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.