Product Placement Papers I

Evolving Views on Product Placement Effectiveness -
James A.Karrh, Kathy Brittain McKee, Carol J. Pardun

"What was once a sporadic barter arrangement for lowering film and television production costs is now a vehicle for multimillion-dollar integrated promotional campaigns. In the near future, product placement will likely become an important revenue source for broadcast television networks" (Schneider, 2002)

Questions raised in the paper includes 'Have practitioners changed their views concerning product placement?'

They began by explaining the product placement industry, stating that it is a 'paid, strategic marketing tool, began to receive greater attention...during the 1980s following the E.T. placement success'

They also began to view a trend whereby more recent product placements are relatively much larger than previously had been and the marketers are now moving in a much bolder manner looking for new ways to advertise within feature films.

It is also discussed that due to the mass injection of fund, it is no suprise that sponsor companies has, to an extent, a bigger control over the context/content in which their brand is presented - and because the producers and the marketers aims at different goals there are times whereby the marketers does not get what they want as final outcome of the feature always rest with the editor.
Audiences are also becoming increasingly aware of the blur between the informing and persuading aspects of mass media.

Surveys are also included as part of the study, results shows that 'practitioners are more confident about the future growth of placement...however, still maintain some reservation'

It is suggested by brand placement researchers that 'Practitioners...would be wise to commit quickly to research programs designed to explore, describe, and explain the relationships among brand prop exposure, audience reactions and interpretations, movieviewing contexts, and brand placement practices"
(DeLorme and Reid, 1999, P87)

They have also made predictions as to how product placement could (and sort of already has as this paper was written in 2003) take us in the future -

"In a near-future world of more interactive TV, the time lag between brand exposure and purchase opportunity could shrink to nearly zero; viewers will likely be able to 'point, click, and get more data on a product or purchasing clothing, housewares, or even a vacation right off the show'" (Ebenkamp, 2001)

PRP supporting research

For the personal research project I have been preparing myself prior to term start.

A list of all the papers I got -

Practitioners' Evolving Views on Prodcut Placement Effectiveness
by James A. Karrh(University of Arkansas at Little Rock), Kathy Brittain McKee (Berry College) and Carol J.Pardun (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

You Oughta Be In pictures: Product Placements in the Top-Grossing Films of 1991
Barry S. Sapolsky and Lance Kinney, Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida

Consumer reactions to product placement strategies in television sponsorship
Alain d'Astous and Nathalie Séguin, École des HEC, Montreal, Canada

Exploring Children's Choice: The Reminder Effect Of Product Placement
Susan Auty and Charlie Lewis, Lancaster University

How the Media is a Significant Promotional Tool to Deliver Marketing Messages to Audiences
Yoon C.Cho (KDI School of Public Policy And Management, South Korea), Jerome Agrusa (Hawaii Pacific University)

Beyond the Map: Issues in teh Design of a Virtual 3D Knowledge Space for Aboriginal Knowledge
Malcolm Pumpa, Australian CRC for Interaction Design (ACID), Queensland University of Technology, Australia

I hope to do an individual review on each paper to aid ease of access.

PRP - Personal Research Project

Phrase 1 - determinating the right question.

Since the end of my second year I have been considering what questions I would like to investigate.

Initially, this was going to be ' The relationshp between fashion and cinema', in the sense that they influence each other greatly and time over time certain styles have been brought back due to the movies' release. However, it soon became apparent that this was too vague but specific, and would mean I leave myself little space to futher expand on the question.

I then decided if I go the next level up and take it to the world of commerce vs cinema I may have a better chance of writing an interesting paper.

The keyword at the minute is product placement - I would like to investigate the consumerism and how it is affected by product placement within cinema and general broadcast on television.

A few of the relevant questions I have thought (that I think will greatly contribute towards the findings) are as follow...

1/ How cinema can affect ones way of thinking (control and change your state of mind) - e.g. propaganda and how its achieved

2/ The link between commercializing cinema and advertising, briefly investigating the history of propaganda and how it is linked subconsciously product placements' sucess)

3/ what is product placement and its come-about

4/ its development in the past decade(s)

5/ what are the general publics views on product placement? have they gotten used to it? do they feel like they're beign forced into it?

6/ has product placement lowered our standards on movies as it has been made so commercial? It is such an easy way to gain extra budget for movie production, has it changed the way movies and broadcasts are made and produced?

7/ different governments legislations (England Vs the States) why and how. Why the sudden change in legislation in the UK and how US went passed the legislation previously

8/ where will product placement take us next? couple of decades ago product placement was non-existent and now the government is boardering legalizing it, whats next?

9/ the general publics views on cinema, product placement and its pros and cons, also including statistics as to how influencial they think product placement in the cinema is. Effects on the community.