Product Placement

In 2004, advertisers spent $3.45 billion on product placements, including $1.88 billion on TV and $1.25 on movies.

" This 'product integration' pads the profits of the TV networks while turning viewers' favorite shows into infomercials. When advertising agencies usurp control from writers, directors and editors, they are seeking to manipulate the emotional connection that viewers forge with stories and characters."
Plot line: Drink Pepsi!
By John Furia Jr. | Los Angeles Times | October 23, 2005

TELEVISION, particularly reality TV, is erasing the line between content and advertising by clumsily grafting sponsors' car brands, soft drinks and other products into story lines.

American television has always been a commercial medium. Advertisers pay the bills. Early shows, following radio's lead, often jumped through hoops to promote sponsors — beginning with the launch of Texaco Star Theater in the 1940s. But this commercialization never penetrated the artistic product. Classic shows, from "Bonanza" to "Seinfeld," managed not to sell out to sponsors.

That's changed. On "The Apprentice," for instance, contestants now compete in what are essentially hourlong commercials to market brand names, including Burger King. In the episode sponsored by the burger chain, the contestants ran around like goofballs trying to come up with catchy taglines for its latest product. They then donned Burger King's blue and yellow uniforms and struggled to perform jobs easily mastered by high school dropouts. Why? The fast-food chain paid upward of $2 million to have its newest hamburger flipped by Donald Trump's would-be minions. Never mind selling real estate — on "The Apprentice," contestants win challenges by shilling for major advertisers.

This "product integration" pads the profits of the TV networks while turning viewers' favorite shows into infomercials. When advertising agencies usurp control from writers, directors and editors, they are seeking to manipulate the emotional connection that viewers forge with stories and characters.

This corruption of the story is hardly limited to reality TV. CBS Chairman Les Moonves has predicted that up to 75% of all scripted prime-time network shows will soon feature products paid for by advertisers and integrated into plot lines. One advertising executive recently predicted that content and advertising will be fully integrated and, "in the end, corporate clients will be happy, and the writers and actors won't be able to tell an Emmy from a Clio."

Children's programming has often been financed by sugary cereals, for example. But what happens to kids subjected to hidden ads?

The morphing of selling and storytelling is also infiltrating the movie business. Mark Schmuger, vice chairman of Universal Studios, told an audience at an entertainment marketing conference that "studios need to work with [corporate] brands so that we're not force-feeding them our already baked product. Can we co-create?" He suggests that corporate advertisers allot a portion of their budgets to script development.

What role will film and television play in our culture when advertisers determine the story and characters by testing how suitable they are to sell product? Imagine if Pope Julius II, when giving Michelangelo the commission to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, had approved the artist's design of the Lord stretching out a hand to Adam, but only if in that hand he painted a bar of Dove soap or a Big Mac.

CBS' Moonves told Advertising Age's editor, Scott Donaton, that the key to expanding product integration will be "breaking down the resistance of writers, directors and actors."

The Hollywood talent guilds should wholeheartedly promote this resistance. They should insist that writers, not advertising executives, be trusted to do what is best for the story. They should defend actors' right to portray compelling characters and explore intriguing ideas rather than shill for Home Depot or Pepsi. Together, the Hollywood talent guilds should step forward to protect the public from the blight of hidden advertising by insisting in contract negotiations that the media giants address these issues. If corporations won't, the guilds should take these issues to the Federal Communications Commission.

The Communications Act already bans stealth advertising, requiring that all such transactions be disclosed to the viewing public. Obviously, these rules have not been strictly enforced. The agency should force broadcasters to clearly disclose who has paid for advertising. It should require networks and advertisers to run a notice at the bottom of the screen when an advertising pitch is being made during the content portion of a television program. It should ban outright hidden advertising in children's programming.

Unfettered product integration is in no one's best interest. The American viewing public deserves to have some rules established to regulate the crass commercialization of their favorite programs.

Advertising executives and production companies eager to cash in on product integration deals will not regulate themselves. People have a right to know whether they're watching a program or product propaganda, and the guilds have a vested interest in helping the public to protect itself.

John Furia Jr. is a former president of the Writers Guild of America West, a professor and founding chairman of the division of writing in the School of Cinema-Television at USC, and a TV writer. | Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times

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"For TV producers and studios, Hollywood's growing reliance on such "product integration" helps pay the bills. For the unions representing writers and actors, however, it detracts from the art of storytelling."
In-Show Product Pushing Chided
Writers Guild and SAG say the growing practice
of placing goods in TV scripts hurts stories.
By Meg James | Los Angeles Times |November 14, 2005

On the UPN hit "America's Next Top Model" this year, glamorous beauties walked a runway at a Kmart. On NBC's "The Biggest Loser," contestants vying to lose the most weight struggled to break open padlocked Jell-O-branded refrigerators.

And on the WB's "Gilmore Girls," Lorelai toasted her engagement by drinking a malt beverage and saying: "Let's drink Zima and have sex every night."

For TV producers and studios, Hollywood's growing reliance on such "product integration" helps pay the bills. For the unions representing writers and actors, however, it detracts from the art of storytelling.

Today, the Screen Actors Guild and Writers Guild of America are expected to propose that Hollywood needs a "code of conduct" to set guidelines for the insertion of products into movies and TV shows. If the networks and studios fail to draft such a code themselves, the guilds say, it may be time for the Federal Communications Commission to clamp down on the practice.

"In their race to the bottom line to create the so-called new business model, network and advertising executives are ignoring the public's interest and demanding that creative artists participate in stealth advertising disguised as a story," said Patric Verrone, president of the Writers Guild's western division, which details its concerns in a report.

The report, which is expected to be released today, argues that creativity and compelling story lines are suffering as producers constantly squeeze in references to products. Guild members say they are in effect being drafted against their will to pitch products. At the same time, they complain, networks and studios have built this lucrative $1-billion-a-year business without paying actors and writers their fair share.
SAG President Alan Rosenberg said the practice "too often takes place without any compensation to the very performers that are expected to push those products."

As the Writers Guild report puts it: "It used to be that a writer would be asked to weave a love interest into a story. Now, that writer is being asked to weave in potato chips, or soft drinks or building-supply stores."

Joe Davola, executive producer for such WB shows as "Smallville," "One Tree Hill" and "What I Like About You," defended the practice as a financial necessity in today's tight-fisted TV business. In an interview, he noted that budgets were especially tight at smaller networks, such as the WB, which still want first-rate production levels.

"I don't pimp Pringles," Davola said. "My arm is not being twisted to do this."

But the writers and actors guilds contend that viewers are unwittingly being sold products, potentially violating government rules if not properly disclosed.

The guilds say there should be strict limits on the use of product integration during children's programming. They are also demanding disclosure of any deals at the start of each program, rather than a mention during the closing credits. Contracts with the studios should also stipulate that writers, actors and directors have input in how products are integrated.

In addition, the guilds contend that any regulation of embedded advertising should be extended to cover cable TV, where the report says "some of the most egregious abuse is found."

The Writers Guild report details several examples of dialogue about product that was shoehorned into programs. A story producer on the short-lived TBS reality show "Outback Jack" said they were on location at a natural hot springs filming "eight girls in bikinis, and the producer takes out a basket of Skintimate shave gel … and tells them to start shaving."

A producer on UPN's "America's Next Top Model," said the contestants were unhappy about their fashion show being staged at discount retailer Kmart, a unit of Sears Holding Corp. The report said disparaging comments by the aspiring models were deleted, and that the women were asked to dub in complimentary lines such as "I shop here all the time."

Ken Mok, executive producer for "Top Model," disputed that account.

"That's completely wrong and erroneous," Mok said in an interview. "We never put words in the girls' mouths. We don't tell the contestants what to say about any of the products."

Scott Miller, a story producer for "American Dream Derby," a horse racing-themed show which ran on the Game Show Network, said in the report that the show's producers seemed more concerned about showcasing Diet Dr. Pepper than the horses. Miller said that at times he stood behind the camera, slipping cans of soda to the cast.

"The contestants would be crying or conspiring or strategizing or screaming at one another, and we would have to stop to get sound bites about Diet Dr. Pepper," Miller said in an interview.

Although some producers acknowledge that product integration can at times seem forced and even crass, they contend that when it's done right, writers and actors benefit. WB executives noted that Campbell's Soup's sponsorship of three episodes this month of "7th Heaven" allowed for the hiring of three minority writers for the Spelling Television-produced show. The WB is owned by Time Warner Inc. and Tribune Co., owner of The Times.

Davola, television president at Tollin/Robbins Productions, said using products tastefully also lent a real-life feel to his shows.
"What I Like About You," with stars Amanda Bynes and Jennie Garth, has a deal with Procter & Gamble Co. The characters use the company's Clairol Herbal Essence shampoo, Swiffer dust mops and Pringles potato chips.

In WB's "Smallville," Davola said the show's characters drive Fords because of a similar arrangement. "One Tree Hill," he said, features Sunkist soda.

"With TiVo out there, commercial messages are being obliterated," Davola said, referring to digital video recorders. "So this is genius for the commercial people because they are getting their products embedded in a show, and it will be there for the repeat, for the syndication run and on the DVD."

Producer Jonathan Prince, creator of the canceled NBC drama "American Dreams," which featured Oreo cookies and Ford Mustangs, said the TV business has always been about giving companies a vehicle to advertise their products."My job is to sell soap and soda and cars," Prince said in an interview. "Who will pay our high-paid writers and actors if not for some of these brands?"

Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times

also: Ad analysis in Slate.com (Dec.10, 2007) about such "deep brand integration."