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Product placement (PPL) is a promotional tactic used by marketers in which a real commercial product is used in fictional or non-fictional media, and the presence of the product is a result of an economic exchange. When featuring a product is not part of an economic exchange, it is called a product plug. Product placement appears in plays, film, television series, music videos, video games and books, and is a relatively new idea (first appearing in the 1980's). Product placement occurs with the inclusion of a brand's logo, or a favorable mention or appearance of a product. This is done without disclosure, and under the premise that it is a natural part of the work. Most major movie releases today contain product placements. The most common form is movie and television placements and more recently computer and video games. Recently, web 2.0 sites have experimented with in-site product placement as a revenue model.
Early examples Traditionally, television networks demanded brand names be "greeked", like changing a Nokia phone to "Nokio" on the t.v. show Melrose Place. In 1982, the best-known instance of product placement appeared in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, which increased sales of Reese's Pieces 65 percent. Most of the motorcycles used in the 1979 film Mad Max were allegedly donated to the production by Kawasaki. A very early example of product placement in film occurs in the 1949 film Love Happy, in which Harpo Marx cavorts on a rooftop among various billboards and at one point escapes from the villains on the old Mobil logo, the "Flying Red Horse". Likely the earliest example of product placement in a videogame occurs in the 1989 videogame Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for Pizza Hut. Likely the earliest example of product placement in a cartoon occurs in the Comedy Central show: Shorties Watchin’ Shorties.* More recently shows on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block have been subjected to airing episodes devoted soley to a product. These shows include Aqua Teen Hunger Force in which an episode promoted Boost Mobile Phones and Axe Body Spray and the more recent episode of Frisky Dingo in which The Scion tc is heavily promoted. Forms of product placement The most basic form of product placement is the inclusion of a product name or logo in the foreground or background of a scene. Payments are based on exposure, including the number of times the product is shown or mentioned, the duration of that exposure, and the degree of inclusion of the product in the story line. If the product is actively used (such as when a leading character can be clearly seen to take a drink from the bottle or can), placement fees may be higher. Other times, product usage is negotiated rather than paid for. Some placements provide productions with below-the-line savings, with products such as props, clothes and cars being loaned for the production's use, thereby saving them purchase or rental fees. Barter systems (the director/actor/producer wants one for himself) and service deals (cellular phones provided for crew use, for instance) are also common practices. Producers may also seek out companies for product placements as another savings or revenue stream for the movie, with, for example, products used in exchange for help funding advertisements tied-in with a film's release, a show's new season or other event. The most common products to be promoted in this way are automobiles. Frequently, all the important vehicles in a movie or television serial will be supplied by one manufacturer. For example, The X-Files used Fords, as do leading characters on 24. The James Bond films were pioneers of such placement: the 1974 film The Man with the Golden Gun featured extensive use of AMC cars, even in scenes in Thailand, where AMC cars were not sold, and had the steering wheel on the wrong side of the vehicle for the country's roads. Other times, vehicles or other products take on such key roles in the film it is as if they are another character. Examples of this practice include the placement of Audi in I, Robot and The Transporter 2 or the Nokia phone in Cellular, as well as the highway scene in The Matrix Reloaded and Bad Boys 2, in which every car was made by General Motors. More recently, Apple Computer frequently places its products in films and on television, where they therefore seem much more common than in most real-world offices and homes. Apple has recently stated that it does not pay for product placement, though executives will not say how their products get into movies and onto TV. The most plausible argument may be that Apple computers appear to be more visually appealing than ordinary PCs. (Notably, recognizable Apple products have appeared in newspaper comic strips, including Opus, Baby Blues, Non Sequitur, and FoxTrot, even though paid placement in comics is all but unknown.) In a twist on traditional product placement, Hewlett-Packard computers now appear exclusively as part of photo layouts in the IKEA catalog in addition to placing plastic models of its computers in IKEA stores, having taken over Apple's similar position in the Swedish furniture retailer's promotional materials several years ago. A variant of product placement is advertisement placement. In this case an advertisement for the product (rather than the product itself) is seen in the movie or television series. Examples include a Lucky Strike cigarette advertisement on a billboard or a truck with a milk advertisement on its trailer. Product placement is also used in books (particularly novels) and video games, such as Crazy Taxi, which featured numerous real retail stores as game destinations. However, sometimes the economics are reversed, and video game makers pay for the rights to use real sports teams and players. Quantification methods track brand integrations, with both basic quantitative and more demonstrative qualitative systems used to determine the cost and effective media value of a placement. Rating systems measure the type of placement and onscreen exposure is gauged by audience recall rates. Products might be featured but hardly identifiable, clearly identifiable, long or recurrent in exposure, associated with a main character, verbally mentioned and/or they may play a key role in the storyline. Media values are also weighed over time, depending on a specific product's degree of presence in the market. Product placement companies work to ensure that their clients' products receive maximum screen time and exposure - whether it be the Nokia phone that Agent Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner) uses on Alias, the Lacoste polo shirt that Alex Hitchens (Will Smith) wears in the feature film Hitch, or the Rimowa pilot case Gil Grissom (William L. Petersen) carries as he arrives at crime scenes on CSI. Product placement can be seen as a modern version of the exhibit displays seen at world's fairs, concerts, sporting events, or anywhere that large numbers of potential customers gathered. Virtual product placement uses computer graphics to insert the product into the program after the program is complete**. The film The Truman Show explores the idea of a 24-hour on-air reality television program funded entirely by product placement. Controversy The James Bond film License to Kill featured use of the Lark brand of cigarette, and the producers accepted payment for that product placement. The studio's executives apparently believed that the placement triggered the American warning notice requirement for cigarette advertisements and thus the picture carried the Surgeon General's Warning at the end credits of the film. This brought forth calls for banning such cigarette advertisements in future films. Some such as Commercial Alert, believe product placement is "an affront to basic honesty"* which is too pervasive in today's society. Commercial Alert asks for full disclosure of all product placement arrangements. They feel that most product placements are deceptive and are not fully or clearly disclosed, advocating notification of embedded advertisements before and during a television program. One justification for this is that it allows greater parental control for children, who are said to be influenced greatly by product placement. The film Minority Report, loosely based on the Philip K. Dick short story of the same name, makes heavy use of product placement including Coca-Cola, Nokia, Gap and Lexus. Director Steven Spielberg also uses one scene to apparently criticize advertising: the main character (Tom Cruise) is harassed by personalised advertisements calling out his own name. The movie Fight Club, directed by David Fincher, bites the hands that feeds it by depicting acts of violence against most of the products that paid to be placed in the film. Examples include the scene where the Apple Store is broken into, and the scene in which Brad Pitt and Edward Norton smash the headlights of a new Volkswagen Beetle. However it is arguable that the negative portrayal of these ads is cancelled out since they are in fact still paid-for product placements within the film. The film I, Robot, based on the story collection by Isaac Asimov, again makes heavy use of product placements for Audi, Converse and JVC. The film was subject to negative criticism* as a result of this, being ranked as the Television show South Park has also recently taken advantage of Product Placements during its tenth season. The franchise P.F. Chang's was presented prominently in the episode A Million Little Fibers and was not 'spoofed' or mocked in any fashion. (Rather, it was shown as just another place in South Park). Cartoon Wars Part I also shown the character Eric Cartman packing Dr. Pepper along side the fictional Cheesy Poofs in a methodical fashion. Spoofs The concept of product placement has been spoofed many times. Notable examples include: Faux Product Placement Some filmmakers have responded to product placement by creating false products that frequently appear in the movies they make. Some examples: This practice is also fairly common in certain comics, such as Svetlana Chmakova's Dramacon (which makes several product-placement-esque usages "Pawky", a greeking of the name of the Japanese sweet "Pocky", a popular import amongst the anime and manga fan community amongst whom the story is set), or Naoko Takeuchi's Sailor Moon (which includes numerous references to the series Codename: Sailor V which Moon was spun off of; the anime makes even further usage of this meta-referential gag, going so far as having an animator on a Sailor V feature film be the victim of the week in one episode). See also | ||||||||
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