Product placement is everywhere on television these days. Adventures in Product Placement does not set out to point every instance out, just the examples that are so ridiculous and out of place.
Reality television is no stranger to product placement. usually the product integration is done well through segment sponsorship, products offered as a reward in a competition, or as in the case in cooking shows like "Top Chef," integrating the product directly into a competition
'Last Comic Standing' Shoves 'Despicable Me' in our Face
Last night "Last Comic Standing" did none of these things. If you are unfamiliar, this is the reality competition show that uses the "American Idol" template to find the next star stand-up comic. Last night about half way through the New York City auditions episode this happened:
Did you catch that? Was it too subtle for you? As if showing pop-in ads for this movie on the screen twice during the program wasn't enough, the NBC/Universal family decided to completely waste a minute of the program's air time. Next time may I suggest simply putting a movie poster in the background?
Something is starting to annoy me with product placing in comedies. There are three ways a comedy can integrate product placement into their program:
Make the product a central plot point
Have the product around constantly but make no mention of it
Ironically over "promote" the product so the audience is well aware it is product placement
It is this third method that's getting old. It's originally was a humorous meta commentary on the commercial business of television.
In this type of comedic placement, both the characters in the show, breaking the fourth wall, AND the audience watching them are aware there is product placement being done. Although it's not "cool," there's nothing the show can do to stop it, so let's all take a moment to laugh at how crazy it is (while also making sure to actually promote the product), and poke fun at how commercial it is by looking into the camera and spouting tag lines.
The "hit" NBC comedy '30 Rock' is largely considered to be the originator of this method. They have been doing it so often since their show debuted three years ago, that they get accused of ironically promoting products even when they aren't. Three years ago it was funny. But like all jokes, they become less and less funny the 8th, 9th, and 10th times.
This became evident to me during the 11/5 episode of '30 Rock.' During this episode Alec Baldwin's character Jack has to participate in a teleconference due to a bed bug infestation. Cisco Systems provides the equipment to make the teleconference happen:
Did you catch that? Wasn't it funny, clever, and ironic? Maybe in 2007, but now it's become an easy joke. And if it becomes an easy joke, it's an unfunny joke, which makes it not a joke at all, which makes it an actual commercial in the middle of a scripted program.
Now I'm not saying '30 Rock' should stop using product placement to defer costs (and yes, in the credits of the show, you can clearly see "promotional consideration provided by Cisco Systems"). I just want them to stop making a joke out of it. Can't there just be a Cisco Systems teleconference without talking about it? Simply having the logo on the monitor briefly is enough. I've already noticed the product. I've been well aware of Cisco Systems products, including this teleconference system, in other programs including "24", "Chuck","House", and "CSI," and they never made one mention of the product they are using.
It was funny the first 6 times, now stop going for the cheap laugh, we're expecting it.
What do you think? Am I being too harsh? Is it still funny?
'Trust Me,' the TNT drama about the CRAZY agency life of two CRAZY ad executives has been cancelled after one UN-CRAZY season.
Why? Simple: No one was watching. Were you? I wasn't. I watched (suffered through) the first episode and that was enough for me.
When it premiered I wrote about the endless amounts of product placement deals in the show, and wondered if they were intruding in on or leading the storytelling.
Judging by the number of people who regularly viewed that post the day after a new episode aired, the product placement was a problem. People reading the post (the most read post on this blog) often came to it by searching for terms such as. "too much promotion, trust me," and "annoying product placement, trust me." It appears that the general consensus on the Internet is that the product placement got in the way.
I still have yet to actually hear from someone who watched the show, however. If you did, what did you think? Will you miss the show at all, or just its built-in commercials?
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This week's episode of 24 had another not-so-subtle placement of the Hyundai Genesis. This has happened before (the video is no longer available), and will probably happen again. Hyundai has signed on for placement in the series for this entire season. They take the place of Ford, which was the vehicle of choice for Jack Bauer in previous seasons.
The Ford placement, however, was never so in-your-face. With Hyundai, 24 has written entire scenes existing only to showcase the Genesis.
This season was supposed to air last year, but was put on hold due to the writer's strike. At the time of the strike, nearly 14 months ago, half of this season was already shot and ready to go. When the strike ended in March 2008, they resumed production and completed the entire season by the end of the summer. It was around this time that the Genesis deal came along. Producer's then had to go back into those first 12 episodes filmed in 2007, and insert scenes that featured the 2009 Hyundai Genesis.
This week featured one of those scenes. It was by no means a scene necessary to the ongoing plot. It felt more like a car commercial, complete with a loving family and a child safely in the back seat. There were obligatory dashboard navigation shots, as many shots of the entire car as they could squeeze in, and shots that start low and focused on the car and then slowly pan up to the actors.
Again, I don't mind product placement; it is necessary to counter rising production costs and a good way for brands to generate awareness. However, it does not need to be so obvious that it takes viewers out of the show. Ford never had that problem in previous 24 seasons. Do the producer's think we won't notice the placement? It's laughable how obvious it is. Does it bother you? Take a look:
Apparently the press, the blogosphere, and yours truly jumped the gun a little bit when accusing 30 Rock of shameless McFlurry product placement (see previous post below). The outcry was getting loud enough, that showrunner/head writer/star Tina Fey felt the need to clear things up:
"“It gives me great pleasure to inform you that the references to McDonald's in last night's episode of 30 Rock were in no way product placement. (Nor were they an attempt at product placement that fell through.) We received no money from the McDonald's Corporation. We were actually a little worried they might sue us. That's just the kind of revenue-generating masterminds we are.
Also, the upcoming story line where Liz Lemon starts dating Grimace is just based on a recurring dream I have.
Seriously, though, it's not product placement.
Also, whoever is writing my Twitter account is pretty funny, but it's not me.” - Tina Fey
Again, my bad, but your reputation does precede you. Next time I'll give you benefit of the doubt.
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From early on in its now 2.5 year lifespan, 30 Rock has been an adapter of shameless product placement. I give Tina Fey and crew credit, though, because they are fully aware they are "selling out to the man" and they try to poke fun at it. Usually their product placement is followed by a meta wink to the audience, or in the case of one episode, literally looking into the camera and saying, "Can we have our money now?"
Last night's episode included a shameless plug for McDonalds and their McFlurry dessert. This time, however, I felt the plug was ever-so-slightly crossing the line of their typical clever/meta joke into annoying promotion. I almost missed all the jokes because I was paying too much attention to all the McShilling that was going on. I'll let it slide though. If I have to take the occasional shameless promotion in order to keep 30 Rock on the air, I'm more than willing to do it.
Wow! That was quite a Super Bowl. Well, it was quite a 4th quarter at least. As a Cleveland Browns fan I was pulling for the Cardinals, but their defense just couldn't stop the Steelers when they needed to. Oh well.
So what did you think of the commercials? Any favorites? General reaction seems to be that the Doritos' Crystal Ball ad and Budweiser's' Clydesdale in love ad were the favorites (Watch all the ads and see viewer's quantitative response at USA Today's Ad Meter). Towards the end of the game did you catch this odd ad from Pepsi?:
For those of you unaware MacGruber is a recurring character on "Saturday Night Live." On the show, each MacGruber skit is broken up into 3 parts and aired throughout that night's program. The premise is always the same: Placed in a tough spot, MacGruber tries to escape MacGyver-style (nice cameo by Richard Dean Anderson in the skit), only he never makes it in time because of some ridiculous argument. The 3 skits usually have a common thread that becomes more and more absurd with each skit.
This past week's episode of "Saturday Night Live" (with host Steve Martin) featured 3 MacGruber skits all about Pepsi. The above video, which was repurposed during the Super Bowl, was the 2nd of the 3 skits. Here is the 1st and 3rd:
Funny? I think so. They're as funny as any of the other MacGruber sketches. But they aren't comedy sketches, they are ad time purchased by Pepsi and aired during commercial breaks. "SNL" and Pepsi chose to blur those lines a little when airing the ads on Saturday night.
Known for their commercial parodies, "SNL" begins and ends each commercial break with a short bumper to let the audience know they are leaving parody territory and entering the real world of advertising. These bumpers are usually quick images of NYC cityscape with the "SNL" logo or an announcement of who's' hosting next week. These MacGruber commercials all aired IMMEDIATELY AFTER the bumpers, tricking the audience into thinking they are still watching the show. It worked on me, I didn't fast-forward over them.
Is this OK? Bumpers have been a staple in children's programming for decades; used as an ethical way to tell kids they are no longer being entertained to, they are being pitched to. As adults, we're just supposed to recognize that. If the MacGruber ads aired during the middle of the commercial breaks I don't think anyone would raise a fuss. "30 Rock" has done this in the past. Instead, they are being treated as sketches by "SNL" and NBC (even being listed as such on their respective websites), and as advertisements by Pepsi. Which one is it? I don't think you can have it both ways. "SNL" should just admit they created some "SNL"-themed Pepsi commercials. There is nothing wrong with that. But there is something wrong with passing them off as 3 minutes of air time not purchased by Pepsi.
What do you think? Would you be OK seeing more of this?
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In a previous post I took a look at TNT's new drama "Trust Me," premiering this Monday night (1/26). This is the drama about two friends working in a fast-paced (fictional) ad agency Rothman, Greene & Mohr.
Although set in a fictional agency, the clients they take on will be very real. 'Trust me' will be writing actual products into their scripts, including products that are actual sponsors of the program. SEAMLESS PRODUCT INTEGRATION ACHIEVED (in theory)!!
One such sponsor is Unilever, which will be promoting their line of Dove hair care products. The product placement will go so far as to provide an on-screen cameo for a real-life Dove brand manager, as well as a Dove-sponsored online game where the user, playing as a Rothman creative director, will develop a campaign for Dove. That's so meta I feel I should be receiving a paycheck from someone just for playing the game.
Due to its setting, 'Trust Me' has the ability to integrate nearly any product into their surroundings: just make them a client. The first few episodes feature many different brands, including: Apple, Chris-Craft boats, Effen vodka, Green Giant, Hallmark, Kellogg’s cereal, Nike, Pillsbury, Potbelly Sandwich Works and Starbucks.
The executive producers of the show, who also happen to be former Madison Ave ad men, claim that the product integration is done because it gives the audience a better depth of knowledge of the show's environment. In other words, the audience will be able to form a stronger bond with the characters if they drink Starbucks coffee rather than a fictional Skybucks coffee. I see the point, but let's be honest, the product integration is done to ease the production costs of a show that is probably pretty costly for a TNT series, not to create a fully realized environment.
I have no idea if this will work or not. If the brands are honestly used to further define the agency's environment and only plays a minor supporting role in that sense, then we're cool. If, however, the brands end up driving the plot for each episode, then the audience may realize they are simply watching a glorified infomercial. Both the sponsors and the producers of the series should (and hopefully do) realize that.
I'll check the show out on Monday night, but for the stories, not the products. Will you?
Network television is in a weird place right now. Ratings are down, budgets are tight, and last winter's Writer's Guild strike did a serious number to the network's schedule. Despite all this, the Associated Press reported last week that Americans are watching more television than ever before. The report states that the typical household had a TV on for 8 hours and 18 minutes a day.
If this is true, then how are television ratings down? It is because the Nielson ratings only record live television viewers, not DVR recordings, programs streamed online, or purchased through iTunes. This is the new way we are watching television and both networks and advertisers are having a tough time adjusting to the fact that the viewer now controls when and how they watch TV shows. That is good for viewers, but bad for advertisers and the networks. Here's why:
Television networks make most of their money from selling commercial time to advertisers
The higher the television ratings, the more advertisers are willing to pay for commercial time
The more money the networks make off of advertisers, the more money they have to invest in their programs and creative development
With ratings down, networks are having to charge less for ads, make less money, and have smaller budgets to produce their shows (Hello seven million hours of cheap reality shows).
With viewers fast-forwarding past commercials, advertisers are desperate to get their branded message across to all those people watching an endless amount of TV. Enter product placement, and old television staple that is learning a few new tricks.
I am sure while watching your favorite shows you have noticed close-up shots of cell phones, MacBooks, and every vehicle ever driven by every television character ever. This is standard product placement. The advertisers pay to have their products placed prominently in programs, get brand exposure that will not be fast forwarded over, and the networks receive more money to cover their expensive production costs.
Now normally I do not mind product placement, except when it is so obviously a commercial within a show that is takes me out of the program for a second. These are the types of product placements that I feature in Adventures in Product Placement. Moments that are so bad that they are laughable. Here are a few clips, courtesy of hulu.com.
Towards the end of last week's episode of Chuck the characters took a time out from a frantic escape to discuss the features on the new Toyota Matrix that make it "the perfect getaway car:"
That was not TOO bad, but the dialogue sure seemed out of place during an escape. If I'm looking for a getaway car, ipod capability isn't going to be a deal breaker for me.
Next up is a clip from the 24 TV-movie 24: Redemption. The product being featured is the 2009 Hyundai Genesis. In the clip character A has called character B because something of URGENT NATIONAL SECURITY has come up and character A is racing to meet up with character B (who happens to be the president-elects' son and is about to leave for the inauguration ceremony so he doesn't have much time to talk!!!!!!). Although he is in a hurry, character A makes sure to stop mid-sentence to play with all the cool new features on the Genesis. The camera gets the necessary glamor shots, then the urgent conversation continues:
Yes, it was quick, but to stop a scene mid-sentence to show off a product seems a bit like Character A saying, "We'll be right back after this brief message from Hyundai."
That brings us to the award for worst product placement ever. This honor goes to My Name is Earl (a show that has been on for four years now, and yet I have never met anyone who would call themselves an avid fan). A recent episode actually featured an entire B-story that revolved around a product. Seriously. The entire story line revolved around the character of Joy wanting a Kay Jewelers' Jane Seymour heart necklace thing. They even managed to throw in a real commercial for the product IN THE SHOW as well as an appearance by Dr. Quinn herself:
From that point on, Joy makes a point to mention the Kay Jeweler's necklace in nearly every scene she is in. AND during the commercial breaks for the show they showed the exact same commercial for the necklace that Joy was watching in the clip. This is pathetic. I tolerate a little cheesy placement here and there, but to force the writers to work a product and a pitch into an entire storyline is a new low. Besides, Joy is not a likable character. Why would Kay Jewelers want to associate their brand with the tastes of a person like Joy? I doubt that endorsement did much to push sales.
Well that's all for today's Adventures in Product Placement. I'm sure there will be many more in the future. Do you notice product placement like this? Does it bother you? Do you retain more information about the product than you would through a commercial? If you have any favorite product placement moments let me know and I'll try to post them.
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JD Drake is a advertising/marketing professional residing in Cleveland, OH. He has never had a cavity, but lies awake at night in fear that the streak will soon end.
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