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