This is my response to Abby Nann’s blog post on her thoughts about product placement and I agree with her. I remember there was a time that product placement wasn’t such an obvious thing.

Compare these two music videos:

“Toxic” (2006) and “Hold It Against Me” (2011)

The amount of product placement seems to have skyrocketed as times changed.  Her own perfume, dating website and other products such as Sony and Make Up Forever have repeatedly been shown on the screen in the most obvious ways.  As awkward I may find flashing a brand name in the music video infront of the viewers, she managed to earn herself “half a million dollars”. (http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/britney-spears-made-500-000-from-product-placement-in-hold-it-against-me-video-20110222)

Since product placement has seemingly become a popular marketing and promoting tactic, it makes me wonder what real impact this had on the audiences by bombarding them with advertisements. I learnt and understood that including celebrity endorsement may have its affect on sales; but I never understood how product placement would. However, like Abby, after reading the Reis-Trout marketing theory, it made sense to  position your product first in the consumers mind. With this position, the company will have a competitive advantage over the followers of the market which would benefit them as they’d be the market leader.