Does product placement occur in other mediums other then movies?
And is it just Hollywood movieas where it occurs or do other countries follow the practice?
Does it happen in T.V. shows,stageplays or even novels or are their laws against it in some countries?
Yes. I’ve seen it in TV series, as well as video games. In fact, the term “soap opera” derives from soap companies’ sponsorship of, and resultant product placement in, these shows.
Also, <nitpick>the plural of “medium” is “media”</nitpick>.
Video games.
E.g. check out “Fight Night Round 3”, or many other EA titles.
I first heard about this from NPR’s comedy quiz program “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!”, but in June of this year, the Fox movie studio paid a graduating high school student in Los Angeles $1,800 to insert a reference to an upcoming movie in her valedictory address. Here is a Wall Street Journal article about the story. It says, "Last month, 18-year-old Kenya Mejia closed her valedictory address at Los Angeles’s Alexander Hamilton High School on a startling note: publicly professing a secret passion for a classmate. . . . The goal of the plot, which included a marketing company called the Intelligence Group and at least one other contractor, was to create a “viral” buzz online for the romantic comedy “I Love You, Beth Cooper.”
And here is a New York Times story about product placement in a novel. It mentions the insertion of references to Cover Girl cosmetics in a young adult novel.
For product placement in novels you can begin with anything by Stephen King.
*Seinfeld. *Not just the stuff in his kitchen, but sub-plots like “Little Debbie.”
All those character balloons in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Really, did you think they just asked for a Snoopy balloon?
Listen to old time radio (OTR) you can see the commercials were written right into the script.
From *Burns and Allen * (George is talking to Bill Goodwin)
George) Look Bill I’m very busy
Bill) But George…
George) I can’t talk, now run along Bill
Bill) But George you’ll never run a long bill if you use Maxwell House Coffee, it cost just pennies more per cup than the leading brand.
—> George and Jack Benny (sponsor was Amident Toothpaste)
Geroge) C’mon be on my show, I’ll pay you well
Jack) George we’re old friends I couldn’t take your money, I’ll do it for Amident
George) OK, how many tubes do you want
Jack) Tubes? I meant the whole company
Back in the old days when I was growing up there was a law enforcement type show on TV. I’m thinking it was The FBI with Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., but it may have been Jack Webb’s Dragnet. Whichever it was, every single car on the road or freeway was a Ford product. There was a line in the credits that said “Vehicles furnished by Ford Motor Company.”
The Streets of San Francisco (although it may have been true of other shows as well). “Be on the lookout for a blue four-door Ford sedan, license number…”
American Idol was notorious for its product placement in the early seasons, including some kind of Coca Cola waiting room, the judges openly drinking Coke, and the contestants filming car commercials (also for Ford?)
Ford is all over old TV shows, even Andy Griffith I believe, with the “Vehicles furnished by Ford Motor Company” line in the credits.
As for video games, who can forget Mello Yello Q*Bert?
It’s done in Spain as well. How badly it’s sometimes done is a running joke; you’ll get things like a show where nobody has ever drunk anything and all of a sudden every kitchen scene involves someone serving a big glass of Font Vella water.
I’m thinking that the term “product placement” means that companies are compensating producers etc. to place their products in TV shows and movies and games, as many examples in this thread illustrate. King often mentioned particular products in his books, but were his mentions of these products actually “bought” by companies, or did King just use them as he pleased?
On another note, I also recall that a lot of those old cop shows and family sitcoms from the 70s featured cars by Ford, GM, and Chrysler–remember Cannon was always driving his Lincoln Continental and the Brady family went to the Grand Canyon in their Plymouth Satellite station wagon? The end credits always mentioned that the cars were supplied by the manufacturer.
On Royal Pains the hospital admin. just bought a new Toyota with solar AC. They stood around talking about it’s virtues way longer than necessary.
How about a product placement within a different product’s TV commercial?
There’s a Coors ad in which a bunch of people (who are all enjoying a cold Coors, of course) watch a NASCAR race taking place in a snow-covered valley. No less than 3 times during the 30-second spot, the car sponsored by Big Red gum can be seen roaring by. None of the other cars’ sponsors are legible.
In one of the Left Behind books, the narration goes into the virtues (heh) of one of the Land Rover models. It’s not clear if there was compensation, or if the authors just really really like Land Rovers.
One of the big issues surrounding product placement in movie and television dramas is the amount of influence the sponsors get to have in the creative (writing, directing, production) process. What happens when the sponsor wants to rewrite the script? After all, he’s essentially paying (some percentage of) their salaries, and wants to get his money’s worth.
In comics:
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB114532350031828284-2nRn41Kln8fZjCEf0UgX0UlPqy4_20060425.html?mod=blogs
http://blog.newsok.com/nerdage/2008/01/24/lost-product-placement-at-marvel/
Cisco equipment has been appearing quite often in Marvel comics of late as well.
This one from Marvel’s Irredeemable Ant Man never ceases to amuse me.
Right, and many (most?) sponsors don’t want their products associated with any sort of controversial or problematic topic, so look for plots to become even more generic and safe. This has been the case with magazine advertisers for a long time, with some companies screaming and threatening to pull advertising if their ads are shows near a controversial story (abortion, homosexuality, etc.)
This sort of problem in movies and TV isn’t going to go away; in fact, it’s likely to worsen.
With the rise of DVRs (i was going to say “TiVo,” but that would have been product placement :)), DVDs, internet streaming, and other ways for consumers to avoid advertising when watching their favorite movies or TV shows, companies are trying harder and harder to get their products in front of you in a setting where you can’t or won’t turn away.
Product placement is perfect for this, because it’s not like a commercial, where you can fast-forward past it, or get up to go to the bathroom. It’s part of the show itself, so you can’t avoid it unless you want to miss part of the story.
Hell, the whole world of kids’ entertainment is essentially one big product placement.
Many children’s TV shows seem to be created as little more than an advertising vehicle for a range of dolls, or video games, or accessories, or whatever.
Many of these deals start out with the folks on the content side coming up with an idea that would be interesting to a number of advertisers. So if their script calls for a computer screen to be shown, they figure they’ll brand it Apple or Dell or whatever for a sponsorship fee. In this way, the advertiser and the content folks can collaborate without materially affecting the storyline.
While it’s true that advertisers can be a big pain with respect to paid placement, in many cases it’s tough for them to insist on big changes to the content without the folks putting the movie/TV show/etc. together to threaten to take the opportunity to a competitor.
Just so you don’t get the idea that when BMW pays big to be James Bond’s new flashy car, they can rewrite the script of the movie… They can’t. Else Mercedes might snag their spot and reap the benefits.
That said, there are plenty of exceptions to this. But in general, content producers don’t invite advertisers to come in and rewrite the script. They typically have an idea of where they want product placement and a wide variety of potential sponsors to shop their ideas to.
If you have any questions, I have a few friends in this aspect of the business. One happens to have done several deals within video games, including the segment in Hitman where you film an Armor All commercial.
