered to help studios who needed a car for a scene (Wenner, 2004, p104). 

With approximately two thirds of TV viewers muting or skipping adverts (Kiley 2006 cited Williams et al, 2011, p2), advertisers are being forced to consider other methods and product placement seems to be the most logical answer. The main strength of product placement is that it catches ‘the consumers in a moment of pleasure, as opposed to when their defences are up’ (Wenner, 2004, p105) such as when watching an advert. The viewer is in a ‘happy, receptive state of mind (Shaw, 2001 cited Wenner, 2004, p111).

But what is product placement? According to Karrh (1998 cited Kuhn et al, 2010, p62) it is the ‘inclusion of branded products or brand identifiers, through audio and/or visual means within mass media programming’. However as this definition was likely created before product placement began to appear in blogs, video games and musicals, the definition doesn’t account for these platforms. Therefore Williams et al’s (2011, p.1) definition - ‘the purposeful incorporation of commercial content into non-commercial settings’ – is better.

There are three variations of product placement (Wenner, 2004, p109), the first being its original form as it is currently used in films. The second variation is product integration where products dictate the content of the media being used. The third variation is virtual product placement where placements are inserted into program content. 

Is product placement really any different to advertising though? McDommell and Drennan (2010) believe that it is, arguing that what distinguishes product placement from other types of marketing communication is that is it embedded into and dominated by the media content (Balasubramanian et al, 2006 cited McDommell and Drennan, 2010). Whilst advertising is paid for, paying for product placement is the exception rather than the rule, ‘accounting for perhaps 10% of product placement transactions’ (Harrison, 1999 cited Wenner, 2004, p104). It is more common for companies to supply their products ‘for use on- or off-screen, in trade for being placed into the entertainment vehicle’ (Crisafulli, 1995 cited Wenner, 2004, p104).

Product placement has a number of benefits for both the company and film makers. For example, it can offset production costs - the movie ‘Tomorrow Never Dies’ grossed $100million before it was even released in the cinema, solely because of product placement deals (McDonnell and Drennan, 201, p26).

Product placement is more cost effective than paid for advertising. ‘The paid placement...averages $50,000, a fee that might not even buy a one-time 30-second placement on prime-time television.’ (Wenner, 2004, p111) However, this is based on the assumption that these placements are used in the right context. Lindstrom (cited Tetzeli, 2011) says that 95% of all product placements are a waste of money because they’re  conscious and out of context. It’s not enough to simply place your product in a film or blog, it must fit with the vehicle otherwise consumers will simply dismiss the product.

There are a number of factors that can affect how effective product placement is on the consumer.

According to Russell (2002 cited Bressoud et al, 2010, p376) product placement recall is higher when the placement is more highly integrated into the plot of the story because it induces semantic processing which leads to higher recall. This suggests that product integration is more effective than traditional product placement. However this could lead to storylines being ruined because a certain product has to mentioned or integrated into a script.

When does product placement go too far? Some would argue that it’s when it becomes targeted at children. There are already laws in the UK about what can’t be advertised to children, and perhaps this should also extend to product placement. Englehart (1987 cited Hudson et al, 2008, p291) claims that children are more susceptible to placements than adults because of their inability to ‘make the distinction between ads and program content’. Therefore it seems unethical to use product placement in children’s media.

Advances in technology are playing a role in the evolution of product placement – especially with the introduction of virtual product placement. Images of products can now be ‘digitally inserted into a film or TV program after the program has actually been made’ (McDonnell and Drennan, 2010, p26). This technique would address a problem with traditional product placement highlighted by de Gregorio and Sung (2010, p93) – that behaviours in response to product placement differ by demographic characteristics. Virtual product placement could give advertisers the opportunity to see what audience films attract when released and then decide whether it is attracting the correct audience for their brand before negotiating a deal.

Virtual product placement could potentially be extended to eBooks. There have been examples of product placement occurring in books, for example Proctor & Gamble made a deal with the author of the teenage book ‘Cathy’s Book’ to promote the book in exchange for having some of its products mentioned in the book (Hudson et al, 2008, p289).

‘Books are the only word-based medium currently free of advertising... because until now it’s been difficult to sell ad space in books.‘  (Carr, 2010) However with the popularity of eReaders, this could be a thing of the past. We could see virtual product placement being used to insert and change the brands mentioned in eBooks. Another possibility that could be explored is discussed in this example: ‘Imagine you’re reading a novel and the main character is driving a Volvo S60R and within the text if you were to click on the name of the car it was a link to a website that promoted the S60R.’ (Lee, 2011)

As much as product placements can help create realism, too much of it can ruin the media itself. We could see writers been forced to revolve storylines and scripts around a certain brand. So the question is should we place more value on realism or on the fact that product placement is less intrusive than the traditional advert break?

References

Bressoud, E. And Lehu, J. Russell, C.A., 2010. The Product Well Placed. Journal of Advertising Research. 50, 374-385

Carr, P., 20 August 2010. Forget Ads In Books, Lit-Lovers Face An Even More Hideous Prospect. Tech Crunch.  Available from: http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/20/eat-pay-love/ [Accessed 22^nd April 2011]

De Gregorio, F. and Sung, Y., 2010. Understanding Attitudes toward and behaviours in response to product placement. Journal of Advertising, 39, 83-96

Hudson, S. and Hudson, D. And Peloza, J.,2008. Meet the Parents: A Parents’ Perspective on Product Placement in Children’s Films. Journal of Business Ethics, 80, 289-304

Kuhn, K. and Hume, M. and Love, A., 2010. Examining the Covert Nature of Product Placement: Implications for Public Policy. Journal of Promotion Management, 16, 59-79.

Lee., 18 January 2011. How do you feel about product placement in eBooks? Quit Your Day Job.  Available from: http://quityourdayjob.com.au/2011/01/how-do-you-feel-about-product-placement-in-ebooks/ [Accessed 22^nd April 2011]

McDonnell, J. and Drennan, J., 2010. Virtual Product Placement as a New Approach to Measure Effectiveness of Placements. Journal of Promotion Management, 16, 25-38.

Tetzeli, R., 2011. I’m With the Brand. Fast Company, 82-92

Wenner, L., 2004. On the Ethics of Product Placement in Media Entertainment. Journal of Promotion Management, 10, 101-132.

Williams, K. and Petrosky, A. and Hernandez, E. and Page, R., 2011. Product placement effectiveness: revisited and renewed. Journal of Management & Marketing Research, 7, 1-24.

Is there anything ethical about social media?

Today I’m writing about the ethical issues concerning social media. When I think of social media, the last thing that I think of is it being ethical. I don’t automatically think of it as being unethical but the idea that it could be seen as an ethical platform has never crossed my mind either.

As social media is still fairly new, there aren’t many laws that tell us what actions are ethical or not. However, as I was reading articles online about this subject and the comments people made under them, I realised that there seems to be a lack of agreement as to what is and isn’t ethical to do on social media, especially for companies.

A common practice is that of tweeting under false circumstances as this article puts it. How do we know that the CEOs or brands with twitter accounts are actually writing their tweets themselves and not asking someone else, for example an external agency, to write their tweets for them? Should it still be considered ethical for a PR agency to tweet on behalf of their client, or is it OK as long as they tell their followers that this is the case? Although ghost tweeting seems dishonest, I don’t quite see it as crossing into the territory of being unethical – that’s if there even is a difference between the two terms. If anything it simply suggests that the brand is only on Twitter or Facebook to control their relationship - as opposed to building a relationship with its customers which I would imagine would have been their reason for joining a social network in the first place.

Plus people can easily choose whether or not to follow a brand online. What they have no control over however is businesses using social media as a means of spamming. It is considered unethical for companies to use auto friends software or spam boards in order to advertise their product or promote their company. Such businesses can end up being banned from social networks for doing so. 

Digital Activism or Clicktivism?

With social media playing a more important role in our lives, digital activism is becoming a lot more common. It is made possible by the public sphere which Habermas describes as ‘the coming together of peoples and the discussion of ideas...often related to governance and democratic ideals... They have the potential to affect public opinion and public policy’. The facebook group members or the people directed to an online petition through a friend’s tweet all have this potential to affect public opinion and policy.

Just how effective – if at all - is digital activism? Some people criticise the current generation of ‘clicktivists’ who have made protesting all about convenience. The term ‘clicktivism’ simply describes how easy and effortless it has become for people to sign online petitions or join protest groups on facebook, yet there is nothing in the whole process that actually encourages them to do something about what we believe. Instead, many of us simply stop at liking a group or retweeting a statement believing that our job is done, meaning that there’s a lack of offline action taking place.

Although social media has helped change the way in which campaigning, making people aware of causes and organising protests are done - making the whole process a lot easier and accessible to large numbers of people - the consequence is a lack of engagement. However it is inaccurate to say that clicktivism leads to no offline action as you only have to look at the role social media played in the Eygptian protests and London student protests for proof that this isn’t the case.

I do however believe that such cases where social media actually leads to huge offline action are somewhat rare and special cases. The lack of engagement that results of clicktivism really does make it easy to forget that the intended or desired response is some offline action. For example, I wonder what percentage of the people who changed their profile pictures to a TV character from their childhood to raise awareness of the NSPCC (regardless of whether the NSPCC actually planned the campaign or not) then went on to donate to the charity.

This isn’t a problem that only campaigners face – businesses do too. Just because a brand has a Facebook page or Twitter account, it doesn’t guarantee an increase in sales of their products. Social media is only effective when used correctly.

Cookies and Advertising

One of the topics covered in my lectures was the use of cookies and how they’re being used for advertising purposes. I didn’t know much about cookies, and so I had to do a bit of research. According to HowStuffWorks a cookie is a piece of text that allows ‘a Web site to store information on a user's machine and later retrieve it’. So cookies are really just ways in which websites remember the computers that visit them. The websites we visit can create unique ID numbers for us, which are stored on our computers using cookie files.

Some people view such cookie files as an invasion of privacy and are concerned about the ways in which companies and advertisers are using cookies. Companies can pretty much use the cookie files on your computer to gain and store information about what you do on the internet in order to better target you with advertising. This differs to the more innocent uses of cookies such as

·         finding out how many people  have visited your website and what proportion are new visitors

·         storing your customisation preferences

·         keeping track of the items you add to your basket when doing online shopping

One of the main issues people have with cookies is that we don’t give our permission for websites to create cookie files. I was surprised to read on BBC Webwise that some websites actually mention in the small print of their Terms and Conditions that by using their website the visitor automatically agrees to download the website’s cookies. Surely, this should be placed in a more prominent position than the small print? The reasoning behind this is probably that as many people aren’t aware of cookies, there’s no reason for concern.

If anything, cookies make targeted advertising easier, which should really be a benefit to consumers as it means that they see adverts for products more suited to their interests and browsing habits. This has benefits for both consumers and advertisers. Surely seeing adverts that we’re actually interested in is a good thing? And at the same time, advertisers get to have more effective advertising as their adverts are only being shown to people who are likely to buy their product.

This targeted advertising can be annoying though, as I went through a period where it felt as if adverts for Agent Provocateur were following me to every website I went to, all because I had visited the company’s website once a week earlier to browse through the perfumes. I’m guessing that this was as a result of targeted advertising using cookies.

Product Placement in Books?? Really?

Last month it was confirmed that product placement would be permitted on British TV. It is perhaps a move to address the advertising efforts that are perhaps wasted due to viewers choosing to record or pause programmes in order to skip adverts. This move is likely to provide more advertising revenue for TV broadcasters.

Last week I was watching the 10o’clock live show, and saw the following segment on product placement:

It basically just mocks the idea that product placement won’t be obvious, especially as it’s so obvious on some American programming. For example, an American show that is well known for its product placement is American Idol where not only do the judges have Coca-Cola cups (which they hardly drink from), but during the elimination episodes contestants sit in a Coca-Cola room.

Viewers are already aware of and familiar with product placement on TV shows and in movies. However, product placement is also being used in books, which people may be less aware of.

This article on talks about how companies commission authors to write books that will prominently feature their brands and products. 

'The world-famous jewelry company, Bulgari, paid noted British author Fay Weldon to write a novel that would feature Bulgari products. The commissioned work was to be given as a present to an elite group of Bulgari clientele. Not only did Weldon agree to the deal, but she eventually took her work public.'

I was completely unaware that this was even possible to do. It makes you wonder how many of the references to brands that have been made in the books we read have been paid for. A few of the reviews on Amazon for Weldon’s novel ‘Bulgari Connection’ comment on the fact that she hasn’t really sold out by writing the novel as it is still typical of her style of writing. However, I don’t really agree with this kind of product placement as it sounds like the whole purpose of the book was to simply advertise Bulgari’s products. There’s nothing subtle about it and it all feels very intrusive. How can something as simple and personal as reading a book become a medium for selling products?

It gets worse though. Bulgari isn’t the only company to do this. Product placement is also very prominent in children’s educational books. In ‘The Oreo Cookie Counting Book’ oreo cookies are used to help teach children how to count. On one of the pages the author writes:  ‘10 little OREOs all in a line. Dunk one in a glass of milk, and now there are…’

This type of product placement may have felt a bit more innocent had there been no mention of dunking the oreo cookies in milk – a pairing often made in their advertising. It just makes these books feel like an extension of their advertising. Or maybe it’s just a ‘subtle’ attempt to advertise to young children without actually advertising to them on TV as it’s perhaps banned, because of course children are going to want real oreos to help them count after reading the book. It’s just a bit sad  that something as innocent as learning how to count has to become an opportunity to advertise.

As hypocritical as this may sound, as an advertising student I think it’s a clever idea and ignoring how I feel about it the book itself looks really cute. 

American Apparel’s Attempt at Virtual Reality

In my first post I mentioned that politicians were trying to enter the virtual world through the use of Second Life. However, they’re not the only ones as brands have been using virtual reality for a few years now.

Second Life allows users to buy virtual content such as clothing and houses for their characters/avatars with real money. Therefore, this world presents a perfect opportunity to engage with consumers in what some describe as their other life. Brands such as American Apparel and Adidas were some of the first brands to create a presence in the virtual world, selling virtual items that could also be bought on their websites.

In June 2006 American Apparel was the first real company to open a store in Second Life. You could tell that it was all strictly business as they ensured that users would be persuaded to visit either its real store or website. Clothing racks displayed pictures of both real and virtual models modelling the clothing shown on the racks. Clicking on displays would bring up a dialog which directed users to the webpage of the clothes displayed.

It sounds like an idea that should have worked because if your character is fully clothed in American Apparel, you’ll be all the more motivated to perhaps pop into a real American Apparel store, even if just to simply see what the clothes will look like on the real you. For users who are already loyal American Apparel customers, this virtual shop would have allowed them to really engage with the brand both in their offline and online lives. They dress their avatars how they’d dress in their real lives, become walking advertisements of the brand to other Second Life users and the brand comes to represent more than just a clothing brand and also a brand that is relevant to every aspect of their lives.

However the store closed a year later with the company explaining on their website that they felt that their time was up. A search for more information on why this idea didn’t work led me to this article, where it suggests the possible problems as low traffic and profits (considering that opening the store may well have cost the company around £10,000 to build, yet items such as the Jersey T dress above were sold for 350 of Second Life currency - only $1 of real currency).

It seems that American Apparel didn’t completely give up on the idea of having a virtual presence as it moved to MTV’s Virtual Lower East Side. I guess they realised that their target audience wasn’t really using Second Life anyway.

The question is was the way in which American Apparel approached the virtual world the problem or was it that virtual reality either isn’t developed enough for brands to operate in and communicate with users. In the BBC article, many of the comments were about how hard it is to use Second Life. So maybe the problem is that virtual reality isn’t user friendly enough for its users let alone for brands and advertising purposes. However, you still can’t ignore that as much as Second Life is supposed to be like our other lives, many of us don’t want it to be exactly like our real lives otherwise there’d be no need for virtual worlds. Therefore, we may not want brands in these other lives, especially brands who aren’t even attempting to disguise the fact that they’re only there to advertise to you.

I like the way Claire Beale puts it in her article:

‘The agencies must proceed with extreme caution, though. Like so many community

sites on the web, Second Life is still relatively virgin territory for brands,

and overt consumerism will be quickly stamped on.’

Overt consumerism was definitely stamped upon in the case of American Apparel as the company suffered a virtual terrorist attack. ‘A group called the Second Life Liberation Army gunned down virtual shoppers at American Apparel to protest the commercialization of the site.’

If use of virtual reality amongst brands becomes popular could we see advertising, marketing and pr agencies creating virtual departments? Whilst researching for this blog I came across companies such as Rivers Run Red who help brands/companies create a virtual presence. Could we see agencies that specialise in virtual spaces?

References

http://adverlab.blogspot.com/2006/06/american-apparel-opens-store-in-second.html

http://store.americanapparel.co.uk/2386.html

http://americanapparel.net/presscenter/secondlife/

http://www.observer.com/2008/american-apparel-opens-new-branch-virtual-lower-east-side

Fortune 50 Utilising Mobile Communication

Mobile phones have been more than just a means of communicating with friends for a while now. However now they’ve also become a channel with which companies can communicate with us. According to this article on Yahoo (http://finance.yahoo.com/news/SixtyTwo-Percent-of-Fortune-bw-2029362336.html?x=0&.v=1), 62% of fortune 50 companies are now using mobile communication to reach both their consumers and stakeholders.

The forms of mobile communication being used by these companies include the use of mobile applications, websites optimised for mobile phones and QR (quick response) codes. Having realised how easy it is for consumers to access information on their phones, companies are now trying to ensure that the information being accessed is about their company or brand. After all it makes sense to utilise a channel that consumers carry around with them everywhere.

Consider how many brands/companies we may have access to on a daily basis. Before leaving the house we might decide to check the status of the tube lines – for which there is TfL (Transport for London) mobile website. Waiting at the bus stop we might see an advert for a car, and in order to pass time decide to have a look at the website by scanning the QR code on the billboard advert. At work you decide to check up on the item you’re bidding on on eBay using their mobile application where there is a mobile version of the website. On the way home you remember that you’ve run out of bread. The solution to this doesn’t even require being near a computer as you can do your grocery shopping online via your mobile phone. Hence mobile communication offer companies the opportunity to talk to their consumers at any time of the day, serving as a constant reminder of their company or brand.

Target sends users of its mobile application a number of daily and weekly alerts notifying users of any deals in-store. Users who sign up to receive text alerts receive exclusive offers in the form of mobile barcodes via text which can be redeemed in-store. Users can also opt to be notified by email whenever your favourite items are on sale. This mobile application entices consumers with ‘online-onlies’ deals that keep users coming back to the application and shopping at Target.

Walgreens, an American online pharmacy takes another approach with its mobile application. Their application allows users to renew their prescriptions by taking a picture of the barcode on a bottle using their phone or by typing the prescription code. The prescription will then be ready to pick up in store. Normally the idea of buying medicine via phone wouldn’t sit too comfortably with me, however it seems that some precautions are being taken as users still have to go in-store to collect their medicine.

With these types of mobile communication becoming more popular can we except to see advertising campaigns taking place solely via mobile? Companies already conduct social media campaigns which rely to a degree on consumers accessing social media websites on their phones, so it wouldn’t be too big a change for campaigns to solely occur on mobile.