product placement

Is it really a big surprise that television advertising isn't as effective as it used to be? As TV watchers -- okay, we're uber-watchers -- we know that with DVRs and TiVos we're zooming through ads, or we're channel surfing in between segments of our favorite shows, or renting/buying content in formats that allow us to avoid commercials altogether. Now, according to the Association of National Advertisers and Forrester Research's TV & Technology Survey, we learn that six out of 10 marketers believe that TV advertising has become less effective in the past two years. And it's getting worse.

%Gallery-16657%

A few days ago I happened to catch an episode of the NBC soap opera Days of our Lives that my wife was watching. Hey, don't look at me that way! My wife is a fan of the show. Oh, sure, I used to watch it during the Shane/Kimberly/ Patch/Kayla/Frankie/Jennifer heydays of the late 80's, but it doesn't do anything for me now. Really, I'm serious!

Anyway, the scene I walked in on was one between Chelsea Brady and Nick Fallon (I got those names from my wife, I swear!). It seemed that Chelsea was depressed about one thing or another and Nick had the solution to cheer her up. They went to a nearby computer, where Nick began to pull up pictures, on the Wallgreens photo site, of the couple during happier times. When Chelsea asked how he did this (because she is obviously technically non-savvy) Nick responded that he just uploaded the pictures to the Walgreens.com and, I believe, he added some end tagline like 'It's just so simple.'

Holy. Freakin. Crap.

Guess which company had the most successful product placement on television in 2007? Nope, it's not Apple Computer, which would have been my first guess.

It's actually Tyson Foods. They got the top nod from IAG Research after donating thousands of pounds of meat to a family on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Their brand-opinion index rating was 394. This score represented the most effective integration on TV in 2007. (I have no idea how they accurately measure something like that.)

(S06E10) All season, I have been trying to put a positive spin on bad writing, poor casting choices (Sheriff Turner, remember her? Barely? We never see her, so maybe they think she was a poor choice too), episodes that seem recycled from other seasons, and others that are completely forgettable and irrelevant. But tonight was just the last straw. I have had it. I cannot think of one more good thing to say about this infomercial for Visa that is running around disguising itself as television.

Sure, 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.

NBC is really thinking of new advertising strategies, eh?

First they have all the product placement and product placement plots on shows like 30 Rock, The Office, and Studio 60, and now they've reached a deal with Philips Electronics for the company to be the lone sponsor of next Monday's edition of NBC Nightly News. It's part of a $2 million deal the network did with Philips, and will include other cable shows and their weather network.

Of course, one sponsor has been done several times before, even this season. Smith had an episode that was completely sponsored by The Departed, the recent Martin Scorcese crime flick. It was presented with fewer commercial interruption, or however they phrase it. The NBC Nightly News will be presented the same way. Instead of having fourteen commercials during the 30 minute show there will be three, all by Philips.

Reminds me of the days when one company would sponsor a show. The Colgate Comedy Hour or Milk of Magnesia sponsoring the game shows in the 50s. All that was stopped when the sponsors started having too much input into how the shows were done, but I wonder if were inching towards something similar now.

So the first night of NBC's new "Must-See TV" lineup (except Scrubs) turned out to be eventful for more than one reason: not only did we see a pivotal episode of The Office, the cast of My Name Is Earl in Claymation, and the first Thursday 30 Rock, we saw more self-referrential product placements in one night than at any time I could remember.

The first one was when we saw The Office's Kevin going nuts over the Staples MailMate shredder. "This shreds eveything," he says with a sense of childlike wonder. "It shreds CDs. It shreds credit cards..." The look on his face after he realized he shredded his own credit card is priceless, as was the salad he made with the shredder right before the credits. Oh, and by the way, Staples had an ad for the MailMate during the "supersized" episode.

(S01E09) OK, now this is getting a little strange. This is the fourth episode of an NBC show (the others were two episodes of 30 Rock and an episode of The Office) where product placement was mentioned. In this, because of a blow the company is going to take on the Macau deal, Jordan says that 15 people are going to have to be let go from the show. Jokingly, Matt and Danny bring up product placement, but Jordan thinks it's something they should seriously consider.

The hell? Is NBC trying to convince us that product placement is here, it's good, and we should get used to it?

The Newark Star-Ledger's Alan Sepinwall (actually his friend Phil Rosenthal) points out on his blog that last night's pilot for 30 Rock had an interesting bit of product placement: the oven that "vice president of East Coast and microwave oven programming" Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwon) developed, the GE Profile Trivection oven, is real (notice what it says on the lower left corner of that web page: "The GE Profile oven with Trivection technology becomes a star on NBC's new sitcom, 30 Rock.").

But that's not the most interesting part. NBC decided to air an ad for the Trivection oven right after the scene where Jack talks about the oven to Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) and producer Pete (Scott Adsit). It's as if they wanted to emphasize to the audience, "Hey, folks, this isn't some comedy thing Tina came up with! It really does use three kinds of heat!" Considering the fact that the scene was making fun of Donaghy, I'm not sure if this was the right move by GE. Was this an ingenious way to introduce a product or an act of desperation by NBC's parent company? Let me know in the comments.

Product Invasion, the Web site created by members of the Writers Guild of America (West) that pokes fun at the surfeit of product placement in reality programming has yet another video up on their site, this time taking more than a few potshots at America's Next Top Model and its use of product placement. But then, these are "models" aren't they? Isn't their job to serve as spokespeople for corporate products? I'm just saying. Anyway, check out the video here. I know the phrase "I can poop it out, Tyra" is going to be in my head the rest of the day.

Yeah, I hate it too. The Screen Actors Guild and the Writers Guild of America staged a joint protest in Los Angeles yesterday over product placement. The two organizations have been united against the same cause since November. They picketed and chanted in front of a building in Beverly Hills where an advertising summit, sponsored by Ad Age, was taking place. SAG and WGA weren't allowed in the meeting, despite their requests to be allowed in. Both groups are pushing for regulations, or a "code of conduct" on product placement in television and movies. At the very least, they want more money for not only being storytellers but also advertising copywriters.

While Pepsi cans and Fed Ex trucks in the background are all strategically placed, the writers and actors have a problem when the powers-that-be require them to work products into a story or even write an entire story around a product.

NBC is doing a little cross-promotion with the King of product placement, Donald Trump. When the game show returns to television at the end of February, Trump will make a cameo appearance to pimp the return of The Apprentice and to assist the contestants in deciding whether to "deal or no deal". Immediately following Deal or No Deal on Monday, February 27th is the season premiere of The Apprentice.

[Via The Futon Critic]

I have a love-hate relationship with American Idol. I would say that, for about two-thirds of each season, I wince and roll my eyes and fast-forward my TiVo through all sorts of crap. But, I also feel like I have an investment in some of the singers who are about to fall on their faces or propel themselves from obscurity to unimaginable stardom. Plus, I usually like hearing what Simon has to say.

With another season of American Idol set to start tomorrow night, I am on the fence about whether I will watch this season. Here are the reasons why I shouldn't watch: