Importance of product placement as promotional tool

Often in such cases, the educational and promotional campaigns are conducted. What does traditional brand promotion mean nowadays? Why does an ordinary advertising do not work? Consumer today is more conscious and demanding; that is why conventional way of product brand promotion is not enough.

Nowadays, marketers try to reach for unconventional marketing tools. To such kind forms of marketing communication include:. Ambient media advertising, marketing —alternative and innovative solutions in the public space and generate consumer astonishment by engaging them. Guerilla marketing—unconventional, most often controversial actions connecting different media based on low cost, prepared specially for a specific client, and are implemented in the short term, often on the edge of the law.

Buzz marketing—global madness, euphoria, and hysteria, encompassing informal discussion about the particular product, service, and company as well as giving people a reason to talk about the brand, goods and services, and the possibility of the establishment of this conversation.

Viral marketing—encouraging clients to provide marketing content to others, which causes a geometric increase the number of recipients. Tryvertising—incorporation of goods or services in the daily lives of consumers in so natural manner that his subsequent purchasing decisions are based not only on advertising messages but also above all on their own experience. Product placement blended promotion —placement in films, theater performances, radio and television programs, and other communication media of a brand, product, or situation that presents a certain pattern of behavior, which is promoted by the sponsor.

Ambush marketing—marketing strategy involving the promotion of private label during major sport events without charging a license fee to the event organizer; for this reason, it is frequently on the edge of the law.

Unconventional measures at the sales point, which include scent marketing, audio marketing, visual merchandising, and unconventional indoor advertising. Unconventional advertising forms on the Internet—screensavers, desktop marketing, and podcasting.

Mobile marketing—marketing activities conducted with the use of mobile devices that consumers are used to and most often takes the form of mobile message or mms but also a permission communication. Advertorial—a form of press advertising such as editorial, like a sponsored or promotional article.

Infomercials—are the equivalent of sponsored articles on television, like a paid advertisement [ 67 ]. Unconventional and new forms of promotion are different from traditional, primarily in an innovative and unusual character, which increases the chances of drawing attention as well as a greater emotional involvement of the viewer. These tools form a new solution to fastly and more effectively to reach the consumer.

One of the customs and rapidly growing forms of promotion is product placement. This is a relatively new form of promotion, especially on the European market. There are lot of definitions of a given phenomenon.

First, it was used to the practice of placing products in movies and then in the scientific community [ 68 ]. Table 1 shows some of them. Source : own study based on a literature query [ 69 — 75 ]. In literature, one can find product placement under other conceptions like brand placement, tie-in placement, or plug-in placement. There are several forms of product placement depending on which emphasis is placed:.

Generic placement attempts to draw attention of the viewer on the product, ignoring informations about brand and manufacturer. Utility placement in this case, is the demonstration of the possibility of using the product. Brand placement includes the demonstration of the product and information about the brand and producer. Corporate placement—the company name like a neon sign or advertisement on the street appears during the transmission. Organization placement—the promotion object is mentioned by the name of organization or institution [ 76 ].

Selected types of these forms have different impacts on the effectiveness of the recipient. The product, which is directly exposed, observes approx. If there is a verbal mention of the product, approx. Product placement as a process combines several elements of promotion like sponsorship, advertising, public relations, and publicity Figure 4.

Frequently, it is difficult to set clear boundaries between the product placement and publicity or sponsorship. Live stream advertising is just a sponsorship, and brands appearing in live programs should be treated like publicity but not a product placement [ 79 ].

Product placement as a mixed form of promotion. Source : [ 78 ]. Although, the product placement is an effective tool of marketing communication, it is not without drawbacks.

However, numerous advantages which affect the effectiveness of product placement cause that these negative elements become less visible. Summary of positive and negative aspects of product placement presented below.

An alternative to the traditional forms of advertising—product placement in contrast to television communication does not affect the interruption of the broadcast.

The advertising blocks cause viewers annoyance. Credibility of the message—brands presented in film or TV series introduce an atmosphere of authenticity. The recipient, seeing on the screen the products that they know from the real world, is gaining confidence in the presented content. Ennoblement of the product—brand in the audiovisual transmission occurs in the company of celebrities who are using them.

According to the viewer, they are attractive, so they become an object of desire. Low cost and high efficiency—the cost of placing the product is much lower than the one the advertiser incurs in the case of television advertising.

Often companies have the possibility of placing the brand in exchange for providing props for the film, which is a minimal cost to them. Unlimited range—product placement in film provides a viability of reaching out to a wider audience, because the film can be seen in any place of the world. It is an attractive offer for companies operating globally, because they have a chance to get to an international customer base.

The ability to promote products prohibited in classic advertising—product placement creates a space where producers can present their goods prohibited by law in the advertising. These include such product as an alcohol and tobacco products. Movies are extremely attractive for manufacturers of such kind of products, because in the classic promotion way, they have fewer opportunities than, for example, food.

Unlimited access—each audiovisual work appears in several mass media; in the case of films, the first is movie theater, then the Internet, DVD, and television. The viewer therefore has unlimited access to the image, and thus located product can be seen many times. Unpredictable number of customers—it is difficult for manufacturers to predict whether the film or any other works will succeed or not.

Careful selection of the cast and a good idea for a film script do not guarantee a success. It may happen that using of brand placement will incur costs, but the investment will not return.

Bad placement—the receipt of product placement depends on the scriptwriters who bring a brand to the film. If done ineptly, the manufacturers and sponsors of the video project may expose the negative reviews from the audience. In the era of the Internet, bad opinion spreads very quickly. For example, let us take a car as a product for placement.

Let us take another scene with the same car crashing but where the car after all will look like a pile of metal; the car brand can be received having low quality and not worth of trust. Keep ahead of the time—the introduction of product placement takes place on the stage of the scenario in the case of feature films which may even be a few years before filming. At this time, product can change the visual identification and some external characteristics logo, package, etc.

Limited opportunity for differentiation of communication—the situation applies to brands operating globally. Sometimes a product comes in different countries under a different name or not present at all, which is some kind of limitation that does not allow to fully exploit the potential of this kind of promotion tool.

Ignorance of the placement brand leads to uselessness of product placement as a tool for marketing communication. Low sales effect—product placement carries out the functions of branding. Therefore, this tool requires a support of other forms of promotion that will make the consumer decide to purchase. Lack of control over the life of product in the film—once located the product is located in the film forever.

It may happen that the product will be withdrawn or start to be positioned in a different way, thus making its presence in the film out of date. One of the main issues concerning product placement is to investigate its effectiveness.

Russell and Belch created a model for assessing the impact of product placement Figure 5. According to this model, assessing the value of product placement should take into account three variables: characteristics of the placement, characteristics of the context, and characteristics of the recipient. In addition, there are two types of placement: single placement and integrated placement. Types of placement can also be mixed with each other [ 80 ].

Model assessing the impact of product placement. Source : [ 80 ]. The research carried out so far regarding the product and brand placement showed a positive relationship between placement exposing and memory variables such as reminder and recognition. Significant differences between explicit and concealed placement are also found [ 81 ].

In concealed placement, only attributes such as appearance of the product without enhanced integration and convergence of high plot or content are used [ 82 ]. The main carriers for product placement are mass media and entertainment such as movies, serials, TV shows, video games, books, or theater [ 83 ]. The modern consumer of the entertainment mass media in everyday life rarely focuses all its attention on the content transmitted in the mass media [ 84 ].

The source of destruction can be cooking, babysitting, phone call, and multitasking with other mass media such as an electronic book or some smart devices [ 86 ].

This powerful marketing tool takes beginnings of filmmaking in the s. Of course, product placement in those days differs the current one but still represents the first steps in the mass film production [ 87 ]. A brand placement is not just a commercial of a product. It is a subtle way to integrate brand with the plot. While movies and TV shows are at the forefront of using placement techniques, the practice gains its popularity in the other media such as radio, music, books, or video games.

There can be a lot of factors that stimulate the growth of popularity of brand placement—Internet growth, appearance of new media like video games, or demission of traditional media like newspapers [ 88 ]. The process of product and brand placement was participated basically by three groups of interest: client, studios, and agencies [ 80 ].

Brand placement is gaining its popularity. On one hand, this tool is less expensive than a s TV spot, and sometimes even more effective and on the other hand provides an access to the wide audience [ 89 ]. Of course, this study does not show an overall view of the impact of brand placement that brand awareness increases with product placement [ 90 ]. Research showed that brand placement can be a good alternative to a traditional advertising especially when consumers nowadays try to avoid commercials.

But the program image played an important role in the changes in brand image [ 92 ]. However, there are some objections to the brand placement because not every brand is suited for placement in all contexts.

If the brand does not fit to the story or plot, the placement can actually be detrimental. Research conducted in shows that consumer preferences can be created partly under the influence of brand placement in the text. In his study on mental models Garnham , p. As Zwaan and Radvansky , p. Firstly, mental models are incomplete. They always go through the process of transformation due to the vast range of factors affecting them.

Secondly, people have limited control over their mental models. The formation of a mental model of an individual has taken all his lifetime influenced by the conditions he was surrounded and many other factors, therefore they have a very limited control over their mental models whatsoever. Thirdly, mental models are unstable. Fourthly, there are no boundaries in mental models, meaning that individual mental models can comprehend according to its characteristics, and analyse any kind of information received.

Fifthly, mental models are obscure. Mental models cannot be formulated specifically but only can be perceived in an obscure manner. In their major work on connection between mental models and brand placement Yang et al p. According to Moriarty , p. In a study undertaken by Sapolsky and Kinney , pp. The result was that a combination of visual cues and verbal references to the brand in the scenes of a movie was the most effective, although the most expensive at the same time.

Also, product recall was found to be high when product appeared jointly with a major character or the main character in the film which provided greater visibility for the product. Delorme and Reid , p. It was also concluded that the context in which the brand appears is important and that young people are the most susceptible for product placement. Product placement can be described as a hybrid message, according to Balasubramanian , p.

Beckstead , p. Nebezahl and Jaffe , p. Opinions differ in regard to whether product placements help for the brand to be remembered by viewers. Researchers like Babin and Carder b, p. A focus group study undertaken by DeLorme and Reid , p. This finding partially justifies the view that product placement will be especially efficient if it is not used on its own, but is being practiced together with other marketing tools.

Avery and Ferraro undertook a research on brands and products shown on TV following prime-time television programs for the duration of one week which revealed following results:. Weaver , p.

This type of dimension involves the appearance of the product on the screen and can be varied according to number of appearances, camera shot style, etc. Auditory dimension of product placement consists of the name of the brand being mentioned in a dialogue. Variations within that type of dimension include tone of voice, frequency of mentioning and the general context.

Plot connection. Third product placement dimension includes the product being integrated within the plot of the storyline. Identification of Aston Martin cars with James Bond movies is a clear example for that type of dimension. Lectures are advertisements that are spoken to audience, whereas dramas are advertisements that draw the audience itself into a story.

Product placement happens as suggested by actor, director, or set decorator to give a realistic touch to the scene. Product placement happens as a trade. For example, television director can agree to feature a specific brand of bottled water during a program in return to the water being supplied for free during casting. Product placement can be purchased. For instance, a product of a specific brand is used by the main character and the brand name of the company is clearly visible for the viewers.

This placement of branded goods or services is often found in entertainment, namely in movies or TV. If the lead actor is drinking a clearly labeled Coca-Cola beverage or using a clearly labeled Samsung cell phone, then this is product placement. Certain movies work with multiple brands.

In most cases, these large brands will have paid large sums of money for their brand to be placed in these movies. While the product placement cost can be high, the payout can be even higher for the brand.

Aside from an increase in profits, product placement can also boost brand recognition. The goal is for the prospective consumer to be positively influenced by the brand , without overtly noticing the placement of that brand.

The ultimate goal of superior placement is to positively influence their perception of your brand or product so you buy it. Just as with media, big-name corporate brands will pay top dollar for prime space on the retail floor and on shelves.

Brands will also pay to limit shelf space for their competitors; these fees are known as slotting fees. Data on the cost for slotting fees is not readily available, since retailers closely guard these numbers. These large fees can make it difficult for smaller brands or businesses to break into the commercial retail market.

So, you may not be able to command top-notch shelf space at Safeway right away. You can, however, make connections with smaller local stores to get your products in front of consumers. Product placement has found an increasingly vibrant home on social media platforms. The advent and explosive popularity of social media means that the retail and ad landscape has had to change to keep pace. Even huge corporate brands now rely on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube to share, promote, and sell their products.

Social media product placement takes the form of the social influencer. National product placement campaigns are, of course, expensive.

Remember: The goal of your product placement campaign can be to simply get your brand out in front of your target audience. There are numerous low-cost or free way to achieve this goal:.