From: MarshaV (marshalz@charter.net)
Date: Thu Jan 27 2005 - 10:45:09 GMT
Hi all,
Here is a fun new tactic to mull over. I wonder if the desperate
housewives will soon be discussing the advantages of no-child-left-behind.
Marsha
>Published on Monday, January 24, 2005 by Knight-Ridder
>Product Placement Turns TV Programs into Commercials
>by Beth Gillin
>
>
>PHILADELPHIA - When the ladies of Wisteria Lane strode the runway in a
>charity fashion show on ABC's "Desperate Housewives," they wore Halston gowns.
>
>Like their kitchens furnished by Thermador and Bosch, and the Buick
>LaCrosse that Gabrielle posed alongside for a modeling gig, the Halstons
>were product placements, little commercials embedded in scripts in
>exchange for goods or money.
>
>Such placements aren't new - remember "Seinfeld's" Snapple and Junior
>Mints? But their numbers are exploding as programmers seek new revenue to
>meet rising production costs and advertisers try to counter fragmenting
>audiences and ad-skipping technology such as the TiVo and similar
>recorders, which cable and satellite firms are increasingly providing to
>customers.
>
>As the placement industry approaches an estimated $1 billion a year,
>products are even advancing the plots, a practice called "script integration."
>
>Even a viewer who fast-forwards through commercials cannot escape brand
>names.
>
>"This is no fad. This is where the industry is going," said Nicole
>Cashman, president and chief executive officer of the public-relations
>firm Cashman & Associates in Philadelphia, which does media placement for
>clients. "From a public-relations standpoint, I know that if I can get a
>shower gel into the hands of a celebrity on `Queer Eye,' I can create more
>product awareness than by buying an ad."
>
>Nielsen Media Research, the TV ratings firm, now tracks placements. So
>does Advertising Age magazine, in a newsletter aptly named Madison and Vine.
>
>Critics, though, say that blurring the line between art and commerce is
>"stealth advertising," and they want it stopped.
>
>"It is inherently deceptive if people don't realize that ads are ads,"
>said Gary Ruskin, executive director of Commercial Alert, a Portland,
>Ore.-based consumer advocacy group with ties to Ralph Nader. The group has
>challenged the legality of embedded ads before the Federal Communications
>Commission and the Federal Trade Commission, which have taken no action.
>
>Viewers haven't risen up against the practice.
>
>"Consumers are exposed to advertising everywhere they look," said Dave
>Harkness, senior vice president for strategy and development for the VNU
>Media Measurement & Information Group, which includes Nielsen. "... A TV
>program with no branded products would be unreal. I don't look kindly on
>folks who try to protect me from television. The normal viewer knows how
>to filter information."
>
>But viewers may not be aware that the reason lowly forensic civil servants
>on CBS's "CSI: Miami" drive $55,000 Hummers is that General Motors donated
>the vehicles, just to keep them in the public eye.
>
>Product placement also explains those lingering camera shots of folks
>weeping for joy over Kenmore washing machines on ABC's "Extreme Makeover:
>Home Edition." The footage is shot at the request of Sears, which
>reportedly paid $1 million for the first season for commercials plus
>verbal and visual references to its products in every episode.
>
>Participants who agree to have their houses demolished and rebuilt by the
>"Extreme" team lavish a degree of affection on their new appliances not
>seen since the 1950s, when hard-luck housewives hugged Frigidaires on
>"Queen for a Day."
>
>In the early days of television, embedded advertising on programs such as
>"Queen" paid the programming bills. Sponsors, not networks or studios,
>owned shows such as Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom and the Colgate Comedy
>Hour.
>
>Nobody blinked when a chorus line of guys dressed like gas-station
>attendants danced onstage every week on Milton Berle's Texaco Star
>Theater, singing a commercial: "You can trust your car to the man who
>wears the star."
>
>What's old is new again. Back then, they were inventing TV as they went
>along. Now advertisers are desperately trying to get empowered viewers to
>pay attention, and networks are happy to help.
>
>"It's a much more complex media world today" and commercials aren't
>enough, said John Faulkner, director of brand communication for Campbell
>Soup Co., which sponsors "American Dreams" on NBC.
>
>When Campbell Soup Co. sponsored "Lassie" in the 1950s, episodes ended
>with Timmy having a bowl of soup in the kitchen, a scene witnessed by
>one-quarter to one-third of all those with sets turned on. There wasn't
>much to see on television then, so audiences for each show were huge.
>
>"Sponsors can no longer achieve that kind of household penetration, given
>the number of channels available on cable and satellite," Faulkner said.
>
>Not only is competing for audience share tougher, but digital video
>recorders were in an estimated 6.5 million homes at the end of 2004.
>
>More than two-thirds of DVR users skip some commercials, and more than
>three-quarters of that group skip most of them, the research firm
>In-Stat/MDR found.
>
>So advertisers wonder whether it makes sense to spend $175,000 for a
>half-minute ad - the average cost on ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox - when they can
>invest in a plug that cannot be zapped. Most do both.
>
>Volkswagen will spend $200 million over three to five years to place its
>cars in Universal movies and in TV shows and ads on NBC, Bravo, Sci Fi and
>USA.
>
>When the WB offered to help advertisers get their brands into scripts,
>Procter & Gamble signed a pact with "What I Like About You." That's why
>characters Holly and Tina competed to be the Herbal Essences girl - a plot
>point followed by a commercial for the shampoo - and Val emoted over a
>Swiffer. Later, Pringles were served.
>
>Such audio or visual brand "occurrences" on network TV doubled, to 8,145,
>in the first nine months of last year compared with the same period in
>2003, Nielsen found.
>
>On "reality" shows such as "The Apprentice" and "The Biggest Loser,"
>they're often easier to spot than on dramas and sitcoms, where
>scriptwriters work with advertisers to make it all look seamless.
>
>"The writer may be told that, in a particular scene, it would be nice if a
>character could be shown drinking bottled water," Harkness said. "You try
>to make it fit in a way that adds to the reality."
>
>Niles: (Takes out a bag.) I brought you some of those cookies you like.
>
>Frasier: Milanos! Oh, well, thank you.
>
>That exchange from the final episode of NBC's "Frasier" last year made
>sense. Viewers understood the appeal of an upscale, foreign-sounding treat
>to two fussy psychiatrists with status fixations.
>
>The Milanos reference tickled Campbell's Faulkner for a different reason.
>Campbell owns Pepperidge Farm, which makes Milanos. The dialogue was a
>product placement.
>
>Faulkner is also happy that Campbell's tomato soup is in nine episodes of
>"American Dreams" this season. As the 1960s-era drama unfolds, daughter
>Patty enters a Campbell's-sponsored essay contest and the family eats a
>lot of tomato soup. There are cans of it in the kitchen, in commercials on
>a black-and-white TV, and in the hands of a young artist visiting a
>college campus.
>
>In a turn of events that would probably amuse him, Andy Warhol, who
>elevated a Campbell's label to art, is resurrected to shill for soup.
>
>"If you marry the right product to the right script, you won't turn off
>viewers," Harkness said. Ideally, they won't even notice what's going on.
>
>© 2005 Knight-Ridder
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