UK. Product placement for TV approved

Product placement is to be allowed on British TV shows, in a move due to be announced next week, reports the BBC.

Independent broadcasters will be allowed to take payments for displaying commercial products during shows. The change is intended to bring in extra funds for commercial broadcasters. Experts believe it could raise up to £100m a year. There are currently strict rules against product placement and this ban would remain in place on BBC shows.

Read full article. Related: -- USA. The State of Product Placement -- Product Placement Creeps Into Amateurs' YouTube Offerings -- Obama's Abercrombie Fans. For real? or product placement -- Product placement agency targets YouTube -- Screen Actors Guild slams "Stealth" Ads -- MPs reject TV product placement advertising plans permalink (September 13th, 2009)

The State of Product Placement

Product placement is in flux. It’s going up in some areas and down in others, but it’s still popular. Ars Technica reports that though placements have fallen overall in 2008, network TV has seen a 12 percent increase in the practice. This covert advertising is most popular with game and reality shows such as American Idol (4,636 placements between January & June 08), Deal or No Deal (2,122) and Extreme Makeover Home Edition (1,776). [PSFK via ars technica] permalink (September 17th, 2008)

Product Placement Creeps Into Amateurs' YouTube Offerings

According to The Washington Post, product placement and corporate sponsorships have been seeping into new, user-generated turf lately.

"Last year, Dr Pepper sponsored production of a music video by YouTube star Tay Zonday, who is Web famous for his song "Chocolate Rain." This year, Sprint Nextel is offering a few bucks to people who incorporate a new Samsung phone into a home video and post the results to YouTube. The first 1,000 videos to incorporate the Instinct phone get $20 apiece, and one grand prize-winning entry will win $10,000. ... It's easy to understand why sites like YouTube are attractive to advertisers and corporate sponsors. Getting a 30-second commercial on the air in front of a prime-time audience costs hundreds of thousands of dollars; uploading a video to YouTube costs nothing. Big-name entities from Revlon to Coldplay have recently sponsored contests on the video site. "

permalink (July 13th, 2008)

Obama's Abercrombie Fans. For real? or product placement

Reel Pop picks up on a YouTube video of Obamas Pennsylvania primary speech to Hillary where three supporters are all wearing Abercrombie & Fitch t-shirts. As Bloggers speculated whether this was intentional or not (product placement or attempt to lure Abercrombie customers to Obama's side), a NJ company launched a blog selling t-shirts that are mashup of Obama's name with Abercrombie's logo. That's thinking on your feet and as quick a turn-around as the two enterprising artists who came up with the vinyl MacAir Manilla Sleeve following Steve Jobs unveiling of his new super slim computer from a manilla enveloppe. permalink (April 25th, 2008)

Product placement agency targets YouTube

Montreal-based Brandfame has launched itself as a product placement agency for YouTube and other online video sharing platforms, connecting makers of online videos with brands that want to be integrated into the next viral video blockbuster. Advertisers can list products they'd like to have featured in videos, and search for upcoming videos by producers to find a match for their brand. Producers indicate which productions they're willing to integrate products into, and can search for brands or products they'd like to work with. Once a deal has been made, the advertiser pays the producer, and Brandfame takes a cut. Read full article in SpringWise. permalink (September 27th, 2007)

Screen Actors Guild slams "Stealth" Ads

The Screen Actors Guild called this week for the FCC to tighten its rules on sponsorship identification for "imbedded" advertising, including disclosures on programs that include product placement. [via Broadcasting & Cable]

... SAG said the current rules are ineffective and that "subtle and devious" product placement has taken its toll on actors as well as show creators and the audience. SAG calls it a form or "forced endorsement," adding that "actors often have little to no latitude to resist participating in an instance of produce integration, almost always without compensation.

permalink (October 24th, 2008)

Ads' 30 seconds of fame under threat

The traditional 30-second television advertisement is under threat as viewers use new technology to skip ads and companies increasingly turn to product placement to spruik their brands. The Sydney Morning Herald reports. "Australia is the world's third-largest paid product-placement market after the US and Brazil and advertisers are expected to spend almost $280 million on product placement in Australian television programming this year, custom media research firm PQ Media says. ... "It's getting harder and harder to connect with people," said Todd Sampson, a panellist on The Gruen Transfer and chief executive of ad agency Leo Burnett. Weaving a product into the entertainment - as opposed to breaking up the entertainment, which is what ads tend to do - is a smart strategy." ... Shows such as Desperate Housewives reap millions of dollars from product-placement deals. Buick paid $1 million for its vehicle to be prominently featured as part of a story in which Eva Longoria Parker's character promoted the car in a shopping centre. In Weeds Mary-Louise Parker's character trades her Range Rover for a Prius to be "environmentally responsible" despite her son deriding the car as being "crappy and small". Companies are increasingly aware that a 30-second ad break is no longer the effective tool it once was, particularly with the young who are technologically savvy enough to dodge ads. permalink (August 24th, 2008)

MPs reject TV advertising plans

The UK government has indicated it will reject proposals from the European Union to loosen rules on product placement in TV shows, reports the BBC.

"Culture Secretary Andy Burnham said that product placement could "contaminate" British TV programs.

Advertisers have been calling for the changes following a decline in revenue from traditional TV adverts.

... Under the new EU rules, the practice would remain banned in children's programs, news and documentaries.

Mr Burnham said he would begin a consultation shortly on product placement and was ready to listen to the arguments.

"But here and now I do want to signal that I think there are some lines that we should not cross - one of which is that you can buy the space between the programs on commercial channels, but not the space within them," he said. "British programming has an integrity that is revered around the world and I don't think we should put that hard-won reputation up for sale."

permalink (June 12th, 2008)

UGC Killing Our Culture. Book review

Andrew Keen hates user-generated content. The author of recent nonfiction release "The Cult of the Amateur: How today's Internet is killing our culture" believes that homemade online media is killing the economic viability and independence of quality content, replacing the Springsteens and Truffauts in our culture with a meaningless stream of low-brow distraction and product placement. The Daily Reel reports. "He argues that the homemade media that has become such an important part of Web culture over the past few years is largely worthless, and that mass culture was of a higher caliber when the media gatekeepers had greater power to decide who would be famous and what we would all watch. ... Put simply, Keen just doesn't think everyone deserved to be famous for 15 minutes. "We're creating a culture of resentment in which everyone thinks they have a right to some sort of cultural visibility," he says. "People don't have that right. Sure, you have a right to be seen, but you don't have any natural right to a mass international audience. You earn that right. … There's a scarcity of talent and there's a scarcity of who can be successful. The reality is that we only have a certain amount of time in the day to watch and to read to listen." permalink (July 24th, 2007)

EU extends TV law to Internet

The European Union has passed a law which extends the laws governing television broadcasters to companies providing video content online regardless of how it is transmitted, reports The Register. "The Audiovisual Media Services Without Frontiers Directive broadens broadcast rules introduced in 1997 to encompass content on the internet, mobile phones and other devices, video on demand, and peer-to-peer networks. But it does not cover non-commercial content. Citizens are granted new rights by the modernised Directive. This includes the right to access extracts of important events for general new purposes, clear identification of the media service provider; improved access for people with visual or hearing disability to audiovisual media services, and clear rules on product placement, obliging broadcasters to inform consumers when it takes place." Full press release permalink (May 25th, 2007)