I am a big believer in product placement … but I also think it has the capacity to work against a brand when handled without subtlety or sensitivity.
Whilst I may be alone in my view, I don’t believe all publicity is good publicity and to give you an example of that, I’d like to show a clip from US television show, Top Chef.
Before we get to that, let me give you a bit of background:
Top Chef is basically ‘survivor’ for chefs.
It’s hosted by the absolutely delectable Padma Lakshmi [Salman Rushdie’s ex!!!] and each week the contestants are given a culinary challenge that helps the judges decide whether they get to cook for another day, or are sent to the pig-scraps bin.
Anyway, like most reality shows, this one dedicates quite a lot of each episode to revealing the story behind each contestant and this is where the clip comes in.
What you are about to see is one of the contestants, Hosea, talking to his sister about their father who was/is fighting cancer.
Now even though you may be thinking, “What the hell is he doing on a show if his Dad is seriously ill”, Hosea explains his Father wanted him to try out for the program because he understood what a huge opportunity this could be for him.
Of course, that doesn’t mean the situation isn’t serious – infact, being away from a parent when they are so ill could be viewed as being even harder for all involved – so watch how T-Mobile, subtlety integrate their brand into this moment of family tenderness and love …
[Don’t worry about the sound, like Playboy, it’s just the pictures you need to look at!]
Fuck me, how bad is that eh?
Talk about exploit people’s tragedies for the benefit of a brand.
However I don’t know if that blatant product placement works for T-Mobile.
Here’s a man talking to his sister about their ill father, and all you see is a great big fucking close up of some shitty phone … a close up so detailed, that you can almost make out the serial number.
Now if I was T-Mobile, I’d be kinda pissed about that …
Let’s be honest, most brands these days tend to communicate to the masses with a tone-of-voice that wouldn’t be out of place at so even if T-Mobile decided they wanted to be different, I doubt they’d actually choose to associate with human suffering exploitation … but then the segment ran, so what do I know!
I appreciate content costs a fucking fortune to produce – and finding alternate revenue streams is a viral part of the business – but this in-your-face style of product ‘placement’ does no one any favours, because whilst I might remember the T-Mobile brand, the chances of me wanting to actually buy it got disproportionatly smaller, and I’m someone who changes mobiles like Elizabeth Taylor changes husbands.
Another byproduct of this corporate obsession with brand exploitation / product placement is that many American shows now ‘blank out’ any logos that appear in their shows which aren’t official sponsors.
It could be a NIKE swoosh on a persons hat or an Apple logo on the front of a laptop … however the stupid thing is, this ‘blurring’ is so obvious that you spend half your time trying to work out which brand they’re trying to hide rather than [1] witness the official sponsors products [2] pay attention to the actual show.
Saying that, as bad as this situation is, it’s not as bad as the way SONY handle shoving their brands into James Bond films – but it’s only a matter of time – and whilst the ad industry celebrates this strategy as genius, it may be worth them remembering that in these brand-at-every-turn times, the future of great media planning won’t be where you place your message, but where you don’t … at least interms of blatant and flagrant exploitation.
PS: Hosea – contrary to expectation of form – won the overall title of Top Chef. Coincidence? You decide.