Many people who saw Home alone remember the scene initially where in fact the McAllister family sits around the table having dinner. Fuller, go easy on the Pepsi, Kevin's aunt said to her son. But this phrase is a lot more than simply a warning against drinking too much soda.
These products are not appearing by accident. In the quest to cut the commercial clutter and declining television set ratings, marketers have tried their hand at more subtle or intrusive ways of displaying their products in big-screen movies through what is known as "product placement".
Product placement, also called "embedded marketing", is defined by the European Union as "any form of audiovisual commercial communication consisting of the inclusion of or reference to a product, something or the trade mark thereof so that is featured in just a programme". It is a kind of advertising that is used in movies and TV shows where branded products are placed in a movie setting. It usually aims to be inconspicuous and become part of the scene so that the audience will see a product in the environment. Product placement practices also exist in music videos, radio programs, video gaming, plays, novels etc.
Placing branded products in entertainment media like movies is not really a new developed concept. There is absolutely no doubt that the consumer is more likely to accept product placement in movies in comparison to traditional advertisements. Product placement can truly add credibility to a movie. It really is much easier to identify with a tale or with a movie character when they used products familiar to everyday activities.
Product placement is a substitute for the traditional TV advertising. It's been used since the invention of the tiny screen. Product placement or brand placement appeared first in motion pictures as soon as the late 1940s and early 1950s. One of these was in 1948 in the movie "Mildred Pierce" where an actor drank Jack Daniels whinsky. Since Reese's Pieces appeared in the movie "E. T. The Extraterrestrial", over twenty years ago, product placement is rolling out and evolved significantly. Following the film realesed, Hersey claimed a 65% increase in sales of Reese's Pieces candy. This success generate an intensified involvement in product placement area which has led to the establishement of agencies that specialize in product placement. Some of the company that delivers product placement servicies are: Creative Film Production, Creative Artist, Krown Enterteinment, Norm Marshall & Associates, Robert Kovologg's Associated Film Promotions, Unique Product Placement, Creative Entertainment Servicies. This agencies examine film scripts, search for appropriate settings in movies where their clients' products can be put and then make recommendations to the film makers.
The product placement in a movie can be as simple as a product being used in one scene (e. g. when a character uses a particular brand of beer or soft drink), a brandname being mentioned with a character in the story, or a logo obvious in the backdrop of an frame (e. g. when a brand's logo is visible on the billboard or the side of a truck). With the other extreme, a product placement can be an integral part of the movie. In the movie "You've got mail", AOL Online sites was an important part of the movie and was linked to the plot throughout the whole movie. The multifaceted nature of product placement helps it be an interesting, complex, marketing practice.
In any James Bond movies, the agent has always been drinking martini, driving luxuries cars, wearing the fanciest suits and the priciest watches. James Bond movies are well-known for being the ones with the biggest amount of product placement. They include mostly upmarket range products.
CinemaScore
To determine how much a marketer should pay a movie producer for a product placement, Ed Mintz developed a sistem called CinemaScore which is similar to the Nielsen ratings in tv set advertising.
CinemaScore is the industry lider in measuring movie appeal among theatre audiences. For over 34 years, CinemaScore has been polling moviegoers at major movie releases on opening night to accumulate demographic information and calculate a distinctive CinemaScore grade. A movie's overall CinemaScore can range from A+ to F.
For example, using the CinemaScore formula, they calculated a $28, 130 placement fee for the keeping Coke in "Crocodile Dundee II" predicated on projected $100, 000 million revenues at the box office and recall data obtain from exit surveys.
Types of product placement strategies
Product placement strategies can be categorized by the mode of presentation (the senses activated by the stimulus) into three modes: visual only (VIS), music only (AUD) and combined audio-visual (AV). The first mode (VIS) involves showing something, logo, billboard or various other visual brand identifier without any relevant message or sounds on the music track which draw focus on the merchandise (e. g. Danny DeVito drinking Coors Light with the label clearly exposed to the audience in "Twins").
The second mode involves the mention of a brand name or a character conveying brand-related messages in audio tracks form, without showing the product on the screen (e. g. Martin Sheen yelling to a waitress "Understand this kid a Molson Light" in "Wall Street").
The third mode (AV) involves showing a brand and at the same time mentioning the brand name or conveying a brand-relevant message in audio tracks form (e. g. the main character in "Wayne's World" saying "the decision of a new generation" before going for a sip from a can of Pepsi).
Placements in virtually any of the three modes may be subtle or prominent. Prominent placements are those in which the product (or other band identifier) is manufactured highly noticeable by virtue of size and/or position on the screen or its centrality to the action in the scene. Subtle placements are those where the brand is not shown prominently (e. g. small in proportions, a background pop beyond the primary field of visual focus, lost in an selection of multiple products or objects, low time of exposure).
Mode and prominence are highly relevant to the ease with which a product can be incorporated into a movie, and therefore the cost to the marketer of reaching an audience in this manner. From the three modes, VIS is the most regularly used, but it runs the chance that viewers will not attend to or recall the product's presence in the scene in the absence of audio tracks reinforcement. AV overcome this problem, but it is the most expensive and difficult mode to support. Similarly, subtle placement that can be incorporated into a scene as background and do not need a plausible basis for the overt integration of the merchandise into the action are relatively less expensive than prominent depictions.
A worldwide trend in advertising, product placement, is a car for everything from foodstuffs to electronics or automobiles. So, how does it work exactly? It's actually pretty simple. Basically, there are 3 ways product placement may appear:
it simply happens
it is arranged and a certain amount of the product serves as compensation
it is arranged and there is financial compensation
Sometimes product placement just happens. A set dresser, producer, director or even an actor might run into something he thinks will enhance the project. Usually, this has regarding boosting the level of credibility or realism of the storyline being told. One exemple can be found in the surprising use of a can of RAID- an ant killer created by the SC Johnson company- within an episode of the popular HBO series "The Sopranos". According to an article in USA Today, Therese Van Ryne, a spokeswoman for the SC Johnson, said that the business was not approached about the use of their product.
The most typical kind of deal is a straightforward exchange of the merchandise for the placement. Let supposing that someone of the crew knows somebody who works for "Honest Tea". The movie people approach the Honest Tea folks with a proposal and the offer is made; in exchange of the airtime, the cast and crew are given with an ample way to obtain Honest Tea drinks at work. Sometimes a present of the product is not an appropriate form of compensation, so money powers the deal.
Why do they use product placement?
To achieve prominent audience exposure, visibility, attention and interest
To increase brand awareness
To increase consumer memory and recall of the brand/product
To create instant recognition of the product/brand in the media vehicle and at the idea of purchase
To bring desired change in consumer's attitudes or overall analysis of the brand
To bring an alteration in the audiences' purchase behaviors
Product placement can have a significant influence on message receptivity. The sponsor of product placements will probably gain goodwill by associating itself with a popular program geared to a particular audience. The more lucrative this program, the longer shelf life of the product placement. Nielsen Media Research shows that product placement in television set shows can boost brand awareness by 20%. Product placements can have a significant effect on recall. For instance, memory enhances when visual/auditory modality and plot connection are congruent. Verbal and visual brand placements are better recall than placements having one or the other.
"To improve brand memory, brands should be prominently positioned and be combined with an actor in films or tv set programs. Brand evaluations can become more positive when the placement is more editorial rather than commercial and when non-users of the
brand are reached. Behavior and behavioral intentions are influenced best when the audience has positive evaluations of brand placement, when placements are presented in editorial formats, so when placements are repeated. "
Conclusion
Product placement is gaining more and more popularity and at the same time has turned into a huge, profitable business for both broadcasting companies and the producers. In the past decade product placement has turned into a very sophisticated business.
Today, every movie contains product placement. Within the "James Bond"-Movies 007 drinks Martini, Will Smith drives a Porsche 911 Turbo in "Bad Boys". There could be mentioned thousands of examples like this
"I think product placement can be an innovative way to advertise a product, " Ray said. "While you show the usefulness of your product by showing how it creates other people's lives easier, you've created an advertisement that is invaluable. " (Neuroscience major Andrew Ray)
Douglas McKinley, an advertising professor at BYU, sees product placement as a necessary monetary help for a film industry.
"We have all come to accept product placement as the best way to help fund the movie, " McKinley said. "(Product placement can be) good if the product is written into the script so that it looks like part of the landscape. "
The the next time you watch a movie make an effort to look out for products or brand-names you recognize. It is highly likely that you'll see one of the major soft drink companies represented. Once you spotted something, observe how a great many other scenes include that product. You might start to visit a trend. "How", you will wonder, "can the actor contain the Coke just the right way whenever so the logo is perfectly visible?"
