If a brand wants to get a customer’s attention, marketers know that there is no substitute for showing the customer how a product fits into real lives in the real world. And to show a lot of prospective consumers this, brands need to show them the product on a large scale such as in a television show or a movie.
Product placement might not be an official component of the four 4Ps (product, price, promotion, place), but maybe it’s time to add it as a fifth P. While there are times that the product is very noticeable (such as BMW cars in James Bond movies), there are many times when products are used subtly (but still get our attention).Companies that are able to get their products shown on the big screen – or even a small screen – bring their products to the attention of millions of viewers, all of whom have opted-in to watching a show or movie.
Some recent placements where the products were included as a part of the show include Apple iPhones on Fox’s “9-1-1,” Anheuser-Busch beers in Netflix’s “House of Cards,” Lavazza coffee on “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee,” Flaming Hot Cheetos in “Orange is the New Black,” and Pepsi in “Empire.”
Is it worth the cost to marketers? Considering that the average 30-second commercial can easily cost several hundreds of thousands of dollars, then several seconds of airplay of the product in use can easily recover the costs.
What are you seeing on the screen?
Group Activities and Discussion Questions:
- Ask students to name their three TV shows and/or movies that they recently viewed.
- Next, ask them to name at least three products that they can recall seeing in the show. Were those products there by accident?
- Show a video clip of one of the TV shows or movies. The clips can easily be found on hulu.com, www.youtube.com, and other sites.
- Divide students into teams. Have each team choose two products they would like to have placed in a TV show.
- How would these products be incorporated? What is the desired result?
Source: Fleck, A. (9 August 2018). 6 product placements on TV so good you didn’t realize you were being sold something. Ad Week.
