It has been the purpose of this thesis to find a way in which Danish brand holding companies can maximise their benefits from using the marketing tool of product placements and the activation of product placements through a broader promotional campaign. The point of view of the thesis has therefore been the brand holders.
In order to reach this overall objective the authors presented three sub-problems that would also serve a sort of structural framework for the rest of the thesis:
1) How can product placement and product placement activation be defined and employed as a part of a Danish brand holding company’s marketing mix?
To answer this question the authors first of all defined product placement (PPL) as “The paid and/or unpaid, verbal and/or physical incorporation of a brand or product in any given media”.
This definition seeks to cover all aspects of PPL that are relevant to solve the overall thesis problem.
It was hereafter pointed out that PPL will be de-regulated by the EU primo 2010, which can be perceived as a further incentive for brand holders to engage in PPL and therefore also for this thesis to be written.
The next major step of the thesis was to present a range of theoretical and empirical work previously done on PPL by renowned international scholars. We saw that the industry contains four major stakeholders, namely the productions companies, the brand holders, the media
agencies and finally the consumers. The production companies represent the “artistic” side of the industry in the sense that they are the producers of media such as movies, music videos and TV-shows. The brand holders on the other hand represent the commercial side together with the agencies who act as facilitators of the PPL process between production companies and brand holders. We saw that both scholars and consumers are positive towards the use of product placements compared to more traditional marketing methods such as TV-commercials.
It was shown that some of the most important aspects of PPL for brand holders to take into consideration are prominence and modality. Together they say something about how the actual placement is integrated in a given media. Previous research has shown that Audio-Visual PPLS lead to higher brand recognition, and a high level of prominence leads to higher brand recall than subtle placements. Other factors that need to be considered are brand match, target audience fit, coverage, setting and celebrity endorsements.
Previous research on PPL has shown that the primary effects of placements are on consumers’
brand awareness and perceived brand image. The authors used the Consumer Decision Model (CDM), the Hierarchy of Effects Model (HoE) and the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) to show how consumers are affected by product placements. Looking at the HoE model we pointed out that using PPL as a stand-alone marketing effort does not have an effect on purchasing
behaviour. This is in accordance with previous research by prominent scholars and therefore gave the authors a theoretical basis for concluding that Danish brand holders should use PPL activation as a means of increasing sales.
This thesis defines the activation of PPL as: “The effectuation of promotional activities by the commercial parties of the product placement industry in order to support a product placement”.
The role of activation is to further connect a brand or product to a media through a broader promotional campaign. We identified a wide range of possible activation elements available to brand holding companies when seeking to maximise their benefits from activation. The major categories are the digital and the analogue elements. A wide array of elements was presented
The Activation Process Model showed the process an activation element goes through from being sent out by a brand holder to the time it is received and reacted on by the consumer.
The theoretical part of the thesis has shown that activation has the potential to lead to increased sales for Danish brand holders and is therefore considered by the authors to be the best way for them to benefit from PPL. If the objective of the brand holder is increased brand awareness or image then PPL may be able to do this by itself.
2) How is product placement and product placement activation used and perceived today by industry stakeholders?
We had now established a theoretical basis for our further research. This research was done by interviewing several industry stakeholders from brand holding companies and agencies. However scholars were also interviewed. Furthermore the authors had developed a questionnaire for the interviewees to answer.
It soon became clear that all interviewees look at PPL as a very positive and effective marketing tool, but it was furthermore evident that PPL is nowhere near as widely used in Denmark as in the US for instance. The primary effects of PPL according to the interviewees are increased brand awareness and image, which is in accordance with the previously conducted research mentioned above.
From the interviews and questionnaires there was no consistent answer to what sort of PPL prominence is perceived to be the most effective for brand holders. This seems to be completely case specific. There is more or less consensus, however, when it comes to the use of agencies to facilitate the process. All interviewed brand holders collaborate with agencies in one way or another. This is because the agencies have a lot of knowledge and experience from doing PPLs.
They also have the best relationships to production companies and generally speaking they have the best connections. Trust and relationships are considered immensely important in the industry and brand holders therefore benefit from working with agencies.
PPL process bottlenecks are considered to be logistics, lead-time, internal resources and lack of control of the end-result.
The recommendations were summarized in the following key-phrases:
Measurement tool for PPL do exist, but are questionable to some degree, which is also confirmed by brand holders.
All interviewees believe that the use of PPL will increase in the future and most believe that it will become more and more sophisticated.
It is evident that most interviewees believe that in order to make the best use of a PPL it should be activated. They agree that activation is the way for brand holders to increase sales. This is in accordance with the theoretical research dealt with above. However, most Danish brand holders don’t have the sufficient resources to properly activate PPLs as they most often view PPL as a peripheral marketing activity. From the analysis we conclude that if PPLs are used as a platform for a broader marketing campaign, then more resources may be released to activate them.
Finally, the interviewees agree that measuring the effects of activation elements is basically the same as measuring any other marketing tools. This means that traditional measurements such as number of press clippings, surveys etc. can be utilized.
3) How can a set of general recommendations on how to use product placement and the activation hereof be developed for Danish brand holding companies?
The first two sub-problems both confirm PPL to be an effective marketing tool that can lead to increased brand awareness and image. They further confirm that through the activation of PPLs brand holders can make consumers go all the way to a purchase situation that will increase sales.
In this final sub-problem the authors introduced integrated activation (IA) as a management philosophy with the purpose of obtaining as many synergy effects as possible from the use of activation. IA proposes that securing consistency in communications both externally and internally can lead to a whole range of benefits for brand holders such as increased profits through synergies, development of networks and relationships and less brand image confusion.
Hereafter, four recommendations for Danish brand holders regarding PPL and activation were proposed. The recommendations were all based on findings from through out the thesis.
) Use product placement as a platform for an integrated activation campaign rate with a specialized agency
4) Develop measurement tools for evaluation and control purposes
In this thesis, the authors have focused on how Danish brand holding companies can increase their benefits from using PPL and PPL activation. The results show how PPL should be utilized
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