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Will product placement replace creative integrity?

Posted in General, Advertising, Media, Mel Varley, Latest reporters' blogs January 8th, 2008 by Melinda Varley

This week’s announcement that a European Union directive will allow paid-for product placement in television shows has got advertisers excited, and why not - with multiple new media platforms such as the internet and video games diluting the impact of conventional television advertising, product placement may assume the guise of a Holy Grail.

Last year saw advertising in the UK and Europe take a number of new twists and turns. The burst of social networks and different ways to advertise on them had us all thinking we were about to be inundated with online ads, as did the take-off of mobile advertising.

It also had many marketers talking about ad-spend and where the majority would be - with online and mobile both predicted to rise by a considerable amount over the next two years.

However, we forgot to factor in one very important medium – product placement. Of course product placement has been around for years, but it’s never had to be paid for. Soon advertisers will be able to pay to have products not just inserted in popular TV shows but highlighted too.

If you cast your mind back to the 1998 film, The Truman Show, you’ll remember that the film made fun of obvious product placement and advertising within TV shows.

Is this a good idea or will it mean programmes losing their creative integrity in the face of advertising in order to receive funds?

Take for example the obvious product placement in the recent Bond film, Casino Royale. Most of the ads for the film featured an Aston Martin, a Sony laptop or a Rolex watch. The product placement was so obvious you couldn’t tell if the movie posters and promotional pictures were for a film or just another advertising campaign.

However, both the film and the brands benefited immensely from the publicity, even though the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) deemed an ad campaign for Ford “misleading” for featuring clips from the James Bond film Casino Royale.

So is paid-for product placement the next big thing in advertising and can it be done in a way that isn’t so obvious its spoils the creative content of films and television programmes?