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Great
moments in product placement, by Michael Idato - 29th
September 2003 (Credit:
Sydney Morning Herald)
Profile
- Product
Placement and Product Endorsements
With
all those campy high jinks, you could be forgiven
for thinking Queer Eye for the Straight Guy was
just a TV show about gay men giving beauty tips
to their straight counterparts. In fact, there
is much more to it than mere makeover. Queer Eye
for the Straight Guy is not, says New York magazine,
about the "understanding between homos and
heteros. It's about mutual understanding between
Bravo/NBC and Diesel [jeans] ... and Roberto Cavalli
and Ralph Lauren and Via Spiga and Persol and
Baskit Underwear."
And
Redken and Domain furnishings and Crest Whitestrips,
and on it goes.
Welcome
to the world of product placement, a minefield
of cross-promotion that makes the ghastly early
days of TV sponsorship - from America's Texaco
Star Theatre to Australia's Ford Superquiz - seem
quaintly innocent.
Product
placement is not a new concept. Willy Wonka and
the Chocolate Factory was famously underwritten
by The Quaker Oats Company, which was launching
a line of Wonka sweets at the time. It happened
again, in a slightly more subtle fashion, when
the US sweet brand Reese's Pieces featured in
E.T.
But
now a new generation of TV shows, including Survivor,
The Block and Queer Eye, have outsold, outplugged
and outbranded their forebears on a massive scale.
The various editions of Survivor have had corporate
relationships with Doritos, Visa, Mountain Dew
and Ford, among others, while Coke's deal with
the American version of Pop Idol puts Coke cups
in the judge's hands and even requires some of
the sets to be painted "Coca-cola red".
In
Australia, The Block was a world-class entry in
the product placement stakes. Tooheys Extra Dry,
Toyota, Freedom Furniture, Panasonic, Black &
Decker, Masterfoods and the Commonwealth Bank
all paid to have their products positioned prominently
in the series.
This
year Survivor producer Mark Burnett raised the
bar further by creating a show entirely funded
by product placement contracts. The Restaurant,
a reality series set in a New York restaurant
run by chef Rocco DiSpirito, was paid for by the
show's three main sponsors, American Express,
Mitsubishi Motors and Coors Brewing, in exchange
for prominent product placement.
A
more insidious example is a lucrative arrangement
between the US Government and television producers
that grew out of a $US1 billion anti-drugs campaign
launched in the late 1990s. In exchange for anti-drug
storylines (subject to script approval from the
White House Office of National Drug Control Policy
- and that's no joke), studios and production
companies claimed government rebates and advertising
deals. Shows that played ball, collecting rebates
as high as $US750,000 an episode, included E.R.,
Beverly Hills 90210, Chicago Hope, The Drew Carey
Show and 7th Heaven.
Jay
May, president of Los Angeles-based product placement
agency Feature This, told the online magazine
Salon that this form of advertising was here to
stay. After Toy Story, he said, Etch A Sketch
sales increased 4500 per cent, Mr Potato Head
sales increased 800 per cent and Slinkys, out
of business for 10 years, was deluged with 20,000
orders and has sold $US27 million worth of the
toy since. "That's a win-win-win for everybody,"
he says.
Except,
perhaps, the viewers.
Links:
The
Sydney Morning Herald
Talking
Television with Greg Tingle
What
is Coke?
Mediaman: Sponsors, Clients & Affiliates
Public
thank you to Kym Illman, Max Markson, Eva Rinaldi,
Bessie Bardot and Geoff Barker
Profile
- Product
Placement and Product Endorsements
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