CW838
Una Grant
Mariane McGrath C00162294
Olwyn Walsh C00156871
3/March/2014

TABLE OF CONTENTS ..................................................................................................................................... 1
LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................................................................ 1
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................................................. 2
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY .................................................................................................................................. 3
PROJECT BACKGROUND ............................................................................................................................... 4
RESEARCH OBJECTIVES ................................................................................................................................ 5
METHODOLOGY ............................................................................................................................................... 6
R ESEARCH A PPROACH : ........................................................................................................................................................ 6
P RIMARY R ESEARCH : ........................................................................................................................................................... 6
S ECONDARY R ESEARCH
........................................................................................................................................................ 7
RESEARCH LIMITATIONS ............................................................................................................................ 10
RESEARCH INSTRUMENTS .......................................................................................................................... 11
SECONDARY RESEARCH FINDINGS ......................................................................................................... 12
P ROCESS
............................................................................................................................................................................. 12
C OST
................................................................................................................................................................................... 14
E THICS
................................................................................................................................................................................ 14
E XAMPLES OF S UCCESSES AND F AILURES
.......................................................................................................................... 15
PRIMARY RESEARCH FINDINGS ............................................................................................................... 18
O BSERVATION F INDINGS
.................................................................................................................................................... 18
K EY F OCUS G ROUP F INDINGS
............................................................................................................................................ 18
CONCLUSIONS ................................................................................................................................................. 21
RECOMMENDATIONS ................................................................................................................................... 23
BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................................................... 24
APPENDICES ..................................................................................................................................................... 28
FIGURE 1
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 4
FIGURE 5
PARTICIPANT INFORMATION TABLE
TOTAL OBSERVATION RESULTS
NUMBER OF RECOLLECTIONS BY BRAND
STATISTICS FINDINGS
NUMBER OF RECOLLECTIONS PER PERSON
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We would like to express our gratitude to the module lecturer, Una Grant, for her advice and guidance and her useful critiques towards this research paper. We would also like to thank
Ms Grant for assisting in keeping our progress on schedule.
We would like to thank all the observation/focus group volunteers, for willingly participating in the event, which helped to produce valuable data for our project. We shall extend our thanks to Mr Ryan Lee, who availed of his premises for our primary data collection to occur.
Finally, we would like to thank our family and friends for their support and encouragement in our studies.
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The purpose of the research was to conduct and to analyse the Product Placement industry in
2014 to assist into giving an insight on how product placement acts on the consumer’s mind and how do the companies reach out to the audiences. It also looks into examples of successes and failures of product placement in movies.
The methods of analysis conducted were an observational study followed by a focus group to examine the extent of awareness in an audience, discussing views on product placement as whole and the issues surrounding it. The secondary research, via books and the internet, was also used for a better understanding what occurs inside the viewer’s mind, how the film industry in relation to product placement, its contemporary issues and some examples of placement in movies. All material used in the analysis can be found in the appendices and bibliography.
Results show how lucrative product placement deals are for both parties involved and that movie audiences can identify themselves with characters that use particular brands. In particular, the findings showed that the sample did not notice many of the brands, with an average of 26.7% featured being noticed by the sample, and that context plays a major part in the quality of the placement throughout the plot. Also, the sample argued, during the discussions, that product placement does not present any ethical issues for its viewers.
The research shows that the sample did not notice the majority of brands and recollected on products and services in which they have some interest on. Also, it illustrates how context is extremely relevant for its viewers for brand perception and positioning.
Recommendations discussed include:
1.
Larger sample of participants could be used to acquire a larger amount of data and identify trends.
2.
A greater amount of information explored into the area of product placement in relation to sales decreases could be done.
3.
Interviews with the product placement industry workers to extend the research in relation to upcoming trends.
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This research work considers the fact that the analysis conducted has limitations. There was a time constraint of six months, meaning that this research would be small and due to its size the researchers’ findings, conclusions and recommendations can be considered short sighted.
When looking for a research topic the researchers chose to execute a project that appealed to them and their own interests, an area that related to topical issues in the media and in marketing today. A subject that participants could be opinionated in and could spark their own interests was a must. Due to the research limitations and time constraints the research itself needed to be easy and quick to be conducted.
The topic of product placement in films was one that appealed to the researchers as it is something that most people are aware of with but do not know the particulars of the industry behind it. The researchers wanted to look into this further but also conduct their own investigation in to peoples own opinions. The researchers thought it would be interesting to conduct the observation under a normal, everyday premise. This is where the decision to hold an observation was decided.
The focus group was held to reinforce the observation study as well as answer the objectives of the research. It was interesting to get a gathering of people who all had their own opinions, especially about a subject that, frequently, had not been given conscience thought before that.
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“[Research objectives] are specific aims to achieve within a time frame with the available resources… They must be easy to measure… realistic... [and] neutral”
Business Dictionary (2014)
While investigating the subject, the researchers found three main points to this research:
1.
To measure the awareness of product placement in positioning a brand in the consumers mind.
2.
To study the process involved in product placement in terms of cost in relation to screen time, context and ethics.
3.
To investigate the success and failures of product placements in films.
These objectives would help to further explore the product placement industry and its issues to the consumer.
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The purpose of the research is exploratory, this approach means you can “[focus] on collecting either secondary or primary data and using an unstructured format or informal procedures to interpret them” (Shui et al, 2009). The object of this research is to increase the understanding of the concept of product placement and identify the effects that it may have on viewers, the film itself and the brand it portrays. The process of our study is qualitative,
“Selective types of research methods used in exploratory research designs where the main objective is to gain a variety of preliminary insights to discover and identify decision problems and opportunities.” (Shui et al, 2009); Due to the scale and time frame available for this research study only small samples will be used. Probing questions will be asked during the primary research. Because of this the results may be subjective. For the logic test of this research, deductive research is used. This means “Investigations that are undertaken to test hypothesized relationships derived from the use of existing theories” (Shui et al, 2009). A mixture of basic and applied research will be used. Basic research is “research aimed at expanding the frontiers of knowledge rather than solving a specific, pragmatic problem”
(McDaniel & Gates, 2006), applied research is “research aimed at solving a specific, pragmatic problem –better understanding of the marketplace, determination of why a strategy or tactic failed, or reduction of uncertainty in management decision making” (McDaniel &
Gates, 2006).
Product Placement Recollection Observation
Due to the scale of research and resources available a small sample of 12, made up of a population of interest will be selected in a non-random manner (convenience sampling will be used as time constraints and equipment needed must be taken into account, (Shui et al,
2009)). The participants will also be in a range of ages, to suit the film being observed. This observation will be designed to meet objective 1. The participants will be asked to watch a film decided by the researchers. The researchers will have a list of all product placement deals in the film before the observation. The film will be chosen based on the amount of product placement and the type of products used i.e. suitable to an Irish audience. They will not be told to look out for any product placement during the film.
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The observation will be broken into two different stages, each using the same group of people.
Stage 1: Participants watch the same film once. Afterwards they list the product placement from the film that they remember. They do not need to give context used, just the brand they recognised.
Stage 2: The researchers will compare the number of recollection with the actual number of brand in the film
For the purpose of this project for the experiment, the film the researchers chose is Contagion directed by Steven Soderbergh (2011). The researchers investigated the product placement in the film and found that it has a large number of instances (45 different products or services) (BrandChannel.com, 2012). This film is suitable for this experiment as the products used were products from known brands in Ireland and is targeted at a broad audience.
Focus Group
A focus group research is “A formalized qualitative data collection method for which data are collected from a small group of people who interactively and spontaneously discuss one particular topic or concept” (Shui et al, 2009). A focus group will be held to get opinions on product placement. Use the same group as the observation. This will be held after the observation has taken place. Present the results of the observation to the participants and lead discussion. Use probing questions to explore the group’s opinions on the issue. The issues that should be questioned are opinions on product placement as a form of advertising and the ethics involved the context in which they appear in the film, how obvious they are and if they impede on the viewing experience.
Product placement in the movie industry is a multi-billion dollar industry. This has attracted a lot of research, throughout the years, since its first implementation due to its success.
Secondary research contains the analysis of sources of data that has already been explored by someone else (Riley, 2013).
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This research will involve the analysis of several websites, journal articles, and academic work, arguing the psychological effects of product placement in the consumers mind. These sources will be explored to support the observation (primary research) to achieve Objective 1.
To answer objective 2, the secondary research will resource to websites and to the film POM
Wonderful Presents The Greatest Movie Ever Sold to have a better understanding of how product placement work in the industry itself, it is going to be an objective and technical part of this research because it provides an insight on what is involved in the process of screening the products and passing the message to the viewers.
Since there are several sources identifying the successes and failures in product placement campaigns, to accomplish objective 3, specialized websites, such as brandchannel.com, will provide more information on the topic and YouTube sources will help to visualize the findings, since there are several sources identifying the successes and failures in product placement campaigns.
The following are some of the sources, referenced, that will be accessed during this research according to the outlined objectives:
Objective 1
Non-student consumer attitudes towards product placement - Implications for public policy and advertisers (Jung, Gregorio and Sung)
Audience Attitudes towards Brand Product Placement (Karrh, Frith and Callison)
More than just sentimentality (Meagher)
Product placement in the movies industry: Product placement effectiveness
Product Placement Can Be A Lot More Powerful Than We Realize (Psychology
Today)
Recommended Cases: Product place Effectiveness
Objective 2
The secondary research to achieve objective 2, the process involved in product placement will rely on the following:
Product Placement (Kishk and Keely)
Branding James Bond: Do Product-Placement Ads Work? ( Live Science )
HowStuffWorks "How Product Placement Works" and HowStuffWorks "Product
Placement in the Movies" (Neer)
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A Brief History of Conspicuous Product Placement in Movies (Noble)
A theoretical and empirical study of product placement quality (Pettit and Zazza)
POM Wonderful Presents the Greatest Movie Ever Sold ( Morgan Spurlock )
Product placement in Films (Thomphson)
Product placement: Brand & Entertainment
A New Branch of Advertising: Reviewing Factors That Influence Reactions to
Product Placement ( Van Reijmersdal, Neijens and Smi )
Those sources will also provide a deeper insight into objective 3.
Objective 3
To study the success and failures of product placement in films, as well as the previous secondary sources, the following will be used for objective 3.
Where do you really watch when you are seeing? A case in product placement using eye tracking (Besprosvan and Hess)
Top 40 Product Placements of all time: 10-1 | Brands & Films (Brand Channel)
The 15 Most Shameless Movie Product Placements Of All Time (Business Insider)
10 Big Successes in Product Placement (CNBC)
12 of the most shameless film product placements of all time (Insider)
Has product placement gotten out of control?
(Mc Neice)
At the Movies: The Greatest Reverse Product Placements Of All Time (Sauer)
Entrepreneur (Star Power)
The 10 Most Shameless Product Placements in Movie History (Steinbrunner)
With the aid of these secondary sources, this research is expected to be successfully achieved.
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For this research there was a short time scale of six months. This constraint meant that this research would be small. The industry has a lot of research on the subject already and felt by the researchers that secondary research would be more heavily relied on. In addition to this, due of resources, the scale of research is minor.
To conduct the primary research, an observation and focus group were needed. This meant organising a large group of people, a suitable premise and a number of hours to suit everybody. This needed to be organised weeks in advance and could only be done once.
This research was conducted to learn the process and how to research, particularly market research. This meant that there was a time constraint, due to this, and a lack of resources available, the research findings and conclusions can be considered short sighted and arrogant.
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Focus Group Design
The researchers devised the focus group questions based on secondary research findings. A number of broad, open ended questions were asked to open discussion amongst the participants. The researchers operated the focus group, which was immediately following the film viewing. After the researchers asked the participants what brands they remember, they showed them a list of all the product placements brands. This paved the way for the discussion.
The following questions were asked to the group:
1.
What is your reaction to the number of product placements within Contagion?
2.
What do you think of product placement in general?
3.
What do you think of product placement as a form of advertising?
4.
The director Brett Ratner said “If I need a car in my movie, why not get a car that helping me reaching my budget?” What do you think of this?
5.
What are your thoughts in the ethics involved with product placement?
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Through secondary research the researchers investigated industry practices and processes in relation to using product placement as a form of product marketing. For investing brands, it is a way to target a niche audience and increase consumer awareness of a particular brand
(Wiles and Danielova, 2009, pp. 44--63). A movie with a big budget with an expected high gross at the box office can attract many commercial interests (Wiles and Danielova, 2009, pp.
44—63). The researchers explored various elements of product placements, using secondary research, under the following headings; the process involved, the costs involved and the ethical issues involved.
Product Placement has been around nearly as long as film itself, the first case of paid product placement was in the silent film The Garage, 1919 which featured a sign for Red Crown
Gasoline (Thompson, 2013). It didn’t reach mainstream use until the birth of the blockbuster during the 1980’s. Hershey’s paid $1 million to be used in Steven Spielberg’s ET: The Extra
Terrestrial (1982) (Thompson, 2013).
One of the problems with product placement is it difficult to measure its success. It cannot be proven that correlation means causation; sales can be affected by other factors such as competitors, price and economic factors. Product Placement effectiveness is also down to its audience. High involvement goods, such as cars, consumer decisions are more deliberate, as opposed to smaller purchases, such as clothes (Radford, 2012). Culture also plays a part. It doesn’t matter how many Mac Donald’s Big Mac’s Brad Pitt eats, vegetarians and Hindu’s will not buy meat, or how many Budweiser’s George Clooney drinks, Mormons and Muslims will not buy beer (Radford, 2012). Some placements have even been changed for different markets. In the film Demolition Man directed by Marco Brambilla (1993) the characters talk about a fast food chain winning the franchise wars, in the American version it’s Taco Bell, in
Europe it’s Pizza Hut (Thompson, 2013).
In the documentary “POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold” (2011) directed by Morgan Spurlock. The director takes a look at the process of product placement, whilst funding the documentary itself on product placements deals (such as POM Wonderful, an American drinks company). The film highlights the terms and conditions that go into placement deal contracts, such as the specific context that products can be used in and the
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placement of competitors products (during the focus group held for this research, one partaker gave an example, the television programme “The Walking Dead, where all non-
Hyundai’s are significantly less stylish than the Hyundai the main characters drive). In the case of “The Greatest Movie Ever Sold”, the film must generate $10million, show in 250 screens worldwide and sell 50,000 DVD’s, as well as that the partaking companies asked to get final approval of the film, which they did not.
The documentary also speaks to industry experts, who describe product placement as “brand integration” and that it delivers the “holy grail” of marketing; co-promotion. Brand
Integration is defined by dictionary.com (2014) as
“The use of commercial products in the story line of a television show, film, etc. and involving the development of specific objectives, strategies, plans and tactics to drive the business”
Some product placement is paid for by the product company, usually the larger companies such as Apple or Coca-Cola. It can also be part of a partnership contract, where companies provide the products in exchange for placement (Cyrielle Ducrot, 2011)
According to Shapiro (as seen in Journal of Management and Marketing Research in1993) has classified four types of product placements in movies: (1) the product or brand are displayed in the movie without a verbal reference, for example, a Burger King’s store front featuring the background of a scene; (2) product or service used in a scene without verbal reference, for example, actor walks into a Burger King store without mentioning the name of the store; (3) the product has a spoken reference, for example, “I’m starving, can we go to
Burger King on the way?"; and (4) brand in use and is mentioned by a main character, for example, actor says "I love Burger King" while consuming one of their products.
An actor speaking about the brand in a film is going to have higher impact in the audience than just the display of the brand. This generates greater recall since it integrates the viewer's cognitive structure (Panda, 2004). To become more recognised, the brand requires to be used throughout the movie or to be used by the main cast. That is why context is so important, consequently, product placement in movies can have a much long lasting impact in the viewer’s memory.
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Costs can vary depending on the film and the number of associating products deals. In
Transformers (2007) directed by Michael Bay had an estimated budget of $150,000,000
(IMDb, 2014) and 77 number of product placement deals (Brandchannel, 2008). Two years later for the films sequel, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009), Bay used the same formula again, this time breaking the record for the number of product placement deals in history which brought the films budget to $200,000,000 (IMDb, 2014).
Put into context, in 2012, the latest James Bond movie “Skyfall” directed by Sam Mendes, had a production budget of $200,000,000 (Radford, 2012). $45,000,000, nearly a quarter, was paid by Heineken to have the iconic character drink the lager and imply it is the best in the world (Radford, 2012). This caused a controversy amongst Bond fans, which were loyal to the traditional vodka martini (Radford, 2012). Yet this didn’t stop the film grossing half of a billion dollars in its first two weeks on the box office (Radford, 2012).
According to Morgan Spurlock, in 2010 alone there was $214billion spent on advertising alone. Yet one of the highest grossing films of the year, Alice in Wonderland (directed by
Tim Burton and produced by Disney) which took $1.3billion at the box office didn’t even feature any product placement deals (Brand Channel, 2011). One quarter of the budget for
Minority Report from Steven Spielberg (2002) was raised solely from product placement deals (Perebinossoff, 2010).
One of the issues the documentary “The Greatest Movie Ever sold” discusses the issue of ethics. Is it ethical to advertise to consumers without them consciously knowing?
According to the panel presentation in the Association of educators in Journalism and Mass
Communication Annual Conference in 2006, product placement has three areas in which there are ethical concerns: deception, expressive integrity and trust. These topics can influence consumer perception in relation to the placements but overall it is agreed that audiences are intelligent and are able to make their purchasing decisions themselves.
In relation to deception, it argues that the involvement of certain brands being shown in the background of a scene can feel deceptive, because when watching an advertising on TV, for example, the audience can channel their attention elsewhere or pause and forward the commercial breaks, but when watching a movie, the audience is “disarmed” of anything that
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gives them the option for blocking the ads, making some of its viewers to feel tricked. At the same time, arguing that product placement does not involve any elements of deception since it does not lie about the facts to the consumer, it merely displays advertising features, such as attention grabbing and mass communication, in the background scenario of the film, and since consumers learned how to recognize and ‘block’ advertisements, movies became another platform to get their message across.
The expressive integrity issue was brought up in the speech to point out that product placement can limit the creative minds behind the film since it can became a burden to adapt the script to involve the merchandising which companies paid them to do so and sometimes, having to compromise the quality of the plot. At the same time, it is more realistic when the characters use labelled products throughout a movie, making the plot more believable in which viewers can relate to the characters, besides, humans are consumers and the brands of choice often take part in the individual’s personality and identity. By watching certain characters using a particular brand affects the consumer’s evoked set which can influence them at the time of purchase.
Finally, trust was highlighted as being ‘the most serious ethical problem’ with brand integration since the more placements are shown to consumers, the levels of trustworthiness decline because it becomes harder to identify if the movie is made to entertain the audience or to sell products, hence it is harder to build the trust with its viewers, not only towards the brands featured in the movie but also with the studios.
Product placement is common practice. However, it is not an easy task to evaluate if a product placement was successful or not, so the main question to be proven here is, how well does it actually succeed on influencing sales? Tom Cruise certainly proved it can be very successful. After he wore Ray-Ban Wayfarer sunglasses in Risky Business directed by Paul
Brickman (1983), sales of the sunglasses in that year only were of 360,000 pairs, and by
1996, 1.5 million pairs had sold, saving the product from being discontinued (CNBC, 2011).
The same thing happened again when he wore Aviator sunglasses in Top Gun directed by
Tony Scott (1986), when sales increased by 40% after the movie’s release (Radford, 2012).
In Steven Spielberg’s E.T. (1982), Reese's Pieces was featured, increasing their profit from
Hershey's by 65% after two weeks its opening (CNBC, 2011).
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Certain products, such as cars tend to be viewed as object of desired being proved in The
Italian Job directed by F. Gary Gray (2003) was a remake of the movie from 1969. The original version the film used Mini Coopers throughout its scenes and basing on that, the production of the new version decided to maintain the originality although using the modern version of the car. The film was not very successful, but the product placement seemed to have worked since it was reported that since the film’s release, the car experienced a 22% increase in sales when compared with 2002 (CNBC, 2011). In the James Bond movie series -
Golden Eye directed by Martin Campbell (1995) - the first time that Bond was not driving an
Aston Martin, his option was BMW’s Z3 instead. In this deal BMW claimed it had a spending of 3 million dollars but had a return of 240 million, placing over 9 thousand orders for the Z3 only a month after the movie was screened. Another successful example of product placement, Transformers directed by Michael Bay (2007) a Chevrolet Camaro sporting the movie logo was given by General Motors to the production. Its feature in the movie generated a high demand for the car which was released in 2009 selling over 60 thousand units (Grey, 2013).
Brand integration has proven its winning formula again, with products such as toys – soon after making appearances in Toy Story directed by John Lasseter (Pixar, 1995), Etch-a-
Sketch had a 4500% rise in sales as well as Mr Potato Head, with an increase of 800% in sales (Grey, 2013)..
Product placement proved to be successful also with alcoholic beverages featuring in movies.
During Sideways (2004) by Alexander Payne –where two middle aged men travel to
California for wine tasting (Rotten Tomatoes, 2014) - several labels had the opportunity to include their label in the plot. The sales of Pinot Noir increased, in particular the Blackstone brand, which increased sales by 150% after the movie’s release. On the other hand, one of the characters distaste for Merlot, made the sales in the United States of America to decrease by
2% (CNBC, 2011).
Another good example of success in product placement was shown after the movie Sofia
Coppola’s Lost in Translation (2003). In the movie, Bill Murray, playing a famous movie actor, is in Tokyo to record an advert for Suntory Whiskey. According to the general manager of the company, the placement facilitated the positioning of their brand as high profile and created international awareness, since, after the movie’s release, Sean Connery and Keanu
Reeves featured in their advertisements (CNBC, 2011).
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Product placement is a very good and interesting tool to facilitate the mass audience to be aware of brands, products and services. During a plot, certain brand integrations can create demand and then the companies involved can see the positive side on their investment.
However, what is the special formula for a placement to become a success? Unfortunately, the answer is unknown. Although, a lot of its recipe lies in the context it is being played. If the character acting, cannot deliver the placement to the audience and it breaks the reality, it can have a negative outcome in relation to both the film and the brand (Jung, 2009).
During the movie Flight by Robert Zemeckis (2012), the main character – an airplane pilot, played by Denzel Washington – opens a can of Budweiser just before flying a commercial plane. Anheuser-Busch, the parent company of the beer, claiming the company did not give authorisation to be played in the movie, asked Paramount Pictures to remove their logo from the scene, even though the brand is not a protected a trademark (Holpuch, 2012).
In the movie, Surf Ninjas directed by Neal Israel (1993) the Sega Gamegear, features constantly throughout the plot, where the plot involves the videogame to transform one of the characters into a ninja. A short while after, Saga discontinued Gamegear lines and replaced with the cheaper version of the gadgets (Total Film, 2014).
Another good example, it is the movie Jerry Maguire directed by Cameron Crowe (1996), where after signing a contract of over €1 million with Reebok, the production company
Tristar showed the brand in a negative scenario – where one of the main characters, a professional football player, is not impressed with Reebok due to their resistance in sponsor him. This resulted in a lawsuit, which reached settlement a year later (Holpuch, 2012).
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For the observation, the participants were from a range of age groups (ranging from under 20 to over 50) and a mixture of both genders was used, (See Figure 1).
There are 45 examples of brand integration used through the film Contagion. The results of the observation showed only 26.7% of the brands shown were recollected by the sample and the other 76.3% of the brands that featured in the movie were unnoticed by the participants of this study (See Figure 2).
Out of the 45 brands featured, Apple was the most obvious brand to the sample, with 75% of the sample identifying it throughout the movie (See Figure 3). Apple products such as iPhones and the iOS operating system were used throughout the film, including a number of close-up shots. The researchers found a strong correlation between the participants that recollected Apple and the participants that actually use Apple products.
Centre of Disease and Control (CDC) and World Health Organization (WHO) were rated together in the same place with 50% of the sample recollecting their brands. Both the CDC and WHO were used plot devices in the story and were both shown and discussed by characters throughout the film. (See Figure 3)
The average number of brands recollected by the sample was of 3 brands per individual (See
Figure 4). Out of the 45 brands used in the film, 12 brands (26.7%) were noticed at least once, by the sample. This means that 33 (73.3%) were not memorable by the participants
(See Figure 4).
The maximum of brands recalled per person was 7 brands whilst the minimum was 0, by two individuals (See Figure 5).
To reach objective 1, the researchers conducted a focus group immediately after the film observation. The participants in the focus group all watched the film together and discussed the points written in the methodology by the researchers. The following opinions expressed are those of the voluntary participants, not those of the researchers.
1.
What is your reaction to the number of product placements within Contagion?
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After seeing the list of the brands used throughout the film, some of the participants were then able to remember them, but could not do so before hand when they wrote out what they recalled. Some of the participants were impressed that there were so many that they didn’t notice in the film. They agreed that although there were 45 instances of product placement, it did not feel like they were being heavily advertised too.
2.
What do you think of product placement in general?
The participants discussed product placement being both good and bad. One person stated that “If you can remember it then it is good but if you can’t then it is bad. The participants unanimously agreed that if a brand is advertising too much throughout a film it can be too much. Some participants gave examples of placements that they felt landing into this category, for instance Aston Martins in James Bond films and Audi in the Mission Impossible franchise. The group discussed that sometimes there is no need for certain products to be in particular scenes, examples were given of when an actor show his phone directly to the camera out of the blue, it makes it seem
“desperate”. One person stated that “it’s really annoying if obvious or distinctive”
3.
What do you think of product placement as a form of advertising?
When asked this question the youngest of the participants said that it “doesn’t impact me to buy anything”. To which some of the others agreed, that it doesn’t make them consciously want the product advertise. Another follow-on point from this was how certain brands can have a negative marketing effect due to the context of the film, the example of Contagion (2011) was used, when the actress mentions Taco Bell it seems that she was talking about an unhealthy, sub-standard kind of food instead of highlighting the positive points of Taco Bell, there was not even any excitement when she mentions the brand. Another participant thought that this was more realistic in a sense.
4.
The director Brett Ratner said “If I need a car in my movie, why not get a car that helping me reaching my budget?” What do you think of this?
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The people in the group unanimously agreed with this but also felt that it’s ok as long as it “doesn’t play too much with the script”. The group discussed and agreed that the context is vital for the product used. They agreed that if it is weaved into the film quite well it is harmless and helpful. The group discussed how to get the balance right, involving the viewers, the movie makers and the brands themselves. They felt that the key to getting product placement right was not making it too obvious to annoy or distract viewers, but just enough to recognise the brands. The group did agree that product placement has its place and helps funds movies, which is positive.
5.
Do you believe there are any ethical issues with product placement in movies?
Nobody in the group had a problem with being advertised too. One participant pointed out that big companies, such as Coke-Cola or Apple, have the budget to spend on advertising and they would “rather see the money used in film placement and help film budget then on billboards or TV ads, that only profit themselves” Another participant posed the question “Are we being manipulated though?” an answer to this by another participant who disagreed with the statement was “No, people in movies need to use things. Realistic movies should use realistic brands. Regular people use regular things; you wouldn’t call your iPad your “tablet” or your Kindle your “e-book reader”.
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1.
To aid the answering of Objective 1, based on the observation study and focus group, the researchers found that most people did not notice the majority of brands, since, on average, the sample could only remember 6.7% of the brands featured in Contagion.
2.
Viewers tend to recall products and services in which they have some interest on them or if they own a certain product or have been to a certain place which features in the movie. This could be seen in the results of the observation, as a lot of the participants that used Apple products were able to recall the Apple products used in the film. This supports Objective 1.
3.
There were no strong correlation between age and perception, as well as gender and perception. For the observation a range of ages and a mix of both genders (see figure
1), the results did not indicate any strong trends for either gender or within particular age groups. This is relative information to back up Objective 1.
4.
Also, context is extremely relevant to how the brands are going to be perceived. This was a key finding as the point was brought up and discussed in the focus group as well as backed up by secondary research. This related to both Objective 1 and
Objective 2.
5.
Product placement in films is a contract with both parties contributing. Companies can pay a lot of money for their products to be used in a particular context. Directors use product placement as major of income to achieve their budget. This secondary research supported the researchers to investigate Objective 2.
6.
The ethics can assess the negative aspects of product placement, which can involve expressive integrity, trustworthiness and deceptiveness. From the focus group, the audience did not feel that they were being persuaded to perceive a brand better because it featured in the film watched. They felt there was no ethical issue involved in the practice of product placement in movies. Both secondary and primary researches were used to meet Objective 2
7.
Based on secondary research there is no standardised process on how to make a product placement successful. Different elements seem to impact on the success or
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failure of brand integration, such as the involvement of the purchase. Examples were investigated to achieve Objective 3.
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Due to the small scale of this research it is difficult to see any trends emerging, one recommendation would be to get a larger sample of participants could be used to acquire a larger amount of data. More observation studies could be done with different samples of people each time. This could result in more diverse results or more definitive results. Trends would be easier to identify also, if there are any.
Tailored observations, using films targeted at specific group of people could be used to see if it has any effect on the recollection of product placed in that film; this could then be compared with results for non-specific target audiences.
A greater amount of information explored into the area of product placement in relation to sales decreases could be done. For this study not many sources were found that would report this kind of information, although this may be because it might have negative impacts on both the company and the film.
As an original idea for this research study, the researchers wanted to interview a number of industry experts. Due to limitations and resources, this could not take place. Interviews, opinions or industry examples of current and upcoming trends used in the industry from such persons would help to extend the research found in this study.
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Female
Female
Male
Male
Female
Female
Female
Male
Female
Male
Female
Male
Under 20
21-25
21-25
41-50
41-50
21-25
26-30
21-25
26-30
26-30
Over 50
Over 50
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Figure 2:
Brands
Total
Apple,
Audi,
BBC,
BlackBerry,
BMW,
Bud Light,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
Chevrolet,
Citibank,
CNN,
Coca-Cola
Dasani,
Dell,
Delta,
Dole,
Facebook,
FEMA,
Geico,
Kellogg's,
Kellogg's Corn Flakes,
Lenovo ,
Lumix,
Lysol,
Mazda,
Medex,
Mercedes,
Minnesota Department of Health,
NBC,
Panasonic,
Purell,
Rayovac,
Red Cross,
Rimowa,
Samsung,
Sony,
Sony Ericsson,
Sperian,
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1 1 1 1
1 1
1
1
1
0
0
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0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
6
0
0
0
1
0
9
3
0
0
1
0
0
3

10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
StarKist,
Taco Bell,
The North Face,
Twitter,
USA Today,
Vicks,
World Health Organization,
YouTube
0
1
3 1
1
4
1
7
1
1
3
1
5
1 1 1 1
1
1 1
5 5 1 0 4
0
1
6
0
1
0
5
0
Number of Recollections
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Average
Maximum Recollections per person
Minimum Recollections per person
Recollected Brands
Unnoticed Brands
3
7
0
12
33
3
2
1
5
4
8
7
6
0
Person
1
Person
2
Person
3
Person
4
Person
5
Person
6
Person
7
Person
8
Person
9
Person
10
Person
11
Person
12
Recollections
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