While you were watching your Big Summer Blockbuster, did you suddenly have a sweeping thirst for Pepsi? Or thought Covergirl might be a good makeup brand?
Or did you puke in your mouth a little?
As people find more ways to skip commercials and get around advertisements, brands are heading to the multiplex in larger and larger droves. And with this comes the sticky question, is this hurting or helping their image?
Help or hurt?
According to Psychology Today, there have been many instances where product placement impacted products positively. “Product placement can be very successful, as shown by the 65% increase in Reese’s Pieces sales after its placement in E.T.” That sounds good and dandy, but this famous example is over 33 years old and so the question evolves into: does product placement hold weight with our skeptic-heavy generations?
Unfortunately, for your next movie-going experience, it does. Advertisers will be happy to hear that according to a recent report published in the Journal of Management and Marketing Research that “57.5% of viewers recognized a brand when viewing a product placement in combination with a commercial as compared to 46.6% of those viewers exposed only to a commercial for that brand.”
To add to these stats, are the after effects. A majority of commercials usually play for a few months and then fade into oblivion. But, a favorite movie has a much longer shelf life depending on its audience and entertainment value. Even more so, with each movie is a zillion of little articles discussing every little bit of the film. Just type in “product placement Jurassic World” and Google will shoot out 81,500 results. The first dozen articles are all about the ridiculous amount of brands in this movie, yet with each article the products featured in the film receive more and more free press.
Your thoughts?
It turns out, product placement has merit and doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. We’ve laid out the argument on why it works, now its your turn to respond. What are your favorite and most loathed product placement moments?