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So That’s Why They Drink Coke on TV
By LOUISE STORY
New York Times
December 9, 2007
ADVERTISING is often like a game of cat and mouse. Consumers try as
hard as they can to run away from sales pitches and commercial jingles,
so marketers continually seek new ways to hunt them down.
One of the more popular tricks — oops, I meant to say tactics — advertisers
are using today is branded entertainment, which ranges from plopping
a Pepsi can into a scene to writing entire television scripts based
around Oreo cookies. They like this approach so much that they’re
increasing the money they spend on so-called product integrations
at double-digit rates, making it one of the faster growth areas for
an otherwise stalled television industry.
But does product integration dupe consumers? The Federal Communications
Commission is considering investigating this question, and the commissioners
may add it to their public agenda as early as Tuesday.
“Networks may be turning to more subtle and sophisticated means of
incorporating commercial messages into traditional programming,” said
Kevin J. Martin, the commission’s chairman, at a September public
hearing. “I believe it is important for consumers to know when someone
is trying to sell them something.”
But don’t they know already? I, for one, always assume when I see
a brand in a television show or a movie that someone paid to have
it there. And if product placement allows me to see fewer commercials,
isn’t that a fair trade-off? One program on CW this year, called “CW
Now,” runs its full 26 minutes without commercials. The show is about
hot products and lifestyle news, so it is easy for the program to
interweave ad messages.
But that’s an exception. Nearly all programs rife with product placement
still blast us with commercials.
Even so, television executives are not eager to address Mr. Martin’s
concerns. After all, some advertisers think the value of product integration
is the ability to sneak up on viewers. They want viewers to think
that the lead characters of “Gilmore Girls” really liked eating Pop-Tarts
for breakfast and that the women in “Desperate Housewives” really
do think Nissans are cool.
Some of the proposed solutions to the problem sound more annoying
than the product placements themselves. For example, every time Paula
Abdul takes a sip from a giant red cup splashed with the Coca-Cola
logo on “American Idol,” a disclaimer box could be superimposed over
the cup. When young guys flirt with beautiful babes on “The Game Killers”
on MTV, a banner on the bottom of the screen could say, “This program
was co-created by Unilever’s Axe deodorant.”
Other proposals include a partial ban on branded entertainment during
the day and early evening to keep children from viewing it, or even
a total ban.
But it’s hard to imagine advertisers agreeing to any of that, and,
remember, they hold the purse strings.
Advertisers elbowed their way into the top 20 shows on cable and broadcast
networks a whopping 110,296 times in the first half of this year,
according to Nielsen Media Research. Coca-Cola alone appeared 3,054
times on broadcast network programs over that period. That’s big money.
In 2005, advertisers spent just under $1 billion on television product
integrations in the United States, and that amount should more than
quadruple by 2010, according to forecasts by PQ Media, a media research
firm in Stamford, Conn. Product integrations are usually mentioned
only at the end in the credits — if at all.
It could become even worse online, where consumers have even less
patience for commercials.
Surprisingly, some advertising executives say they would support disclosure
requirements from the government.
"I agree with the F.C.C. Transparency, the truth are the most powerful
tools,” said David Lubars, the chairman and chief creative officer
of BBDO North America, which helped Gillette to create a seven-episode
program that was shown on ABC last spring. It was called “Gillette
Young Guns,” making it clear in the title that Gillette was behind
the program.
Television writers, for the most part, hate that they are effectively
becoming ad writers. Those who protest requests to write in a product
are usually overruled, said Jody Frisch, director of public policy
and government affairs of the Writers Guild of America, West, which
is on strike.
Consumer advocacy groups have been complaining about advertisers trampling
into content for years. But does the average Joe at home really care?
Or does the tactic work so well that he doesn’t notice the pitch?
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