Hot Topic - Product Placement

Odds Still Good on Product Placement
For television producers, product placement is like having your cake and eating it too. Widely considered financial salvation, the fine art of sticking a branded product in a TV show has more critics. But even advertising people are wary.

Advertising Rules Explained
Rules on advertising are getting tougher and, often, tediously specific. Ad rules appear in media laws, consumer protection rules and commercial codes. Regulators, lawyers all, delight in their craftsmanship as much as seeing broadcasters pour over every sentence and clause – and every new interpretation. It’s rare – and revealing – when a regulator explains it all.

Disney’s ultimate product placement test
Nobody – ever – said the folks at the Walt Disney Company aren’t smart. When broadcasters are ditching children’s programming because of ad restrictions, the Disney Channel is moving from pay-TV to free-to-air. Why not? The money is in the Disney products.

Even In The US Where It’s Difficult To Gain Unanimity On Just About Anything, TV Product Placement May Have Just Earned That Distinction On Things Having Gotten Out Of Hand
It’s the old story of killing the golden goose. Once the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) advised back in 2005 that TV product placement was perfectly ok without having to tell viewers that a product was being “placed” as an advertisement, then the networks and Hollywood just plain went to town on a new way to print money. There are shows today where it’s not uncommon to find from 3 - 5 product placements per minute.

The EU Looks Like Making TV Happy By Allowing Product Placement Within Strict Rules
Product placement is worth about $2 billion a year to US television and allegedly it’s worth $0 in the European Union, because it is prohibited for the most part. That European exclusion may soon come to an end, but with restrictions so the public knows what is going on.

Stealth Ads Cause “Scandal” at German TV
The German term for product placement is “schleichwerbung,” and the director of one of the country’s largest public broadcasters calls it “the plague.”

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Advertising – The Slump and the Shift

Media and advertising are learning new steps. First the slump, then the Shift. ftm watches the dance for the stumbles and the surprises. 60 pages PDF (June 2009)

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