Suggestive Television

A couple of reports released last week revealed nothing terribly surprising about the state of television. And while it would be funny, in a Monty-Python-sort-of-way, to leave it at that and move on to this week’s real topic, I’m afraid I won’t be doing that.

Last week, Nielsen Media Research released a report on brand name product placement on network TV, and the results won’t shock you. In the 2004-05 season, product placement in primetime network programming was up 30% from the previous season. And while the metoric rise may not be shocking, the numbers might.

NBC led the pack with a startling 21,286 instances, nearly doubling the frequency of product appearances in the 2003-04 season. CBS came in at a distant second with 12,294 product placements, Fox was third with 10,422, and ABC finished fourth with 8,272. (Fox’s “American Idol” racked up nearly 3,000 by itself.) So, between the big four networks, you were potentially exposed to 52,274 instances of this sneaky, subliminal form of advertising for which companies are dishing out big bucks.

But does it work? Does a close-up shot of Joey’s pantry make you buy a box of Saltines? If you’re watching “The O.C,” and Marissa and Johnny are walking along the beach, talking about how Lunesta helped get them over their nightmares, will you go out and buy a bottle?

According to the experts, it’s not likely. Most marketing experts believe that product placement in this vein only reinforces the brand to its existing consumers. For example, in the past ten years Apple has gone to great lengths to get its computers in front of television and movie cameras. Nearly every computer you see on TV and in movies is a Mac, yet Mac sales have remained relatively flat.

So why do manufacturers dish out that kind of money for product placement when there is no proof it works? It’s all about branding their product to its existing consumers. In our brand-conscious society, if viewers see Joey drinking a Heineken, it casts the beer in a favorable light. And when “Joey”-watchers/Heineken-drinkers go to the supermarket, they are more likely to stick with Heineken than to try a Guinness or Bass (even if they don’t remember seeing Joey drink it).

Another report released last week by the Kaiser Family Foundation indicates that, to no one’s surprise, the amount of sex on the tube is on the rise. According to a KFF press release, “the study found that 70% of all shows include some sexual content, and that these shows average 5.0 sexual scenes per hour.” However, only 14% of those shows also had safe sex messages, such as discussions about contraceptives and abstinence. (The full report can be viewed at www.kff.org.)

So what do these findings tell us about today’s TV? Probably not as much as they tell us about its advertisers and ourselves. We know that sex sells. We know that television is demand-driven. So while these public-interest groups always seem to zero-in on the networks, it seems their real targets are sitting behind those Hungry Man dinners.

-From Pulse
November 17, 2005

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McMarketing 101

Seagram’s Gin. Verizon. HBO. Pepsi. Crown Royal. Budweiser. McDonald’s.

How many commercials do you hear on the radio for these companies? How many do you hear without realizing it?

There is a new trend, particularly in hip-hop, that is beginning to change the way companies market themselves. In March, McDonalds announced that, as part of a new marketing campaign, it was offering money to rappers who mentioned their Big Mac sandwich in their song lyrics. The amount the artist would be paid would be contingent on the amount of radio play it received; in essence, the bigger the hit, the bigger the check. One report puts the price tag at $1-$5 per play.

To accomplish this, McDonald’s turned to Maven Strategies, a marketing firm in Maryland that specializes in teaming up the rappers and the companies they represent. Their emphasis is non-traditional market placement; it was Maven Strategies that was responsible for Seagram’s hooking up with rapper Petey Pablo for the mention in “Freak-A-Leek.” In the song, Pablo says “Now I’ve gotta give a shout out to Seagram’s Gin, ‘cause I drink it and they payin’ me for it.” “Freak-A-Leek” was the number two hip-hop song of 2004, according to Billboard, racking up more than 350,000 radio spins. And “Freak-A-Leek was only one of five songs in which Maven got Seagram’s mentions.

The Maven philosophy is a simple one: rappers have been mentioning products in their lyrics for years. “Lookin’ at my Gucci it’s about that time.” In 1986, Run-DMC had a chart-topping hit with “My Adidas.” But historically, rappers have not been compensated for the advertising they have been doing for the companies. In the top 20 songs last year, brand names appeared almost 1,000 times. Cadillac, for example, garnered 70 mentions. Hennessy picked up 69. In ninety percent of these, the artists were paid nothing. Most of the remaining ten percent involved clients of Maven Strategies.

Tony Rome, Maven’s founder and president, recently told the Washington Post, “Hip-hop is the only music genre that embraces brands in their songs and because they are doing it, I think the hip-hop artists should be paid for it.” He says that if the remaining 90 percent were paid mentions, the cost to the mentioned businesses could have been upward of $1 billion.

Among watchdog groups, though, word apparently travels slowly. On Monday, Advertising Age magazine reported that a watchdog group, the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC), has spoken out against McDonald’s and the fast food chain’s efforts to use hip-hop to target preteens. The organization, as the name suggests, is a “national coalition of health care professionals, educators, advocacy groups and concerned parents who counter the harmful effects of marketing to children,” according to the group’s website. The CCFC argues that the campaign only counters the struggle to reduce childhood obesity rates. They call the plan a “new and deceitful way of targeting children,” saying that “these ‘adversongs’ are inherently deceptive.”

Soon, we may be seeing stickers on CDs reading, “Parental Advisory: Fast Food Lyrics.”

-From Pulse
September 29, 2005

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