Product Placement

Product Placement

People always tend to buy products that they feel close and used by the people they love.  Product placement was discovered using this common instinct by 1920s in Hollywood movies. According to the definition made by Chong Hu Yu (2006), product placement is a type of advertising usually a brand is appears on the scene of a TV show or a movie.  However, later on we also started to see several examples of product placement in video games, radio, music videos, novels, plays and songs (Elliot, 1992).  The first practice of product placement was seen in the movie E.T. the Extra Terrestrial in 1982 with Hersey’s Riece Pieces product and which was concluded with a 70% increase of the sales (Segrave, 2004).

Basically, there are 3 types of product placements we see in mostly in TV shows and movies nowadays. Most common one is visual that just the brand just appears on the scene at the background. Another type is verbal, where an actor or actress mentions the name of the product without using it. In my opinion the most effective type is the brand integration; the product is really used by the characters in the normal script of the scene.

It can be easily noticed that product placement is an expanding channel of marketing with the development of new technologies, integrated marketing communications and social trends (Gupta & Gauld, 1997). However, this also leads to some criticisms regarding to ethical issues. There are several claims considered according to the usage of product placement as an advertising technique and its ethical consequences.  The most common one is that consumers do not realize that they are facing with advertising at the moment they see a product placement. The product placement is usually hidden at the scene. Although some people are aware that they are watching advertising, they are also affected (Hackley, Tiwsakul & Preuss, 2008). Another important aspect related to the topic is, hence people do not aware of the product placement they don’t have chance to reject the message given by the actors that they admire. The actors or actresses are actually use the product and the consumers perceive it as a real behavior and it causes an intention to buy the product (DeLorme & Reid, 1999).  

Additionally, product placement usage in the cartoons or any other kind of movies that are targeting children, are growing rapidly. The reason may be children’s behaviors and thoughts are easily affected by the advertising, especially if a well-known person uses it (Comstock & Paik, 1991). In an ethical point of view, children under 10 years old are not capable to understand the intentions behind an advertisement and therefore product placement in cartoons creates some ethical concerns. According to a research, it is found that parents are concerned about their children about the effects of product placements and they see them in a vulnerable situation (Hudson S., Hudson D. & Peloza, 2008).