Advertising
The product placement monster that E.T. spawned
From "Survivor" to "Will and Grace," advertising is becoming just another part of the story line.
Last Thursday night, television viewers were treated to two new milestones in the ever-increasing fusion of television and advertising. On last week’s episode of “Survivor,” host Jeff Probst offered the winner of a reward challenge a $500 online shopping spree using a Visa card, which Probst named by its brand and held up for the cameras to see.
The next hour over on NBC, viewers were invited to buy the shirt off of Debra Messing’s back. During a scene of “Will and Grace,” Messing wore a Polo shirt that was offered up for the low, low price of $52 on Polo.com, 50 percent of which, it turns out, is owned by NBC.
A network spokesman said no money exchanged hands for the 10-second spot plugging the shirt, and that $15 from every sale would go to “support programs dedicated to raising cancer awareness.”
Five days later, traffic on the Polo site had doubled and close to 3,000 T-shirts had been sold. A spokesperson said the venture raised more than $45,000 for cancer research — never mind the other $110,000 for Polo/NBC.
Product placement on TV and in the movies is nothing new. But the advent of TiVo and other services that make it easier for viewers to edit out commercials has forced advertisers and television producers to think of new ways to integrate products into television shows.
Television, in particular, has shown a willingness to keep its content malleable in exchange for ad dollars. In a story first reported by Salon, the Office of National Drug Control Policy and several major television networks negotiated deals to put anti-drug messages into television shows in exchange for advertising dollars from ONDCP.
An NBC spokesman said the Polo.com promo was not a sign of a new era of e-commerce tie-ins. But Jay May, president of the Los Angeles-based product placement agency Feature This disagrees.
“The future [of advertising] is already in place,” May says. “It’s going to be just like you saw [on "Will and Grace"], but it’s not going to be at the end. It’s going to be during the show.” May says that digital television will allow for a seamless fusion of commerce and television. “Let’s use ‘Friends’ as an example,” he says. “Say there’s a scene and Monica stands up goes to the fridge. A girl watching at home says, ‘Wow, I love that sweater.’
“Your remote is going to be like [a] cursor. You’ll point the arrow on the TV and click Monica’s shirt. That will pause the program, and a little window will pop up and say, ‘Available at Macy’s for $129.95. Click here to order it now.’ It’s not in place now because people need digital TV to have it work.”
May sees a similar trend coming on DVDs. “All of a sudden, a bar code is going to pop up letting you know something in that scene is for sale, and you’ll be able to buy it right off the screen.”
Preparations for interactive television are already well underway. Digital set-top boxes being distributed by some of the largest cable companies include a slot for smart cards to enable on-screen shopping.
Though advertising still brings the lion’s share of network revenues, product placement is a growing field. Just witness the countless paid Doritos and Visa plugs in any given “Survivor” episode. Lauding the potential of the industry, the Entertainment Resources & Marketing Association Web site points to James Bond’s switch from an Aston Martin to a BMW Z3 roadster in 1996. BMW reportedly paid $3 million to put 007 in one of its cars. Industry sources estimate that placement sold $240 million in cars in advance sales alone.
“The greatest home run in product placement since E.T. scarfed up a pack of Reese’s Pieces came with BMW’s launch of its Z3 roadster last fall,” the ERMA site reads. “When the car became James Bond’s preferred ride in the 1996 flick GoldenEye, the hype and glitter surrounding this placement became an event unto itself, generating hundreds of millions of dollars worth of exposure worldwide.”
May — the man who put Popeye’s chicken in front of Adam Sandler in “Little Nicky” and a cup of Coffee Beanery coffee in Julia Roberts’ hand in that “Erin Brockovich” poster — says that unlike most product placement agencies, his doesn’t pay to have his products placed in a scene. Instead, he offers his agency as a de facto prop house for set prop masters.
May didn’t offer cash, for example, to have a guitar from one of his clients — Samick — placed in the new “Josie and the Pussycats” movie; he gave the studio something even more valuable. “Gibson [guitars] wanted to pay them to be in this movie. But my company offered to promote the movie in the 40,000 venues they do business — guitar stores, department stores. Now everywhere their guitars are sold, they’ll promote the movie. That was more important to the studio than the money Gibson was willing to offer.”
As for the ethical implications of these arrangements, May maintains that there’s a clear line between corporate clients influencing news, for example, and entertainment. May says that he even once suggested a scene to the “Drew Carey Show” using one of his clients — Aqua Java caffeinated water.
But critics have long charged that product placement is ruining television and movies. In a 1990 Atlantic Monthly article titled “Hollywood: The Ad,” media watcher Mark Crispin Miller said that the influx of product placement in movies has made a night at the cinema “about as memorable as going to the airport.”
“Well, if that’s what you think then it’s just going to get worse,” May says. “In my eyes, it’s going to get better. Just look at the movie ‘Toy Story,’ for example. After that movie, Etch A Sketch sales increased 4,500 percent. Mr. Potato Head sales, 800 percent. Slinky was out of business for 10 years. But after 20,000 phone calls from distributors and toy stores, they went back in business. They’ve sold $27 million since. That’s a win-win-win for everybody.”
But May says until the technology improves, we can expect more clumsy efforts by companies like Polo and Visa. “The ‘Survivor’ thing, that’s a little irritating,” he says. “I wouldn’t let my clients go to that level. That’s pushing yourself on them. And the ‘Will and Grace’ thing sounds a little tacky.”
Anthony York is Salon's Washington correspondent. More Anthony York.
America’s road sign legends
Burma-Shave's rhyming ads turned highway billboards into poetry, and changed advertising -- and America
In a simpler time, when automobiles went slower and the pre-Eisenhower highway system in the United States was less developed, there was a popular advertising campaign that ran from 1927 until 1963. It consisted of rhymed messages sequentially staked on the right side of the road, all ending with the advertiser’s name, “Burma-Shave.”
7Up’s branding revolution
How "Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda" became one of America's most popular soft drinks
I became interested in pop bottles (I grew up in the Chicago area where we all said “pop”) and related stuff when I was about 12 years old. I had gone inside an old garage that was attached to a neighborhood house that was being torn down and inside was a cache of un-returned pop bottles that must have dated from the 1940-’50s period. I took one of each type home (about 20 of ‘em) and yes, still have them to this day. I really got off on all the different labels and colors of glass and because I used to like to read old magazines I actually recognized most of the brands that were no longer around or had changed their design. I’ll go into this more in a future post, but wanted to lay some sort of a foundation for this piece, which is exclusively on 7Up, with a special focus on their branding efforts of the 1950s.
Pepsi’s creepy Jackson revival
A ghoulish new campaign brings him back from the dead. Maybe it's time to stop looking backwards
Michael Jackson (Credit: Reuters/Kimimasa Mayama) As if Michael Jackson wasn’t creepy enough when he was alive. The self-proclaimed King of Pop, who died nearly three years ago, is making a return via a new Pepsi campaign. The fabulously un-self-aware tagline? “Live for Now.”
The corporation is set to festoon one billion cans of Pepsi around the world – that’s one billion cans – with the singer’s unmistakable silhouette. It’s a bold move for a company whose most famous association with Jackson is that back in 1984, his hair caught fire filming a commercial for them. Jackson’s estate orchestrated his sponsorship resurrection, and a family spokesperson confirmed to the Wall Street Journal Thursday that “more such marketing agreements are planned.” Did anyone else just feel that collective shudder of revulsion?
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Mary Elizabeth Williams is a staff writer for Salon and the author of "Gimme Shelter: My Three Years Searching for the American Dream." Follow her on Twitter: @embeedub. More Mary Elizabeth Williams.
Ashton Kutcher’s brownface fail
The actor's racist ad is pulled -- but what's left isn't much better
Ashton Kutcher Somewhere, Charlie Sheen is laughing and saying, “At least I never did that.” This week, we learned what’s even less funny than Ashton Kutcher: Ashton Kutcher in brownface.
In an ill-advised Popchips ad spoofing online dating that launched Wednesday, the “Two and a Half Men” star appeared as a variety of love-hungry “World Wide Lovers” vying for your affection. In a spectacular display of racial tone-deafness, one of them included “Raj.” Raj, all darkened skin and heavy accent, is “a Bollywood producer looking for the most delicious thing on the planet.” He’s looking for something “Kardashian hot … I would give that dog a bone.” He brags that he once won a milking contest, and he does a little dance that will haunt your nightmares.
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Mary Elizabeth Williams is a staff writer for Salon and the author of "Gimme Shelter: My Three Years Searching for the American Dream." Follow her on Twitter: @embeedub. More Mary Elizabeth Williams.
FCC takes on super PACs
The commission voted to require stations to post political ad data online -- but it won't be searchable
(Credit: Screenshot from American Crossroads anti-Obama ad) The Federal Communications Commission voted 2 to 1 this morning to require broadcasters to post political ad data on the Web, making it easier for the public to see how as much as $3.2 billion will be spent on TV advertising this election.
The files — which, among other information, detail the times ads aired, how much they cost, and whether stations rejected ad buy requests from campaigns — are currently available only on paper at stations.
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Justin Elliott is a reporter for ProPublica. You can follow him on Twitter @ElliottJustin More Justin Elliott.
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