Lesson 3.3 – The Financial Structure
of Entertainment Business
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
Entertainment Business Revenue Streams
Similar to sports products in that both products
can be developed into merchandise, used for
promotion, and create profit through sales of
ancillary products, licensing, and royalties
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
Entertainment Business Financial Structure
Ancillary products are products
related to or created from the core
product
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
Entertainment Business Revenue Streams
Because there are so many different
types of entertainment products, the
revenue generated by the marketing of
those products is very diverse
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
Entertainment Business Financial Structure
A single blockbuster Hollywood film can generate a
number of ancillary products:
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

Videos, DVDs, Electronic games
Cable TV and Pay-Per-View Rights
Licensed Merchandise
Film can be the basis for a video game, TV series,
book, or apparel (toys, games, apparel, etc)
The sale of those ancillary products makes a profit for
the film creators in the form of sales, royalties and
licensing fees
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
Consider the Star Wars franchise of films
Videos, DVDs, CDs & Video Games
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
Consider the Star Wars franchise of films
Licensed Merchandise and Apparel
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
Consider the Star Wars franchise of films
Licensed Merchandise and Apparel
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
Consider the Star Wars franchise of films
Licensed Merchandise and Apparel
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
Entertainment Business Financial Structure
Royalties are payments made to the
owner of copyrighted work for use of
their material
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
Entertainment Business Financial Structure
Songwriters like Bob Dylan and Paul
McCartney receive compensation when
other artists “cover” (record or perform
their own version) of the original song
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
Entertainment Business Financial Structure
Adele’s recording of “Lovesong” featured
on her smash album ‘21’ was originally
recorded by The Cure (which hit #2 on the
Billboard chart in 1989). Adele’s success
will be shared long term with The Cure in
the form of royalties.
Rolling Stone magazine reported in that
the show Glee pays an average of
$15,000 to $30,000 per song in
licensing fees, with the biggest names
getting more
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
Entertainment Business Financial Structure
As reported by the New York Times,
former reggaetón artist Hector
Delgado and the rapper Jayson
Musson were both told by friends,
after the fact, that their voices
appeared on the 2013 breakout hit,
“Harlem Shake.” Both artists are
featured prominently in the song but
said their work was sampled without
permission, and both negotiated to
get a cut of the payday from the
song’s overwhelming viral success.
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
Entertainment Business Financial Structure
An ongoing debate exists on whether
streaming online service provider
Pandora is fairly compensating artists
in the form of royalties, despite the
fact that they paid out $258.7 in
royalties in 2012 (according to a
story published on
businessweek.com). By comparison,
Pandora paid $1.48 per user in
royalties where Sirius XM paid an
average of $11.33 in royalties per
subscriber last year.
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
Entertainment Business Revenue Streams
A typical hollywood marketing strategy
includes planning the merchandising and
product tie-ins before planning the
casting and film production schedule
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
Product Placement
Hollywood Marketing Strategy
Increasingly, studios plan the merchandising,
products, DVD and electronic games and toys
they will tie in with their proposed film before the
actors and other technical staff are determined
Movies seen as revenue generators, artistic
statement is secondary
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
LESSON 3.3
Product Placement
Hollywood Marketing Strategy
If a film can be developed into a
franchise (a series of films which
will tie together), it will be!
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
Product Placement
Hollywood Marketing Strategy
In 2011, Harry Potter edged out Star Wars to
become the top-grossing franchise of all time. By
the summer of 2013, the eight Potter movies have
accumulated $7.7 billion in worldwide box office
sales. The top five film franchises in movie history
include Harry Potter, James Bond, Marvel’s
Cinematic Universe, Star Wars and The Lord of
Rings series.
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
Product Placement
Hollywood Marketing Strategy
Film producers plan original merchandise tied to
the film and also product placement of existing
products within the film.
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
Entertainment Business
Financial Structure
Product placement is an advertising
approach in which commercial
products and services are used within
the contest of certain media where the
presence of a particular brand is the
result of an economic exchange
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
Product Placement
Product Placement
Commonly referred to as product “tie-ins”
or product integration
When the featured product does not pay
for the exposure, it is referred to as a
product plug
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
Entertainment Business
Financial Structure
Not all product appearances are PAID
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
Entertainment Business
Financial Structure
Of the 40 top box-office films in the US Box Office in
2011, nearly 43 percent featured Apple product
placements, including iPads, MacBooks, and iMacs
despite the fact that Apple allegedly never pays for
product placement.
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
Entertainment Business
Financial Structure
However, Brandchannel found that for the first nine
months of 2012, Apple only appeared in 17% of topgrossing films, compared to 43% in 2011. That also
represented Apple’s lowest appearance rate since
2004, when the brand’s products showed up in just
11% of top films.
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
Entertainment Business
Financial Structure
World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) World
Heavyweight Champion, Phillip Jack Brooks (a.k.a.
CM Punk) has a Pepsi logo tattooed on his left
shoulder and is reportedly not a paid endorser of
Pepsi products
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
Entertainment Business
Financial Structure
Hit AMC series Mad Men featured Koss brand headphones
in a 2013 episode even though the company had no idea
it was written into the script. Koss executives revealed
they had no input into the storyline, and only found out
after watching the show along with the other 3.4 million
Americans who tuned in to watch that particular episode.
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
LESSON 3.3
Entertainment Business
Financial Structure
Product placement is one of the
fastest growing advertising mediums
in the entertainment industry
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
Entertainment Business
Financial Structure
Global product
placement spending
increased 11.7% to
$8.25 billion in 2012,
as marketers upped
their investments in
branded
entertainment for the
third consecutive
year, according to PQ
Media
Burger King in a video game
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
Entertainment Business
Financial Structure
In-game product
placements
generated $77.7
million globally in
2006 and are
expected to top $1
billion in worldwide
in-game advertising
spending by 2014
1 Bil +
1,000
800
Worldwide
In-Game
Advertising
Expenditures
(in Millions of
US Dollars)
600
400
295
200
77.7
0
2006
2007
2014
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
Entertainment Business
Financial Structure
Microsoft partnered with Chevrolet as the first ad
partner attached to its Kinect Xbox 360 gaming
interface when Chevy's Volt electric car will appear
as a product placement in "Kinect Joy Ride," one of
the first games designed for the popular console
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
Entertainment Business
Financial Structure
Xbox One, the new gaming console from
Microsoft, has been optimized for advertising
within its dashboard
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
Entertainment Business
Financial Structure
After the commercial success of his hit
“Gangnam Style”, PSY was reportedly paid $1
million for a three second spot in his follow up
video for the song, “Gentleman”, by a video
game developer. Several other brands are also
featured in the video.
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
Entertainment Business
Financial Structure
“Man of Steel,” the highly anticipated reboot of the
Superman franchise, earned $160-million from
product placements from more than 100 brands,
shattering the record held by “James Bond Skyfall”
which generated a then-record $45 million in
endorsements in 2012.
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
LESSON 3.3
Entertainment Business
Financial Structure
The concept has become so prominent that one
filmmaker (Morgan Spurlock from Super Size Me)
chose to create an entire film based on the idea of
product placement in which the documentary (called
The Greatest Movie Ever Sold) follows his efforts to
fund the entire movie through corporate product
placement deals
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
Entertainment Business
Financial Structure
Product placement
is presenting itself
in new, more
aggressive forms
“Brands are tripling their
revenue (just) because of a
mention in a Jay-Z song, so
we go after the companies
and partner them with the
demographic. If you hear
an artist talking about his
new Fila sneakers, you’re
going to think about it
when you go shopping.”
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
Entertainment Business
Financial Structure
During the NBA’s All-Star weekend, several brands
made unmistakable cameos. Rather than competing
in a traditional game of “horse”, three top NBA
players engaged in a shooting competition, spelling
out G-E-I-C-O rather than H-O-R-S-E. Throughout
the weekend’s All-Star coverage, television analyst
(and former NBA star player) Reggie Miller playfully
showed off his new BlackBerry cell phone on the air,
asking fans to text questions to “Reggie’s Mailbag”.
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
Entertainment Business
Financial Structure
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
Entertainment Business
Financial Structure
In celebration of the 25th anniversary of the
Discovery Channel’s wildly successful “Shark
Week” program, Volkswagen created a
"Volkswagen Beetle Shark Observation Cage" to
replace the standard shark cage used in prior
airings of the show
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
Entertainment Business
Financial Structure
More and more record labels are looking for ways to
recoup lost revenue through declining CD sales and
product placement provides a new avenue for
generating revenue.
According to a report published in Rolling Stone,
Britney Spears made a half million dollars from the
product placement in her music video for "Hold It
Against Me,” which featured products such as a
Sony television, Make Up Forever eye shadow and
dating website Plenty of Fish
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
Entertainment Business
Financial Structure
The 9.5 minute music video for Lady Gaga’s hit song
“telephone” featured product placement for 10
different brands, including Virgin Mobile, Miracle Whip,
Diet Coke, HP and Wonderbread (among others)
Not all artists are advocates of product placement as
pop star M.I.A. had this to say about Gaga’s
“telephone” video: “Lady Gaga plugs 15 things in her
new video. Dude, she even plugs a burger! That’s
probably how [record labels] are making money right
now—buying up the burger joint, putting the burger in
a music video and making loads of burger money.”
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
Entertainment Business
Financial Structure
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
Entertainment Business
Financial Structure
“We Can’t Stop,” the first single from Miley Cyrus’
2013 album release, topped the iTunes singles
charts in 24 countries within 10 hours of its release,
no doubt giving a boost to the many brands that
appeared in the video
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
Entertainment Business
Financial Structure
Even authors and publishing companies engage in
product placement. For example, auto brands
make heavy appearances in the Twilight books
(Volvo is mentioned 16 times in the original book
and six times in Eclipse).
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
Entertainment Business
Financial Structure
Gordon Hodge, who follows the comic books business
for Thomas Weisel Partners, told the Wall Street
Journal that the product placement in comic books
“market is worth about $400 million to $450 million,
with Marvel controlling about 37% and DC capturing
around 33%.”
Marvel Entertainment has placed the Nike swoosh
onto a character’s T-shirt and on a car door in several
of its popular comic books (including “New X-Men”)
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
Entertainment Business
Financial Structure
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
Does Product Placement Work?
The decision to feature
Reese's Pieces in ET
catapulted the productplacement craft into the
Hollywood mainstream.
Sales of the candy
subsequently increased
80%.
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
Does Product Placement Work?
Etch A Sketch, Mr. Potato
Head and Slinky were toys in
the popular animated movie.
Etch A Sketch sales
increased 4,500 percent; Mr.
Potato Head sales increased
800 percent; Slinky, out of
business for 10 years, made
a comeback after getting
deluged with 20,000 orders!
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
Does Product Placement Work?
A Billabong brand jacket
featured in the second
Twilight film ignited a
buying frenzy. The brand
quickly sold out of the
jacket and it could later be
found on eBay going for
many times its retail price.
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
Does Product Placement Work?
USA Today reported that, when Jaguar automobiles
figured prominently in the story line of a 2012
episode of “Mad Men”, the brand experienced a
96.27% lift in "content consumption" (how often
people were talking about the brand on digital
devices), despite the fact that the brand wasn’t
portrayed in a positive light.
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
Does Product Placement Work?
That’s not to say product placement isn’t a risky
endeavor for both the brand and the film producer.
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
Does Product Placement Work?
Gitesh Pandya, editor of BoxOfficeGuru.com, told
Investors Business Daily that product placement
activity "has been going on for so long that most
consumers are used to it. The big concern is if they
overdo it with too many brand partners." In the
case of "Iron Man 3," the product placement for
Verizon FiOS is so obvious that it comes off as
crass, he says. "Their plug in the film is just
shameless," Pandya said." It's just blatant
promotion for the brand and it really has nothing to
do with the story."
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
Product Placement
Reverse Product Placement
Reverse product placement occurs
when real life products are developed
that match products featured in a
fictional context
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
Reverse Product Placement
In 2012, Staples (an
office supply chain
store) begain selling
“Dunder Mifflin”
branded copy paper
products after entering
a licensing agreement
with NBC for the rights
to use the name and
images from the
popular sitcom
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
LESSON 3.3
Reverse Product Placement
Later in 2012, Staples
began to carry more
Dunder Mifflin branded
products while a
statement from the
company suggested
revenue generated by
sales of the original
Dunder Mifflin copy
paper was “two times
what we expected.”
Copyright
© 2013 by Sports Career Consulting, LLC
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
LESSON 3.3
Reverse Product Placement
Brandchannel.com named Willy Wonka the
“greatest example of reverse product placement of
all time” in commemoration of the film’s 40th
anniversary (today, under the Nestlé umbrella, the
Wonka candy company still produces a range of
candy, from SweeTarts to Nerds, Gobstoppers to
Laffy Taffy and still makes extensive use of the
"golden ticket" for marketing opportunities)
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
LESSON 3.3
Reverse Product Placement
For the Twilight films, reverse product placement
occurs with the Infinite Jewelry Co.'s "Bella
Engagement Ring." After Edward proposed to Bella
in the last film, Infinite created a line of replica
engagement rings in different price ranges, from
$35 to $1,999. President Shelli Ashton said Infinite
worked directly with Twilight author Stephenie
Meyer to create both the ring and "Bella' Bracelet.”
The result? According to Ashton, the company sold
"tens of thousands of bracelets and rings all over
the world including Russia, Japan, Brazil, Germany
and Australia."
Intro to Basic SEM Principles
LESSON 3.3
Reverse Product Placement
A deal was announced
between Frito-Lay and WalMart in which 1.5 million
packages of “Cheesy Poofs”,
the snack made famous in
Comedy Central’s cartoon
show South Park, would be
available exclusively at WalMart stores to celebrate the
show’s 15th season