1 May
2009

9021OMG How Blatant is That?!?

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In these days of campaign seeding, blogger outreach, teasers for TV spots, and grassroots promotion, it’s refreshing to see that some people are still playing it old-school. Witness this weeks episode of 90210, and Dr Pepper’s non-to-subtle product placement. Apparently the line of dialogue “We’re on a road trip. Drinking Dr. Pepper is practically a requirement” actually features in the episode, but we’ll have to take Vulture’s word on that, as we’re too busy watching Lost and Green Wing to sully our Sky+ planners with American teen cheese …

Back in the glory days of television, advertising was all about reach – the power of your product was in how many people knew about it, hence the ridiculous cost to get a 30 second spot during Coronation Street. And as the aforementioned PVR revolution is meaning large numbers of people experience commercials as they’re fast forwarding past them at 30x speed, big companies are looking for new ways to engage with consumers.

Unfortunately, product placement isn’t the future – it’s stuck in the past, it is, as David Lynch poetically put, “total fucking bullshit” – consumers aren’t stupid, they know that Dr Pepper will have paid a boatload of cash to get themselves in here, and a viewer can’t help but feel manipulated by the workings of the industry machine.

posted by Kev at 15:39   _comments (2)

2 Responses to “9021OMG How Blatant is That?!?”

May 1st, 2009

“Blatant” is a word not strong enough. :-D

But I have to admit that product placement in Russian films (where I’m from) is even worse than that! It sometimes feels like you’re watching a two-hour-long commercial break..

From what I’ve noticed, the problem is that no matter how many times you tell a client that you should use product placement in a more subtle way, it never works. Clients still want to see their logos on half of the screen for minimum 10 seconds, because their bosses expect them to do so – they have to point and say, “See, that’s what all those hundreds of thousands went for! That was money well spent!”.

But that definitely characterises the level of our advertising and marketing – we still have a long way to go.

By Anastasia
 
May 1st, 2009

Indeed Anastasia – the old tricks don’t really work anymore, people think that placement = sales and that’s the end of it!

I’d love to see how the Russians do it, especially if it’s more blatant than this.

By Kev

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