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On her arrangement with several magazines to use images of Lexus vehicles in editorial, Lexus VP of Marketing Deborah Wahl Meyer told Ad Age, "I'm not talking about pushing anyone to do this We highly respect what a journalist and editor do. We're not talking about crossing any boundaries that are well established." Clearly, the simple act of asking certainly crosses the line. It places journalist in a compromising position. They have been influenced whether they decided to go along with the request or not. Don't worry. We haven't turned into a myopic infant. We know this stuff been going on forever but slowly and surely the line between editorial and advertising is becoming obliterated. Uninfluenced, independent commentary is becoming increasingly difficult to find.
As evil as this may sound, people still have brains, whether marketers realize this or not, and they will adjust to this blurring of reality. Though, it's just not something that needs to be there in the first place. Lending a bit of humor to this magazine product placement trend is the hilariously clandestine, hush-hush attitude both sides have taken on as if knowing which publishers and which marketers are in bed together is as important as codes to detonate a nuclear device.
Adrants reader brings to our less than sports-minded attention a stunt Chevy pulled during Tuesday's Major League Baseball All-Star game during which FOX cameras panned, in feigned innocence, over a fan banner that read HHRYA.com. While broadcasters Joe Buck and Tim McCarver bantered back and forth about the banner, apparently, no one realized it was a paid placement for the new Chevy HHR vehicle directing people to a website that, according to The Register, was swamped and offline for for thirty minutes. The site is a repository for people to upload pictures of themselves with the letters HHR somewhere in the photo.
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Citing video news releases, product placement and interactive television aimed at children, FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein has asked the FCC to expand its investigation into product placement disclosure and strengthen guidelines. As reported in As Age, Adelstein told the Media Institute, "People out there are frustrated by what they see as fake news and relentless marketing. The use of covert commercial pitches is penetrating deeper and deeper into our media."
While our normal pithiness calls for us to poke fun at government agencies creating rules that assume people are stupid and can't figure things out for themselves, we, believe it or not, feel some control is warranted. Advertising, because of people's increased ability to ignore it, is getting desperate. very desperate. A roadblock buy once meant buying every spot on every network during a single time period or plastering posters over an entire subway station. It now means, literally, creating an advertising barrier so intense, so pervasive one would have to leave the solar system to avoid an ad. It's reached the point on insanity as marketers, who are not entirely at fault since they are faced with intense media fragmentation and consumer control over media, grasp for any and all possible means to get their message in front of potential customers.
While inviting the government into things is not always the best solution, something, anything is needed to guide the advertising beast as it relentlessly seeks eyeballs with cash.
Adrants reader Ed Misley wrote he just saw the documentary movie, "Enron: The Smartest guys in the room," and noted a prominent Coke product placement he thought quite odd. He writes, "During many scenes of Jeffrey Skilling testifying before congress they digitally edited a Diet Coke can (with the logo prominently facing the camera). Now because of how they cropped the scene, the coke can was almost the size of his head. Now I watch a lot of C-Span and I don't remember a time when I saw anything other than glasses and pitchers of water on the tables of those testifying. Why would Coca Cola Crop pay good money to have their product next to the bad guy?"
He continued, commenting upon a second product placement, "I also noticed a more subtle product placement of a water bottle, which I think was "Spring Hill" due to the green label but it was turned in such a way as to not see the label entirely. Was this a ruse to divert attention away from the suspicious coke can? This was during an exchange of words between Barbara Boxers and Jeffrey Skilling. Skilling had the blatant coke and Boxer had the subtle water bottle. The coke can appeared almost every time you saw Skilling testifying. I am not anti-adverting I just can't figure out why this would help either Coca Cola or the filmmakers."
Well, unfortunately, Ed, it's all about the money. While we haven't seen the movie and can't comment directly, we suspect somebody needed money, Coke had money, transaction happened.
Even stuffy, upper crust Broadway isn't immune to product placement as recently illustrated in a deal between Neil Simon's Sweet Charity, starring Christina Applegate, and tequila maker Jose Cuervo for its Gran Centenario brand. Simon approved a script change to incorporate the brand into the dialog. The brand logo will also appear in set and ads will be placed in the playbill. New York-based Bridge to Hollywood/Broadway put the deal together. Bridge to Hollywood/Broadway has previously brokered product placement deals for appearances in Thoroughly Modern Millie and Raisin in the Sun. What are readers thoughts on product placement in Broadway shows and product placement in general? Over the top marketing insanity or standard modus operandi?
AdJab points to a leaked internal Ford memo outlining the car manufacturers upcoming product placement plans. Infiltrating such shows as Extreme Makeover with e Ford Mustang-themed room to Dr. Phil with a Ford Five Hundred giveaway to a loyal viewer to a TRL placement in which Funkmaster Flex will highlight prom vehicles such as the Excursion Limo (gotta have lots of make out room) and the Mustang GT Convertible. other placements include American Idol, Sabado Gigante and the Gospel Music channel. So much for surprises. Entire memo hosted at StayFree.
John Keehler of Random Culture comments on the continuing insanity of product placement by pointing out a movie trailer for the new Samuel L. Jackson, Eugene Levy film, The Man, in which there are product placements for USA Today and Blockbuster. Assuming the trailer scenes are actually part of the movie, this is not entirely a surprise. Although, it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility that companies repping USA Today and Blockbuster certainly urged/paid New Line to include these scenes in the trailer since it's likely more people will see the traier than the movie itself.
We can just envision the heated conversations between Domino's Pizza and the producers of The Apprentice leading up to last night's episode in which an obvious, Trump-delivered voice over was dubbed in after the fact in deference to Domino's who was slammed the week before by both the contestants and Papa John's Meatball Pizza stealth commercial placement.
Domino's was put in an awkward position in last week's episode in which The Apprentice contestants both made meatball pizza which were rejected by Domino's only to have Papa John's Pizza capitalize on that rejection by placing a meatball pizza ad in 60 markets, ultimately, making Domino's look pretty dumb.
Last night, NBC ate crow with a voice over to appease Domino's. Delivered by Trump and edited oddly so as to account for the fact he wasn't actually saying the words when the episode was filmed, the voice over was, "And speaking of last week's task, here's something you didn't know. Both teams created meatball pizza. But if you'd done your market research like Domino's did, you would have discovered that customers don't want meatball pizza. What they want is cheeseburger pizza. The lesson: Always pay attention to your customer." Obviously, it was a direct slap in the face at Papa John's for their brilliant antics last week.
As Andy Dehnart, writing on MSNBC points out, these product placements on steroids don't come without danger. Last night, American Eagle, for which the contestants design ridiculously impractical "Wearable technology clothing" and failed miserably, was slighted immediately following the task by the reward - a shopping spree at, as Trump called it, "one of the great stores anywhere in the world," Bergdorf Goodman. Not paying sponsor American Eagle. Bergdorf Goodman.
In one sense, as a viewer, and as a marketer associating itself with the show, it sort of makes one pine for the simpler, more realistic days of old when contestants sold unbranded, as memory serves, lemonade. Now the show's an hour long commercial.
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