PlusOne – Marketing Musings

As the discussions about how traditional product advertising continue, it seems that product placement is now becoming more the norm than ever. Indeed integration of brands into the very core of TV shows could be the next big thing in advertising.

What brand of drink do the judges on Idol and similar shows have in front of them? What brand of watch does James Bond wear? Business Week reported that the product placement of Red Stripe, a Jamaican-brewed beer, in the movie “The Firm.” saw a 50% increase in sales.

Product placement in movies has been around a long while. It is not quite as common in TV, but advertisers are now getting the message that viewers don’t want to sit through ads. In fact the rapid rise in popularity of the TiVo digital recorder has meant ad agencies in The USA have been put on alert – the 30 second ad slot may be dead!

With this in mind, the agencies have been coming up with more innovative ways of getting product knowledge in front of consumers.

The placement of Coca Cola cups on American Idol shows have already been mentioned, Motorola has been pushing its product heavily on a range of shows from 24 to Treasure Hunters where the Razor model was mentioned all the way through. But can marketers get ingrained any further?

Sure they can. Just make them part of the storyline.

For example the office products supply firm Staples has not use traditional advertising for some time – instead the integrated their message in each weeks episode of the the TV series The Office. This was a cool way of advertising because lets face it, office workers watch it because they see the parodies of their own daily work lives. Targeted advertising, neatly wrapped in the story line so you DID watch it.

Is this new? Not really. Think back to the soap opera – so named because it was sponsored by a soap manufacturer who had their product written into the storyline. Not as subtly perhaps, but in the storyline non-the-less.

One of today’s most popular US soap operas, “All My Children,” recently managed to revisit its advertising roots. But, instead of soap, the folks at AMC opted for cosmetics. In a story-line that spanned several months, famous cosmetics company Revlon was front and center in Pine Valley’s plot line.

Maybe product ad placement and storyline ads will become a new spectator sport – spot the placement…

Share your spotting of product placements with us via comments. Include product, show and country.

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