TLC: The Likely Candidate… for Product Placement

TLC, which ofcourse really stands for The Learning Channel, has plenty of do-it-yourself-type programs from Trading Spaces to What Not To Wear. With both reality and DIY elements, plenty of product placements can be found in almost every frame. In the process of building, shopping and sometimes just living, brands are thrown all over the place. Another likely vehicle for placement is cooking shows. Food brands that want to be recognized can simply pay to get their products placed in any cooking show or meal they want to be associated with. This method is targeted, allows for frequent appearances, and can help to establish a desired brand image.



Put these two vehicles together and what do you get? Take Home Chef: a reality/cooking show on TLC. In this show, Chef Curtis Stone (a tall, handsome, blonde Aussie I might add) enters a grocery store and picks out an unsuspecting shopper. After initially shocking the guest, Curtis comes up with a menu, buys the groceries, and goes home with them to cook them a dinner. Typically, Curtis chooses women who are cooking for a husband or boyfriend that they want to surprise. Not only is it fun to watch but there is product placement galore, in every episode.

Today’s episode was no exception. Like every episode, it began in Gelson’s supermarket; one that I’m assuming is regionally limited to the West Coast as each episode is set in one California city or another. Since Curtis and his guest are followed around the store by a camera crew it’s hard not to pick out the brand names on the shelves. Today, Tide laundry detergent, Pam cooking spray, several boxes of Betty Crocker dessert mixes, and Evian bottled water particularly stood out. Then there’s the ride home. Curtis always catches a ride home with the guest, making her car stand out. Today’s guest drove a white Land Rover… not bad. Not to mention all of the cars that were passed in the parking lot like the Jeep Cherokee and the Mitsubishi Spyder parked across from hers. Curtis then always has the guest take him to some sort of home store where he buys her some sort of kitchen appliance or tool. Today, the store was not shown prominently but in the past Crate and Barrel has been known to make an appearance.




When cooking the actual meal, this episode was a little bit different. Not many brand named foods were used, as the guest had a complete vegetable and herb garden in her backyard. The one brand that did standout in this episode, however, was C&H sugar, both granulated and powdered which were used for the Peach Melba dessert. Lastly, the guest used her blue Motorola Razr phone multiple times to call her husband and make sure the dinner would be a surprise. With similar formats for each episode, Take Home Chef poses several opportunities for Gelson’s, products placed on grocery store shelves, foods used to make the meal, cars, cell phones, home stores and appliances. Honestly, so much is placed in this show that sometimes I’m paying more attention to the brands constantly flashing across the screen than the progression of the show itself. And for that, I give both TLC and marketers props. If they can get me to watch Folger’s Coffee cans more closely than a cute, blonde, Australian chef… they must be doing something right. Take Home Chef airs Mon-Thurs at 5pm and 5:30pm with new episodes Friday at 7pm.

In the World of Celebrities, Product Placement Opportunities Are Everywhere

I recently found a great product placement source, and I feel kind of silly because I’m not sure how I missed it before. Not having much luck (or the attention span) of my own in spotting any new product placement in the past week’s TV shows or new movie releases, I decided to search out some secondary sources. Like most other Gen Y blogger, I went right to Google to see what’s been going on in the product placement world. After searching keywords “product placement,” I found this useful site appropriately entitled, “Product Placement News.” It came up as the third result after Wikipedia and Howstuffworks.com. Again, I’m not sure how I haven’t run into this one before. I’m almost embarrassed to call myself a product placement fanatic.

Anyway, this site is set up like a blog and contains articles on everything product placement, with Jeff Greenfield as the primary author. Articles range from films to events to music, and cover several different angles of product placement, pretty much any branded entertainment in the Hollywood sphere. My blog is simply amateur compared to this one… not that I ever claimed it not to be. But hey, I’m just a girl with a passion.

One of the more recent topics that caught my eye was about Wolfgang Puck. Apparently, it has recently been discovered that one of his caterers has Hepatitis A and may have exposed several celebrities to it. Greenfield estimates that the infected employee has worked 14 celebrity parties catered by Wolfgang in the past month, the most recent being a Sports Illustrated party celebrating this year’s swimsuit issue. To me, this screams crisis management, but the geniuses at Product Placement News found a way to put a relative spin on it. Ofcourse no one would want to place any Wolfgang Punk branded products in their show or film now, but what about the placements that have already taken place? Now media vehicles with Wolfgang Puck products may find the opposite effect of placement. In essence past product placement efforts of the celebrity chef are now worthless. A subsequent article suggests that marketers use Twinrix, a vaccine for both Hepatitis A and B, in product placement endeavors to offset the controversy and take advantage of the buzz surrounding it. Lastly, the site named Wolfgang Puck the “Worst Product Placement of the Week.”

Product Placement on the Big Screen

So I may have taken a week off from blogging, but I still did my homework. For the most part I steered clear of television during break- except ofcourse for the new episode of Grey's on Thursday. Instead I spent most of the week relaxing, traveling, and um other things that college students do on spring break. So I didn't have many opportunities to spot many placement opportunities. Luckily for you, but certainly not for me, I got stuck in an airport for 5 hours in Baltimore on St. Patricks Day. Needless to say, by the time I finally got home I was in no mood to do anymore running around. So I skipped out on the St. Patty's Day festivities and settled for a more low key night and saw the new movie Premonition which had just come out to theaters the night before.

At first, product placement, blogging, and any type of marketing work was far from my mind... but by the middle of the film I realized the Ford logo had flashed in front of me at least 10 times. At this point, I was actively looking for it. Sandra Bullock's character drove a Ford Explorer which was in the movie almost as much as she was. Her husband gets in an accident driving a Ford Taurus. All of this can be explained when Sandra's character visits her husband at work- a Ford dealership. Ofcourse the camera panned a line of cars in the dealership lot and a few more in the showroom while she was there. I'd say Ford got what they paid for. Another big shot in the movie was Nationwide Insurance which is frequented a couple times while the couple seperately make sure the husband's life insurance policy is sufficient in case Sandra's premonition really does come true. When the husband leaves the second time, the company window with the Nationwide logo is shown prominently. Maybe I was experiencing some product placement withdrawal but these placements really stuck out for me. As I watched the movie and kept a look out for these instances I kept thinking I can't wait to post about this! Ofcourse it was no Talladega Nights, but the placement efforts were enough to make me sit up, notice, and abandon my no-work policy during break.

A Change of Pace...

Ok so I took a week off for IC's spring break- much needed. Hope you didn't miss me too much. Not to continue disappointing any product placement enthusiasts out there but we're going to continue this break and get a little off subject for this post. So for my Audience Research class, I was assigned a group project where we need to pick a brand, target it toward a segment of college students, and design an effective media plan for it. My group picked Pinkberry, a relatively new chain of all-natural, fat-free frozen yogurt. Another major component of this course is the use of Second Life to explore its use as a marketing platform for various real world and in-world companies.





Due to the press coverage and buzz being created around SL it would be a good idea for Pinkberry to get in on this marketing opportunity while it's still fresh. I would suggest that the brand build a single shop at first to sell its products to avatars. It would also be beneficial to include a link, in or around the building, to the company's Web site. That way consumers can order Pinkberry products to be shipped to them in the real world, or at least find out where they can find real world locations. Currently Paper Couture, a clothing store for fashion-forward avatars, has a similar shop with a link to their Web site but with a focus on clothing and accessories rather than food. However, as a strictly in-world company neither shop or the Web site have anything to offer for consumers' real world counterparts. Pinkberry's shop should have an obvious purpose and prominent presence in SL, like Paper Couture. The accompanying link will simply serve as an added marketing tool to leverage real world success from in-world efforts.

If this first shop proves to be successful in terms of sales and awareness, Pinkberry should continue building shops thoughout SL. However, I do not think the brand should rent or build an island as it is not yet well established and therefore may not be able to promote an entire island with relevant and brand-related material and buildings. Two SL islands that come to mind in terms of inefficiency are the real world ad agency Leo Burnett and the fan-built island Kawaii Ku. While both of these companies are very different they both share one common aspect in terms of their SL presence. Neither of their islands seem to have any real or related purpose- no HQ with a brand name or logo, no employees to talk with, nothing that really could be recognized as associated with any specific company at all. In fact, if I hadn't been told the names of the islands and their owners I never would have known where I was or why. Now I have to admit I'm not an SL expert at all, but there's plenty of us newcomers out there, and if we can't find or even recognize a brand that has established a presence in SL then that could lead to wasted efforts or losses for the company. Since I'm not sure Pinkberry could create an island with a clear purpose and enough relevant buildings and activities on it, they should probably stick with a single store with a link to its Web site. Expansion in SL should depend on expansion in "first life."

To explore SL first hand, and take a stab at staking out the plethora of marketing efforts it serves, visit the Second Life Web site and sign up! Also if you have time check out the Leo Burnett site and its island in SL. See if you have better luck at finding a connection between the company and its island's purpose.

The iPhone Should Be Ringing Ideas for Marketers

The new iPhone by Apple… yea let’s talk about that. Since it’s not coming out until June there’s obviously not any product placement of it yet, or any that I’ve seen anyway. And since TV networks mostly show repeats over the summer, I’m expecting to see a lot of the iPhone in the movie theaters in the coming months. Even though the product hasn’t hit markets yet I wouldn’t put it past Steve Jobs to allow the film industry access to it for sets that are currently taping or have recently finished. What a great way to get the early adopter market. Not to mention distributing them on the Hollywood scene where the product could also be seen in celebrity tabloids and entertainment updates. But by next fall I can see the iPhone on every sitcom, drama and reality show on TV. This goes double for NBC’s Heroes which is already known for their use of iPod product placement in this season.

An article in a daily California newspaper gave a great review of the commercial that is currently being aired. I must admit I’m a big fan. I know this isn’t an ad blog but the creative and execution behind the commercial is genius. By following the history and technology of the telephone in the film and television industries, the various clips of well-known characters answering the phone in this “Hello?” ad is sure to appeal to both Hollywood buffs and the tech-savvy. The commercial can be found on YouTube.

The Black Donnellys: A New Place for Manly Products

So last night I was watching the second episode of the new series The Black Donnellys on NBC. I kind of found it accidentally last week and fell in love with it. It kind of reminds me of The Sopranos with a Boondock Saints twist. Basically, it's about 4 Irish brothers living in New York City. Since they were younger, they were always getting into trouble. The series follows them into adulthood where they are slowly getting themselves in trouble with the Italian mob. It's a little intense for TV but is softened by the love and loyalty the brothers have for each other. We learn that they would pretty much do anything to protect each other which is ironically what gets them all into trouble in the first place. Plus the main female character is Tommy's love interest Jenny. The two have liked each other since they were kids, but finding this out too late she is engaged to someone else. You might recognize Jenny as Alex from the O.C. who played both Marissa and Seth's girlfriend. How could you forget that one?

Most of the clear product placement in last night's episode were of products that would probably appeal to, and be recognized by, a male audience. All of the cars parked on the street were shown from a front angle with their logos prominently up front such as the red Ford Mustang parked outside the bar owned by the Donnellys. Also, the Donnelly's signature car is a beat up Ford van which is shown when Tommy and Kevin have to move a dead body from the bar's dumpster. To get even more morbid, Tommy enters a hardware store to buy a mallett to fit the body into a barrel- I'll spare the details. During this scene, a shelf full of Black and Decker tools are in the background. Lastly, in the bar scenes there are many shots of the fully stocked bar with liquor bottle labels facing forward. Unfortunately, I didn't have my glasses on and couldn't read the labels clearly, but it seemed like a product placement buffet. I'll be prepared for next week. Like ABC, NBC also streams full episodes of their shows on their Web site. So if you missed it last night you can watch it here. My advice is to DOO IT!