Talkback: Product placement one way to beat TV recorders

The 30-second slot faces the prospect of being reduced to a one-second blur as television viewers hit the fast-forward button.

That scenario - hugely appealing to viewers but appalling for advertisers - could be a reality as early as December, when Sky Television launches personal video recorders.

So what's a poor advertiser to do?

There are two possibilities. The first is to find alternatives to TV - a medium which media buyers have been unable to divorce local advertisers from in spite of their best efforts in the face of the steep price increases of recent quarters. The second is product placement.

Sponsored programmes such as Hyundai Sports Cafe and Mitre 10 Dream Home are well-established on the local scene.

But the relationship between advertising and content has not widely developed to the paid-for placement of products on screen.

New Zealanders already see vast amounts of product placement in their consumption of foreign films and television programmes.

Take The Wedding Crashers, a comedy film playing in cinemas. Apart from the laughs, you also get appearances by 7-Up, Budweiser, Cadillac, Johnnie Walker, Moet & Chandon, Nike, Pepsi and Apple, to name just a few, according to the website brandchannel.com.

The practice of gathering a supporting cast of brand names and branded products to appear in films or television programmes is known as "stealth advertising".

While newspapers in New Zealand label advertorial content, no such disclaimer is required on screen when a placed product appears.

If a viewer is not expecting to be sold to, the theory goes, they may be more susceptible to a sale because the message is not blocked by the internal evaluation a more obvious advertisement is subjected to. That has let product placement in for its fair share of criticism overseas.

Paid placements on US television are not allowed unless the brand is listed as a sponsor. But films and cable programmes are excluded, leading to public calls for more prominent disclosure of embedded advertising in movies.

There's also the fear that placement will affect the types of movies we see: the possibility that happy endings may be more to the taste of advertisers.

Product placement isn't new. Examples can be found as early as the Hollywood movies of the 1930s, but it was not until the spectacular success of the placement of US confectionary brand Reese's Pieces in the 1982 movie ET that it really took off.

The film took the credit for a 65 per cent jump in sales - and was a slap in the face for M&M/Mars, which had turned down the opportunity.

What is newer is the mushrooming of the practice across an array of media, including music videos, video games and cartoons. Books? Ford has paid British author Carole Matthews to include one of its cars in two of her books.

A report by US researcher PQ Media projected consumer magazines would sign US$15.6 million of paid product placement deals this year, up 68.6 per cent from last year. Paid product placements in newspapers were expected to grow 67 per cent to $4.7 million. A small figure, but one worrying to those who care for the traditional separation between the "church" of editorial and the "state" of advertising.

Whether local product placement will go down well remains an open question and advertisers will have to tread carefully.

My guess is the reaction will depend on the subtlety of the placement. To avoid a backlash, advertisers will have to take particular care with sensitive products.

It might not prove such a good idea to place that sugar-laden snack on an after-school television programme, particularly in the present climate when even overt advertising of junk food is being questioned.

The last thing we want to see is a local version of the James Bond movie Die Another Day which was so product-laden it was nicknamed Buy Another Day. That would be likely to prompt viewers to reach, not for the fast-forward button, but the off switch.