Group Asks Gov't to Crack Down on Product Placement 614
Buck Mulligan writes "The rise of commercial-skipping Tivo has resulted in greater reliance on "product placement," and Commercial Alert has filed a petition (pdf) with the Federal Trade Commission urging the agency to crack down on the practice. Gary Ruskin of Commercial Alert writes: "The interweaving of advertising and programming has become so routine that television networks now are selling to advertisers a measure of control over aspects of their programming. Some programs are so packed with product placements that they are approaching the appearance of infomercials. The head of a company that obtained repeated product placements actually called one such program 'a great infomercial.' Yet these programs typically lack the disclosure required of infomercials to uphold honesty and fair dealing.""
Just don't look. (Score:5, Interesting)
Howard Stern (Score:5, Interesting)
Different products in different markets (Score:3, Interesting)
For example, assume Miramax signs a deal with Coors such that all characters in a film are shown drinking Coors in the US version of the film, but signs a different deal for the Asian distribution so that the characters are shown drinking Kirin. They simply digitally edit the masters for each region.
While that example was fictional, there have been independant films that have been modified by the distributor because the filmmaker use the "wrong" product when making the movie.
Product placement is the future of movies (Score:4, Interesting)
thad
NBC and Computer Associates. (Score:5, Interesting)
I was watching ER, and they had three of their products in promenetly displayed near some binders at the check-in nursing station thing. Why would a nurses station need to have software such as ArcServIT, BrightStor, UniCenter, etc.. all nicely lined up next to the monitor of their PC? It's just so odd, and does not fit in with the audience at all. These are Enterprise software suites that cost thousands of dollars.
Additionally, I saw the very same CA lineup in "Just Shoot Me", behind the CEO's desk, next to pictures of his family, and stuff. It would make so much more sense if the product placements were appropriate to the audience.
Don't "blame" TiVo (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Stop inviting the government everywhere (Score:5, Interesting)
Government intervention may be appropriate here because product placement is a form of commercial speech, and courts have recognized that the government has legitimate interest in limiting some forms of commercial speech. The steps you hypothesize for the market to limit the product are naive: How many old TV shows or movies stopped using cigarettes because they caused lung cancer?
Whatever (Score:5, Interesting)
I seriously doubt Tivos with their puny penetration have anything to do with it. They should blame it on something called the remote control. That and increasing competition for advertising giving greater power to those that hold the money.
I honestly have not seen really obnoxious examples of product placement but then I don't watch much network tv.
And speaking of TiVo... (Score:4, Interesting)
Or, more pointedly, you could blame the networks. Same people who bring you corner logos (now opaque, full-color, moving pictures, on all the time) and promos during the end credits (no longer content to talk over them, now they squish them off to an unreadable size and speed and insert a 75%-screen-coverage full-video promo spot) and even during the show (superimposed crawls, anyone?).
They can all lick my center of gravity.
Re:Government Regulation (Score:4, Interesting)
Newspapers and magazines can do essentially anything they want, in the US. Broadcast bandwidth is a scarce resource, though, and needs to be regulated or it would be worthless. For that reason, broadcast rights are strictly limited by the FCC, and there are regulations that limit how people with broadcast rights can act, including how much commercial content they can run.
I'm not especially worked up about product placement (the WB keeps driving up the resale value of my TiBook, and now Rory Gilmore is increasing the prestige of my Yale degree, as well!) but given that I'd go to jail if I opened by own TV station, I see the reason to tell ABC and CBS what they can do with theirs.
Due Process (Score:2, Interesting)
i.e. everyone gets treated the same. No counting a commercial from Broward county without counting a product placement from Franklin
Re:Government Regulation (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Stop inviting the government everywhere (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Stop inviting the government everywhere (Score:3, Interesting)
I am very happy that the Government has:
Passed a pure food and drug act so I don't have to eat food that has been treated / raised/ slaughtered in an unhealthy manner.
Set standards for roads and cars and aircraft.
Agreed upon standards for the use of the RF spectrum.
Review and approve medicines.
but. . . we don't need no stinking govment
Quite frankly, I'm tired of the marketers and I'm certain that the writers, producers, directors, and actors are getting pretty fed up with "product placement".
As I write this on a 12" powerbook, I note for the record that I see way too many Apple's on Fox's "24"
I'd like an abacus or almost anything else that advances the story rather than catches the eye.
Re:Just don't look. (Score:5, Interesting)
And considering that many, many viewers are teens who probably use the product placement as a form of guidance, I think those in the dissent will be in the minority.
Re:Stop inviting the government everywhere (Score:3, Interesting)
My thoughts (Score:5, Interesting)
Characters in TV shows and movies have to use various items as props. Sometimes these are chosen with business motivations in mind. As a viewer, I'm okay with this, as long as it does not detract from the show.
For instance, Halle Berry has a Ford Thunderbird in the latest 007 film. That's fine. But if Bond had borrowed it for a gratuitous car chase, all the while commenting on its superb handling and acceleration, that would certainly have ruined the movie. Stick a product in in a context where one might realistically encounter it. Don't comment on it, extol its virtues, or zoom in for a close up of it.
Trying too hard to avoid product placement can be just as distracting. A can labelled "COLA" and with a not-quite-Coke design looks fake. Pixellating out the names of products and stores as if they were nudity is annoying.
Basically, I don't care whether the hero reaches for a Dasani or an Aquafina as long as it's unobtrusive, realistic for the character, non-distracting, and so on. If the audience consciously notices the item as being plugged, the advertising was too conspicuous.
Re:Due Process (Score:3, Interesting)
By strict interperetation, wouldn't that mean all use of products had to be realistic?
Bye-bye McGuyver.
Bullshit. THe only "product placement" in McGuyver (that I can remember) was his Swiss Army Knife. Now, I've got one of those, and I can testify that the things can do anything. *anything*
Re:Disclosure? (Score:0, Interesting)
I agree and I don't. First of all I do not watch TV of ANY sort with regards to cable, free or whatever... I do rent DVDs from netflix.
I listen (selectively) to the radio on my daily commute to and from SF from san jose for work.
I call *ALL* advertising Thought Pollution. I cannot tell you of any media aside from maybe whitepapers and some books that are not assaulting my consciousness with adverts. I really want to stop the proliferation of ads.
on the one hand you can make the naive statement to simply "dont look" or "turn of the tube" - but the fact of the matter is that advertising is DESIGNED around this... they force the ads into areas where you cannot escape them.
The are the absolute trash of the landscape - both the physical and mental.
I think that there truly should be a method to opt out of all advertising schemes. - Maybe at least they should pay me.
Re:Disclosure? (Score:1, Interesting)
If I didn't know better I'd think that the rules of American football evolved with TV advertising and product placement in mind. If that were true, it would be a good example of commercial advertising interests having a detrimental effect on content.
I think there's got to be a happy medium here.
Re:Howard Stern (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Stop inviting the government everywhere (Score:3, Interesting)
The same is true of virtually any publication that does reviews. The publication might not be paid for the reviews, but they do get benefits from simply having the reviews (especially if it's something hotly anticipated).
Note the correlation between ad pages bought over the previous 12 months and the reviews the car mags give. I guarantee that a lot of the vitriol directed at BMW for making the 5-series look like a Pontiac Grand Prix (especially now that the Grand Prix has lost a lot of the idiotic cladding) is because BMW scaled back their print ad budget last year.
And before someone mentions Consumer Reports, they're even more subtly biased (specifically against Saturn). CR gets a lot of their profit from sale of haggling guides. Saturn has long trumpeted their no-haggle policies. If Saturn sells vehicles, other manufacturers might follow suit with similar sales approaches. If enough manufacturers go to no-haggle, there goes CR's haggling guides and the sales they represent.
Re:Stop inviting the government everywhere (Score:3, Interesting)
Drugs can be a product placement. Further, they can do so without all of the requirements placed on conventional drug advertising (disclosure of side effects, contraindications, etc.)
If someone is watching ER, Noah Wylie's scriptwriters can choose whether or not he sends a patient home with instructions to take 'ibuprofen' (generic) or 'Advil' (brand name). I'd probably shrug this one off, since it's over-the-counter stuff--but has anyone else noticed the amount of prescription drug advertising in the United States? I can see quite a market for product placements in television shows where all the disclosures aren't required.
Such advertising might be even more popular in some other countries (I know this is outside the FTC's purview) where drug advertising is more restricted. (Canada, for instance, permits advertisers to show either the drug name or the symptoms it treats--but not both. You can build awareness of your brand name, or awareness of a disease, but you can't get both.)
Re:Just don't look. (Score:2, Interesting)
i haven't even seen a movie since that last
trek movie (and that one convinced me not to
watch more movies). The only reason for going was being with friends (all of us like star trek), I wouldn't have bothered to watch it for any other reason.
My high school physics teacher once commented on
how many arts and crafts people (nearly everybody)
used to do to express creativity because there
were no tv's to occupy their leisure time.
i do watch stuff that i have already, though not as much anymore. I also listen to music practically continuously. I haven't bought a cd in well over 5 years.
It's funny, but the ads and products look somehow more sinister now than they did before (although that may be a builtin mental defense averting from their purchase). Now many things seem either too overrated, or just a downright frivolous waste.
I've only stopped watching tv for about a year now. Although for the year before that i got sick of tv and only watched the news. I got sick of the news also, so now i watch nothing.
I do plan on watching some more movies, but mainly the ones that i have previously wanted to see, but never got the chance. I don't see paying for them though, those days are over.