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Archived in Aren’t digital video recorders great: they let you watch what you want when you want, and the best part is you no longer have to sit through tiresome adverts? Well, ITV certainly doesn’t think so, but its desperation to force ads onto viewers could easily backfire.
Now that people are fast forwarding through the ad breaks, ITV are eager to find a way of shoehorning ads into the programmes themselves, and are currently trialling a new ad overlay technology, which enables logos and messages to be embedded on blank surfaces (such as a wall, the sky or someone’s forehead) during programmes.
The risk for ITV is that is that in its dash for cash it damages the viewing experience, and people give it the thumbs down with their remotes.
Ultimately, ITV could be forced to import more US shows because, unlike the UK, American networks aren’t banned from using product placement for funding.
A brief history of product placement
Embedded marketing has been around nearly as long as broadcasted entertainment itself. Back in the 1930s, Procter & Gamble sponsored radio daytime serials to get housewives hooked on its soaps in more ways than one. P & G (along with Unilever) then went on to sponsor numerous ‘soap’ operas from the birth of TV, in the 1950s, right up until present day, with its household products getting as much camera time as the actors.
In the 1980s it was the film industries turn to get invaded by brands, with Ray Bans featuring in Risky Business (Tom Cruise helped increase sales 55%), breakfast cereals luring out aliens in ET and Marlboro trucks used as bowling balls in Superman II.
Brands and modern movies
Product placement is now becoming an integral part of how movies get marketed, with brands falling over themselves to promote their movie star endorsements. Audi’s concept car in iRobot helped generate 34,000 search engine hits, whilst Sex and the City was proclaimed ‘the Super Bowl for women’ as advertisers virtually bankrolled the film’s publicity for a share of the limelight.
The Bond franchise is a particularly juicy cash cow for studios: the films are almost guaranteed to fill seats and advertisers rush to buy time with the world’s most famous secret agent. After ‘Buy Another Day’ and the two hour Sony promo that was Casino Royale, you can expect Quantum of Solace to continue the tradition, with close ups of Daniel Craig planning his route on his Sony Ericsson before making a daring escape in a spotless Ford Ka.
Does product placement work?
Product placement can be effective because it’s embedded in the entertainment itself. Viewers can’t fast forward or ignore it, and it can bypass their subliminal anti-ad filters. A movie star seen wearing a particular brand is as good as a celebrity endorsement, helping to enhance a positive association and a desire to dress like the hero.
Last year US advertisers spent $2.9 million on product placements, which was a 34% increase on 2006, and this year it’s expected to be higher still. American TV networks are already switched on to the fact that people aren’t watching their ad breaks, so weaving brands into the script is now the only way shows are going to get made.
As the old adage goes ‘if you can’t measure it you can’t sell it’, so (along with their own private armies of trackers) advertisers ask 2.5 million people to fill out online surveys on whether they’d noticed the product, whether it improved their opinion or if they found it annoying.
It will be a while before sense can be made of the data on whether product placement is the future of advertising, but for the time being it’s the direction ad spend is pouring.
ITV’s quandary
Product placement works when it’s a relevant part of the entertainment and fits in with what the characters would wear and use, such as reflecting the materialistic lives of the Sex and the City girls. However, it can back fire if viewers think they’re being manipulated and advertisers are trying to trick them.
ITV’s problem is that it’s unlikely viewers are going to be as accepting of logos suddenly appearing all over Coronation Street as they are of the American Idol judges only drinking Coke.
As with all forms of marketing, if message are irrelevant, annoying and of no value then it will either be ignored or make prospects switch off altogether, which is the danger ITV faces.
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