Beck Media & Marketing

Pop-in products Images are inserted into popular television shows
By: Kortney Stringer

Poof! Paid product placements are popping up out of thin air.

It's not magic, but these days a growing number of advertisers are using technology that makes their products appear in places they weren't before. These aren't your run-of-the-mill product placements: It's called digital product integration, and it's the new frontier for paid product placements. Advertisers such as Chevrolet and Dannon yogurt are among the marketers using technology to digitally insert their products into scenes of popular prime-time TV episodes after they've been filmed.

That means TV viewers will see more and more product placements.

In general, product placements -- in which products are strategically placed in TV shows, movies, video games, songs and books -- are booming as advertisers try to grab the attention of consumers who have video recording devices to dodge the traditional 30-second commercial. Indeed, according to Stamford, Conn.-based research firm PQ Media, product placement spending in 2004 was valued at $3.46 billion, with television and movies accounting for nearly 91%.

Sometimes companies suggest their products to a studio or TV show, or it might work the other way around. There are other times when intermediaries or brokers match up companies with product placement opportunities.

Ordinary product placements run from the subtle -- think of "American Idol" judges sipping Coca-Cola on-air -- to the blatantly obvious -- Pontiac's Torrent sport-utility vehicle making regular appearances on "Survivor: Guatemala" or actress Eva Longoria working as a Buick spokesmodel on "Desperate Housewives."

By contrast, digital product integrations seek to be subtle by making the advertiser's product relevant to what's going on in the episode, sneaking a brand name or ad message in while people are watching their favorite show.

For instance, when Kellogg wanted to get its products into a TV show, Marathon Ventures, a Wakarusa, Ind.-based marketing firm that specializes in such digital product integration, found a scene in which stars of "Yes, Dear" were drinking wine and eating cheese and fruit in which to insert a highly visible box of its Club crackers on the coffee table.

"Digital brand integration is part of the evolution of product placement. It's simply another tool marketers use to get products integrated into shows," said Marathon founder and president David Brenner. "If you can put it in a package, we can put it in a show."

Marathon has been at the forefront of digital product integration for paid product placement, putting brands such as Dannon Activia Yogurt, Pepperidge Farm Milano cookies and Cepacol sore throat medicine into shows such as "CSI," "Will & Grace" and "Yes, Dear." The company even digitally inserted the Impala logo for General Motors Corp.'s Chevrolet brand into some CBS shows last year as part of a contest in which viewers who spotted the logos could go online to win the car.

Marathon said advertisers like digital product integrations because they're more predictable than regular product placements. Their products don't usually face the threat of being edited out of scenes.

"Advertisers are finding better ways of advertising through 'entertainment advertising' or 'advertising as entertainment,' " said Mira Lee, an advertising professor at Michigan State University.

But not everyone is a fan of product placement, digital or otherwise. Commercial Alert, a consumer watchdog group, has lobbied Congress for stronger oversight of product placements.

"TV networks and stations regularly send programs into American living rooms that are packed with product placements and other veiled commercial pitches," executive director Gary Ruskin wrote in a 2003 letter to the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission.

"But they pretend that these are just ordinary programming rather than paid ads. This is an affront to basic honesty."

Brands put in television shows

Here are some brands that have been digitally inserted into TV shows as part of paid product placement deals:

SHOWS:

BRANDS: