No there is no typo in my title, the topic I am discussing today is Promotional Product Placement in movies and TV shows as opposed to traditional Product Placement. In its traditional sense Product Placement involved the subtle use of a product in a movie or a tv show from something as small as the leading actor drinking a certain type of beer to as big as the leading actor driving a certain type of car.

At first consumers didn’t really realise they were being advertised to but slowly they have caught on and strangely enough consumers do not seem to mind. I think the key to this is that the movie is not distributed by the advertising, it just subtlety fits in unlike a TV Commercial that disrupts the program. I know that as soon as a commercial hits I flick the channel and I always skip the movie previews but I sincerely doubt I would stop watching a movie just because someone drinks a certain type of drink or wears certain clothes.

In the future we may see an even more subtle approach to product placement where instead of seeing the use of a product we will just see a promotional product being used. For example, I was watching Transformers this weekend and the lead character Sam Witwiki wears a The Strokes t-shirt for a large amount during the movie. I am not overally familiar with The Stroke’s music so I am not sure if it was also played during the movie but I will definately pay more attention in the future to this band because of the Promotional Product Placement.

Product Placement is expanding from the traditional platform of movies into other mediums including Console Games. With consumers becoming more and more frustrated with advertisers that take aggressive approaches like telephone canvassing there will definately be a trend to more subtle approaches like Promotional Product Placement in movies and TV Shows.

If you are looking into Promotional Product Placement for a movie or TV show and would like some suggestions on suitable products please contact our sales team at enquiries@jempp.com.au or (02) 8205 1334.