Product Placement in Entertainment (Series and Movies)
- Vera Klap
- Oct 2, 2020
- 3 min read
When watching a certain series you might have seen your favourite character using a brand that you like, or perhaps you have now started using a brand that your favourite character uses. But what exactly is product placement and what does placing your product into a series do for your brand and popularity?
What is product placement?
Product placement is simply getting your product into a certain format. This can range from Youtube videos to movies to television. It is a simple way to get exposure without having to make advertisements yourself. Big brands do not see product placement as the only way to sell their product, often they are seen as sponsors or organisers for the premiere of said media product (Banks, N.D.). Brands pay the format money for their products to be advertised. An advantage of using product placement over a general commercial is that watchers can skip over commercials but they cannot skip over the product placement. Product placement ensures the advertiser that his product will be in the frame. Another advantage is that the watchers often bond with the characters in the show and if that said character is using your brand it will create a link of fondness (Online Marketing Agency, N.D.).
Popularity of a product after appearing in a show
If the series where your product is placed becomes a hit, it will definitely have a positive effect on your brand. There have been several cases where this has been proven. In the movie Top gun (1986), Tom Cruise can be seen wearing the Aviator glasses from Ray-Ban. This caused a 40% increase in sales (CNBC, 2011).
Another case of success is in the movie The Italian Job (2003). In this movie the main characters can be seen riding around in the BMW Mini Coopers. This was such a huge success that the sales of Mini Coopers experienced a 22% sales increase that year. It was even said that the main characters are not the stars but that the Mini Coopers are (CNBC, 2011).
Risks
There is a grey area for using products within a media product. Some producers say as long as it is fair use you do not really need the permission of the brand but this does get tricky within laws of copyright and patent (Banks, N.D). A risk for a brand when participating in a show is if a show is not received well and receives a lot of criticism this can influence the brands image if the product is very prominent in the show. There has not been a big case of this yet but there have been questionable product placements over the decades. An example of this is when Xbox Kinect was seen in Paranormal activity 4. In the movie it seemed as if the Xbox Kinect summons demons (McNab, 2016). This can definitely scare off some buyers unless you love the company of demons!
I hope that if you have a small brand you can consider reaching out to media platforms to get your product into a series because the benefits are definitely worth it! The risks are small and this is one of the best ways to get a positive connection to your product if the character is amazing. Who would not want to buy the product Robert Pattinson is using right?
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@kroft.m
There are definitely big do’s and don’t when using product placement. You would want it to be as organic as possible. Characters have to do the same tasks as actual humans; like eating, driving a car etc. That is the best opportunity to promote a product. However, When someone is in the middle of a battle in a roman empire it would not make sense to put a new Audi car in there. The trick is to almost make viewers not notice the product being promoted but your brand should be in the back of their minds.
Great read - interesting to see how a product can sell based on the reception of a movie/tv-series. If it's popular, it does really well, and if a movie bombs, then the product declines as well.
What are some of the do's and don'ts when talking about product placement? It should be organic or make sense in the movie to implement it, right? What would you advise to do when using product placement?