Sep
10
Product Placement…Isn’t it Obvious?
Posted by: gordiedutka | September 10, 2011 | 1 Comment
The TV and film industry thrives off of corporate advertising and sponsorship; this simply occurs when TV shows and movies feature a certain company’s products through product placement. Some product placements are painfully obvious (when Bentley is featured in the film 2012 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qARA0SqlSE ), and some are very subtle and quite effective. However, does the average viewer even understand how much money the film industry receives from these mere “mentions” viewed by millions around the world? Apparently not… InjusticeFacts is a public blog where people let the world know, literally, about facts that are shocking, scary, and simply unjust, and they also have a very popular Twitter page featuring approximately 75,000 followers, which is where I came across a couple of pretty interesting and eye-opening earlier tonight. According to their Twitter page, “85% of television and film viewers do not know what product placements are, making product placements extremely deceptive”. Additionally, they claim that Steven Spielberg’s film Minority Report “had 15 brands (product placements) appear in the film; advertisers paid $25 million for these placements”. The fact that really caught my attention (being a massive Seinfeld fan) is that “98% of Seinfeld fans had no idea that Junior Mints paid the show millions of dollars to feature it on episode #417”. If more viewers actually knew about these lucrative product placements, would they still be enthusiastic about watching? Or would they feel somewhat betrayed? If more people were aware of these product placements, would this devastate the entertainment industry? If you’d like to view the twitter page of InjusticeFacts (where all of the posted quotes are from) follow the link provided (http://twitter.com/#!/InjusticeFacts). I look forward to hearing your comments about product placement and the entertainment industry in general! Thanks
Comments
1 Comment so far
I don’t feel betrayed, in fact, I am more annoyed when product names are blurred out on certain shows (mainly reality TV). As long as the placement is purely visual and doesn’t interfere with the story line it is no different than what we would see in our own homes.