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May 26, 2012

Product placement - the anti-TiVo

by Brad Linder, posted Mar 21st 2007 2:01PM
King of QueensSure, Trimspa and KFC may think they've got the answer to TiVo-proof advertising. But no matter how much information they cram on each frame of the commercial so that it'll be visible during fast-forward, there's no way to defeat the 30-second skip (or bathroom break, for that matter).

So advertisers are turning in droves to product placement. According to Nielsen, Coca-Cola paid for 3,355 occurrences of television product placements last year. And they weren't alone. Blogging Stocks has top 10 lists of advertisers and the shows they placed products on.

I probably shouldn't be too shocked that American Idol topped the second list with 4,085 placements in 2006. In fact, almost all of the shows on the list were reality TV, which I find somewhat reassuring. I'm not sure what's up with King of Queens though. The show was number 6 with 1,954 product placements.

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mark

Yeah i just watched an episode of NCIS. In the episode there was; a flash of Google, an ipod, a reference to YouTube, a shot of a motorola phone, repetitive and pointless use of a Oje (not sure of spelling, dont have the product in australia) video phone, a starbucks coffee cup, and an almost completely unrelated conversation about Armani... in which they managed to throw in the actual tag line for the company.

It really cheapens the show... not that NCIS has much integrity to begin with in my opinion. But as a means of escapism, it makes the show a moot point. You can't escape reality when you're constantly being bombarded with it.

Where will those zaney advertising execs try to sell us something next? our sleep?

May 22 2007 at 8:33 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
FredTheCat

There was a remarkable bit of product placement in last night's episode of CSI:NY...while investigating a crime scene in a wine cellar there was a suspiciously long and lingering shot of Duracell batteries being put into flashlights. It stuck out like a sore thumb.

March 22 2007 at 9:41 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
SpaceVenus

The King of Queens comes back for its final few episodes on April 9, at 9:30 et.

March 22 2007 at 8:54 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
tv junkie

the dude in King of Queens work for UPS right? that's product placement in every episode.
i think product placement are better than commercial if they're just product placement, but when characters in the show keep talking about the particular advertised product (like how Hiro always talked about his Nissan Versa in Heroes, or when Sydney Bristow yelled out Ford F-150 in Alias, or like everyone in 24 drives Toyota) then it gets annoyed.
Product placement works best when the advertised product somehow worked in the storyline of the show (like when Sex and the City did the story with Absoult Vodka making the fictionalized Absoult Hunk campaign) then it's good advertising.

March 22 2007 at 12:57 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
livingdots

King of Queens is not that surprising, they always wore clothes with huge logos on that show (éS Footwear and Gorilla Unit were particularly noticeable), and you also noticed the brand of the car, the tv, etc...

March 21 2007 at 11:32 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Heather

I'm also wondering about King of Queens. It was such a good show. The only sitcom that I still watched. And now it's MIA except for reruns. I heard it was being cancelled after this season, but it was supposed to come back from January - May. I haven't seen it except for maybe twice. Very disappointing.

There have always been a lot of food jokes so they get the product placements. Hot pockets, Cheetos, Oreos... those are just a few that come to mind.

March 21 2007 at 3:55 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Johnnie

More importantly....where is King of Queens? Has it gone off the air?

March 21 2007 at 3:09 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply

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