Typology

The placement of brands or products in media has been described as a subtle-analogue

advertisement format (Andersen, 2006). By which is meant that it can be considered to be in the same category “analogue” as traditional mass-communication advertisement such as TV

commercials (as opposed to the digital category, that includes web and mobile phone-based marketing, viral marketing and others). But where the more conventional forms of analogue advertisements are very obvious in their intentions towards the consumers the subtle-analogue category in which PPL is found the intentions are less noticeable to the consumers. PPL is a more implicit and indirect type of marketing, since the consumer is being exposed to the brand or product in a situation where the consumer is not prepared for it and therefore might not realize that he is actually exposed to a media that contains more or less carefully thought about product and brands. Of course this is also a potential down side to PPL, since if the viewer is not aware of the PPL how can the marketer be sure that it is affecting him?

After having established the characteristics of the PPL industry we will now look into what we believe to be the most prominent shapes and types of PPL. We believe that a very useful way of dividing PPLs is by looking at their prominence and modality respectively. As we shall see the prominence refers to the role of the placement in the media, and modality to the mode in which it is presented to the viewer.

4.6.1.1 Prominence

The prominence of a product placement refers to its position in the media in which it is placed.

When talking about the prominence of a brand placement there are, in our opinion, especially three aspects that are highly relevant to present here. These are duration, importance and frequency.

Duration refers to how long the placed brand or product is in focus (Andersen, 2006). A practical example to this is how many seconds does Will Smith takes to put on his Converse All Stars

shoes in the Movie “I Robot”, while the camera is focusing on his feet.

Importance of a brand placement can be estimated by asking the question: How significant is the relevance of the placement to the given media? Ole E. Andersen (2006) describes three levels of importance that each says something about script-integration of a PPL. The lowest level of importance is named screen-placements, which refers to PPLs that are visible but hasn’t got any relevance to the script. These are typically props in the background that are meant to blend in with the natural environment of the media. The second level of importance is the

script-placement, in which the brand is either mentioned or used as a part of the natural storyline. The highest level of importance is referred to as plot-placements and is characterized by having the brand play a role in the actual script.

The last prominence aspect is frequency, or how often the brand or product in question is being exposed throughout the given movie, show or the like. In the extremely popular TV talent contest

“American Idol”, the three judges all have a large red cup, with “Coca-Cola” written on it, placed right in front of them (always with the logo facing the camera). This means that every time the camera films the judges the Coca-Cola brand is getting exposed to the viewers, resulting in a very high placement frequency.

Source: Own production based on Andersen (2006).

Prominence

The position of a placement in a  given media 

Duration 

The period of time a placement is  exposed in a given media 

Importance 

Three levels: 

‐Plot 

‐Script 

‐Screen 

Frequency 

How often a placement is exposed  in a given media 

Figure 2: Aspects of prominence

It should be noted that all of the mentioned aspects of prominence could be misused. The viewer will probably be annoyed and frustrated if a particular brand is shown over and over again, without any obvious reason or purpose to the movie (Media Works, 2009). Consequently, the viewer’s attitude towards the brand might suffer. A second thing to note is that the marketers seeking to place their brands in a medium often do not have a very big saying in how these brands can be incorporated. These decisions are often up to the production companies. Figure 2 shows the different aspects of PPL prominence.

4.6.1.2 Modality

Gupta & Lord (1998) describe modality as “the mode of presentation (the senses activated by the stimulus)”, meaning the form in which the product placement is manifested in the media

production. There are three different types of modality and these are Visual, Audio and Audio-Visual. The visual mode includes physical placements that aren’t mentioned by name or referred to in any other way, but are only visually exposed to the viewers. These could be logos,

billboards or any kind of product that is present in the course of the production. Audio

placements on the other hand involve the mentioning of a brand name during the production, with out ever showing the actual product on screen. A placement can be said to be in the Audio

category if for example a game show host mentions a brand in a question to the contestants or two movie characters discuss whether they should go to Burger King or McDonalds for lunch.

The third kind of mode is a combination of an Audio and a Visual placement. If the two movie characters have their discussion just outside a Burger King restaurant and the fast-food giant’s logo is visible then this would be an Audio-Visual placement because the brand is not only mentioned it is also shown to the viewers. Figure 3 shows the different PPL modalities.

Source: Own production based on Gupta & Lord (1998)

Modality 

The mode in which a  product placement is  presented in a given media

Audio  Placements that are  mentioned but not shown in 

any physical form 

Visual  Physical placements that  aren’t mentioned by name  or referred to in any other 

way 

Audio‐visual  Placements that are both 

mentioned by name and  shown in its physical form