Benedict Advertising - Business Building Solutions

by Donna Cooper, Jr. Copywriter

I will be the first to admit that I am a fan of DVR and TiVO. I know I shouldn’t be so willing to openly admit that, since I am in the advertising industry, but what can I say. It’s not that I don’t like watching commercials, its just I get really into the shows I am watching and don’t like them to be interrupted. I would prefer to just be able to skip right to the next segment with out any interruption. But since that is not possible with out DVR or TiVO, the commercials must be sacrificed. Sorry, Commercials.

This is the attitude of many TV watchers all across the country, and even the world. They either prefer to fast-forward through commercials or to be able to watch it later, if they can’t watch it when it actually airs. Since the inception of being able to capture programming on film, people have been fast-forwarding through commercials at an alarming rate. Now, with the revolution that is DVR and TiVO people don’t have to waste money on tapes…they can just store it on their digital recording unit, just like a computer.

The downside of this fantastic technology? None that really matter too much. Sure, the cable bill might go up a few extra dollars, but that’s to be expected. Everything goes up. What really happens in a society where people fast forward through unsolicited and irritating commercials is we start to see products (that we’d normally see in those pesky commercials) pop up in our favorite TV shows, music videos and movies.

If advertisers can’t get you to watch their commercials the traditional way, they’ll pay to have the likes of T.I. (rapper) flash you a nice shot of his Nokia phone in his latest video. Or, Will Smith will tell you what kind of shoes he’s wearing in his latest movie. The point is that traditional mediums aren’t working any more, so advertisers are forced to resort to new and inventive ways of getting their message seen and heard.

Product placement is just one of those creative ways to get their brand or product out there. Now, this isn’t exactly a NEW practice, though it’s more prevalent than ever. It started to gain popularity in the 80’s. For example, who remembers what Eliot was using to lure “E.T.” out of the shed? More recent examples of product placement in television and film include (as I mentioned before) I, Robot, where Will Smith responds to a question about his shoes, stating that they are “Converse. Vintage 2004,” Minority Report were Tom Cruise enters a Gap store, The Office who features HP computers, and every one has seen every day products featured in TV shows and movies like different brands of soda, or food items.

Not everyone is happy about the onslaught of product placement. There are watchdog groups out there that don’t appreciate the method of “sneaking in” an advertisement. The consumer group known as Commercial Alert feels that it is “an affront to basic honesty,” and asks for full disclosure of product placement agreements. One main reason they advocate this is to protect children who are more easily influenced by product placement.

To each his own, I suppose. In this day and age, however, it’s getting harder and harder for advertisers to get their message heard. So, if they have to resort to making movies and TV shows more realistic by placing products we actually want, need and use in it, then so be it. As long as it doesn’t get so out of hand that they start making entire movies based around a product I’ll be happy.

Oh wait…they already did that.  Ooops!

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 5th, 2007 at 4:12 pm and is filed under What's the 411?. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.