tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/product-placement-7345/articlesproduct placement – The Conversation2023-12-17T15:33:47Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2199452023-12-17T15:33:47Z2023-12-17T15:33:47ZJames Bond and Aston Martin’s DB5: behind the scenes of one of cinema’s most successful product placements<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566088/original/file-20231215-29-4apoeo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C20%2C1920%2C1256&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">James Bond (Daniel Craig) behind the wheel of an Aston Martin in 'Death Can Wait'.</span> </figcaption></figure><p>Ian Fleming’s most famed character, James Bond, first graced the screen in 1962, ushering in a cinematic obsession that has grossed more than 7 billion dollars since its creation.</p>
<p>Across 26 feature-length films, the James Bond saga has evolved through the ages and met the expectations of audiences. The saga’s latest films, which introduced Daniel Craig in the lead role in 2006, marked a break with the past. The protagonist appears both more robust and more fragile, more in line with the character as sketched out in the original novel, and the tone darkens. Action and espionage remain, while drama supersedes comedy. The films presented a different narrative archetype by following a common thread, each character beginning each film with the stigma (physical and psychological) of the previous one.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364710/original/file-20201021-21-17gh2jy.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364710/original/file-20201021-21-17gh2jy.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=272&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364710/original/file-20201021-21-17gh2jy.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=272&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364710/original/file-20201021-21-17gh2jy.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=272&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364710/original/file-20201021-21-17gh2jy.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364710/original/file-20201021-21-17gh2jy.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364710/original/file-20201021-21-17gh2jy.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Craig-Bond marks a break in the saga.</span>
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<p>But there is another, less discussed success that has been delighting the particular crowd of ad agencies: that of product placement. As Aston Martin’s DB5 turns 60 this year and we get ready to enjoy a 007 flick or two during the festive period, I take a look at how the Aston Martin brand has become essential to the series.</p>
<h2>Bond-Craig earns his stripes</h2>
<p>For the first time in 1964’s <em>Goldfinger</em> (Hamilton), James Bond drives an Aston Martin – model DB5 – like his literary alter ego (<em>Goldfinger</em>, Ian Fleming, 1959). The DB5 appeared in eight Bond films – <em>Goldfinger</em>, <em>Thunderball</em> (Young, 1965), <em>Golden Eye</em> (Campbell, 1995), <em>Tomorrow Never Dies</em> (Spottiswoode, 1997), <em>Casino Royale</em>, <em>Skyfall</em>, <em>Spectre</em> and <em>No Time to Die</em> – and was driven by Sean Connery, Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364696/original/file-20201021-17-woen08.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364696/original/file-20201021-17-woen08.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=283&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364696/original/file-20201021-17-woen08.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=283&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364696/original/file-20201021-17-woen08.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=283&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364696/original/file-20201021-17-woen08.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364696/original/file-20201021-17-woen08.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364696/original/file-20201021-17-woen08.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Sean Connery, <em>Goldfinger</em>, 1964.</span>
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<p>In the prologue to <em>Casino Royale</em>, the British agent enters a room reserved for casino staff – the remote surveillance area. Bond scans the hotel’s cameras for the face of his enemy, who gets out of an Aston Martin DB5. This rookie, James Bond, catches a glimpse of the car via an interposed screen.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364697/original/file-20201021-19-1bo9e18.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364697/original/file-20201021-19-1bo9e18.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=263&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364697/original/file-20201021-19-1bo9e18.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=263&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364697/original/file-20201021-19-1bo9e18.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=263&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364697/original/file-20201021-19-1bo9e18.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=331&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364697/original/file-20201021-19-1bo9e18.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=331&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364697/original/file-20201021-19-1bo9e18.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=331&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The appearance of the Aston Martin DB5 in <em>Casino Royale</em>.</span>
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<p>By placing the character in the same situation as the cinema-goer, the director distances Daniel Craig from the character of James Bond. It’s a clever <em>mise en abyme</em> to show that the actor is not yet “in the game”. Nevertheless, the agent identifies the vehicle, a “magnificent 1964 Aston Martin”, which belongs to Dimitrios, a terrorist linked to the Cipher. Later, Bond is playing poker with his enemy. Dimitrios has three kings in his hand. To keep up, he bets his Aston Martin DB5. James Bond calls and wins the game with three aces. On leaving the Casino, Bond climbs into his new car – Bond-Craig has taken possession of his Aston Martin.</p>
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<p>In this scene, the Aston Martin is not part of the kit provided by MI6. James Bond has to fight to win the right to be behind the wheel of his character’s mythical car. It’s a strategic battle: when Daniel Craig was unveiled as the next actor to wear the Bond suit, the media focused on his physique, which is far more athletic than his predecessors. We might have expected a muscular action scene, but Martin Campbell conceives instead a scene of psychological tension. It was a poker move for the production: imposing an actor very different from Bond standards and imagination, but also for the new hero who gradually becomes the character.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364698/original/file-20201021-23-1psm3a4.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364698/original/file-20201021-23-1psm3a4.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364698/original/file-20201021-23-1psm3a4.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364698/original/file-20201021-23-1psm3a4.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364698/original/file-20201021-23-1psm3a4.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364698/original/file-20201021-23-1psm3a4.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364698/original/file-20201021-23-1psm3a4.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Bond-Craig for the first time at the wheel of the Aston Martin DB5 in <em>Casino Royale</em>.</span>
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<p>The prologue scene reveals how the protagonist becomes a Double-0. In the viewer’s mind, he is not yet established as James Bond. And by getting behind the wheel of the Aston Martin DB5, Daniel Craig takes a symbolic step toward his character. This product placement <a href="https://www.editions-harmattan.fr/index.asp?navig=catalogue&obj=livre&no=39871">can be described as narrative</a>, because it is in itself a major dramatic node and launches the plot. It can also be described as qualifying, as the Aston Martin inserted represents a primordial and fundamental attribute in the construction of James Bond’s identity and his coded universe.</p>
<h2>Aston Martin breaks records</h2>
<p>As proof, having won the confidence of “M”, later in the mission MI6 entrusted him with a new car: a latest-generation Aston Martin DBS. The new model is unveiled in the film. And if the new face of Bond has to convince by outdoing himself in his role (and in the economic revenues it should generate), his car seems to be in symbiosis, because it too breaks records: the Aston Martin DBS rolls over seven times at 120 km/h, the world record for the greatest number of rolls (according to the Guinness Book). The car was crushed, but managed to protect the agent, who emerged from this impressive stunt unscathed.</p>
<p>Like the armour of a modern-day knight, the car is inseparable from 007. The DBS also features in the opening sequence of <em>Quantum of Solace</em>. Bond-Craig begins his revenge at the wheel of this powerful model in a chase that showcases the car’s performance. The agent has bonded forever with Aston Martin and continues his association, not to say partnership, in subsequent opuses.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364699/original/file-20201021-17-17u7h8g.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364699/original/file-20201021-17-17u7h8g.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364699/original/file-20201021-17-17u7h8g.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364699/original/file-20201021-17-17u7h8g.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364699/original/file-20201021-17-17u7h8g.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364699/original/file-20201021-17-17u7h8g.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364699/original/file-20201021-17-17u7h8g.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The four Aston Martin models in the film <em>Dying Can Wait</em> (scheduled for release in April 2021).</span>
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<p><em>No Time to Die</em> features four Aston Martin models: the DB5, the Aston Martin V8 (similar to the one in the 1987 film <em>The Living Daylights</em>), the DBS Supperleggera (driven by the new female agent 00 Nomi) and the mid-engined Valhalla.</p>
<h2>From rupture to return to tradition</h2>
<p>Although Bond-Craig drives an Aston Martin, the staging of the product breaks with that of the previous films: the car is just a car, and for once it is not accompanied by innovative gadgets. It wasn’t until <em>Skyfall</em> that the head of MI6’s “Q” section, who supplied 007 with his famous gadgets, returned. <em>Skyfall</em>, the 50th anniversary of the franchise, sounds like a tribute to the saga: the film echoes the past while wiping the slate clean.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, it and the films that followed retained what had been achieved over the previous six years: a serious spirit and a dark tone, without denying the saga’s heritage. The film marks the return of some of the traditional elements – such as gimmicky product placements – that had disappeared from previous films starring Craig.</p>
<p>In the film, “Q” warns Bond – and the audience: “Perhaps you were expecting an explosive pen? They don’t make gadgets like that much these days…” However, the Aston Martin featured in <em>Skyfall</em> reveals its assets once more. Like the original in <em>Goldfinger</em>, it is equipped with two machine guns in the front bumper, tyre-piercing screws in the rear axles, an ejector seat for hostile passengers, a bullet-proof plate that rises up behind the rear window and a device that disperses slippery oil to lose a pursuing car. If the pen no longer explodes, the car (re)becomes a weapon like in the early days of James Bond.</p>
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<p>In the final part of the film, Silva’s men blow up the legendary car, provoking 007’s almost irrational anger. To destroy his Aston Martin is to touch him to the core.</p>
<p>In the next film, <em>Spectre</em>, the DB5 is just a carcass before being refurbished in the workshop of “Q”. At the end of the story, Bond chooses to leave MI6 rather than Madeleine. Before bidding farewell with his new love on his arm, he picks up his 1964 Aston Martin, the “last thing” he needs. And the story between Aston Martin and 007 isn’t over, as Bond-Craig and his famous steed will be back again in <em>No Time to Die</em>.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364700/original/file-20201021-19-1ditknx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364700/original/file-20201021-19-1ditknx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=318&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364700/original/file-20201021-19-1ditknx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=318&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364700/original/file-20201021-19-1ditknx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=318&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364700/original/file-20201021-19-1ditknx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364700/original/file-20201021-19-1ditknx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364700/original/file-20201021-19-1ditknx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The explosion that destroys the mythical Aston Martin DB5 in <em>Skyfall</em>.</span>
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<h2>The performative effect of product placement</h2>
<p>The release of <em>No Time to Die</em> coincided with Aston Martin’s decision to resume production of the DB5 after more than 50 years. Twenty-five units were manufactured and each sold for 3 million euros. This is no ordinary DB5, but the DB5 <em>of James Bond</em>. Created in partnership with the films’ producers, EON Productions, the car is called the “DB5 Goldfinger Continuation” and features some of the gadgets used in the films: the smoke generator, rotating number plate holders, retractable bumpers and the telephone in the driver’s door.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364701/original/file-20201021-17-i2oln7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364701/original/file-20201021-17-i2oln7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=331&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364701/original/file-20201021-17-i2oln7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=331&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364701/original/file-20201021-17-i2oln7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=331&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364701/original/file-20201021-17-i2oln7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364701/original/file-20201021-17-i2oln7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364701/original/file-20201021-17-i2oln7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Aston Martin relaunches production of James Bond’s DB5.</span>
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<p>Aston Martin has built up a storytelling operation over several years by placing itself at the heart of the film saga. The brand blurs the boundaries between fiction and reality, between the identity of the actor and that of the character (as in the <a href="http://www.culturepub.fr/videos/heineken-daniel-craig-vs-james-bond/">“Daniel Craig VS James Bond”</a> commercial, produced by Heineken (United States, 2020), and between the fictional car and the one sold in dealerships.</p>
<p>The “DB5 Goldfinger Continuation” gives consumers the illusion of being a super agent or, failing that, a consumer-actor. The 007 films need the brand to immortalise the character. The brand needs the films to perpetuate its prestige and the fascination it inspires. James Bond and Aston Martin, or how product placement shapes an unbreakable alliance.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219945/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Delphine Le Nozach ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>The release of “No Time to Die”, scheduled for next spring, is an opportunity to analyse the role of the Aston Martin brand and the way it contributes to the construction of the character.Delphine Le Nozach, Maître de conférences en Sciences de l'information et de la communication, Université de LorraineLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1959202022-12-22T03:35:53Z2022-12-22T03:35:53ZPolice gun violence is glorified on screen. But more armed and aggressive policing doesn’t actually make us safer<p>American popular culture dominates international markets. Among its most enduringly successful products are police dramas and movies. Many of these feature frequent and overwhelmingly positive depictions of police gun violence – a popular example, and a favourite at this time of year, is Die Hard.</p>
<p>These works are, of course, fictions. But popular fictional depictions of policing can have real-world consequences for police and communities.</p>
<p>Our <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-13013-7_13">new book chapter</a>, published in November, argues that continued exposure to frequently repeated media tropes and narratives can affect public perceptions and expectations of policing.</p>
<p>In many parts of the world, <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1805161115">policing is becoming more militarised</a>. Even in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/sep/22/one-in-three-uk-officers-want-all-police-to-carry-guns-survey-finds">Great Britain</a> and <a href="https://www.policeassn.org.nz/news/we-need-general-arming#/">New Zealand</a>, two of the small number of jurisdictions where police do not routinely carry firearms, the appetite for armed policing has increased. This shift is justified by police in the name of ensuring safety.</p>
<p>But there’s <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-15-9526-4">no clear empirical evidence</a> that routinely armed police are less likely to be killed or injured in the line of duty, or that communities whose police routinely carry firearms are safer.</p>
<p>On the contrary: <a href="https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/pdf/10.1089/vio.2019.0020">our research</a> indicates that a more armed and aggressive style of policing is associated with lower levels of safety.</p>
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<h2>Weapon product placement</h2>
<p>Most of us are familiar with product placement – the use of identifiable products and brands in media. When the products are relatively harmless, such as sunglasses or luggage, the practice is arguably relatively innocuous.</p>
<p>But there’s greater concern when the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10641734.1997.10505056">products are inherently more risky</a>, such as alcohol and tobacco, where their use can be harmful in the real world.</p>
<p>On-screen depictions of smoking have become steadily more restricted. </p>
<p>But less attention has been given to the sponsored use of recognisable branded firearms, particularly in United States’ police procedural dramas and movies. We call this “<a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-15-9526-4_7">weapon product placement</a>”.</p>
<p>Firearms company Glock has its weapons <a href="https://features.hollywoodreporter.com/the-gun-industrys-lucrative-relationship-with-hollywood/">prominently</a> <a href="https://productplacementblog.com/tag/glock/">featured</a> in many US TV dramas and movies, so much so that in 2010, a branding website gave Glock <a href="https://theconversation.com/hollywoods-love-of-guns-increases-the-risk-of-shootings-both-on-and-off-the-set-170489">a</a> “lifetime achievement award for product placement”.</p>
<p>Product placement can have a significant and long-lasting influence on behaviours, expectations, and popular understandings. Prior to the <a href="https://www.publichealthlawcenter.org/topics/commercial-tobacco-control/master-settlement-agreement">restrictions</a> introduced during the 1990s, <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/pcn.12365">smoking on TV and in movies</a> was often synonymous with glamour, sophistication and success. US police-based dramas and movies now present firearms as essential for successful policing. </p>
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<h2>On-screen police gun violence is often revered</h2>
<p>A study of US TV programming between 2000 and 2018 found the rate of gun violence has <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33730080/">increased in popular TV dramas</a> – both in absolute terms, and as a proportion of the violence in these programs.</p>
<p>Depictions of police gun violence in US movies and TV dramas typically reflect the well-worn <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-20817967">US National Rifle Association mantra</a>: “the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun, is a good guy with a gun”. </p>
<p>Viewers of US police-focused dramas and movies are exposed to frequent and extreme gun violence by police officers. Much of it is presented as essential, positive and heroic.</p>
<p>But such valorisation risks eroding the public’s understanding of the crucial <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003047117-4/doctrine-minimum-force-policing-richard-evans-clare-farmer">doctrine of minimum-force policing</a>. This requires police officers to use the minimum force necessary to bring a situation under control.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/police-are-more-likely-to-kill-men-and-women-of-color-121158">Police are more likely to kill men and women of color</a>
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<p>On-screen glorification of police gun violence can create unrealistic and undesirable public expectations of how police go about their work, and how critical incidents should be resolved.</p>
<p>Police-focused movies and TV shows rarely include realistic depictions of the consequences of a shooting, such as wounded people screaming. There’s typically little consideration of the potential for police shooting the wrong person, or a <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-13013-7_12">person who has a mental illness</a>, or a person assumed to be an offender because of <a href="https://mappingpoliceviolence.us">racial or other stereotyping</a>. </p>
<p>The human consequences of gun violence – pain, suffering, loss – are usually acknowledged only when one of the “good guys” is hurt or killed. The overall effect is to dehumanise those depicted as “bad guys” and to present their deaths as being of <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/blog/47894/the-normalization-of-fatal-police-shootings/">little consequence</a>.</p>
<h2>Excessive force</h2>
<p>Too often, this dangerous perception plays out in real-world policing.</p>
<p>In the US, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01846-z">excessive force is commonplace</a>, and <a href="https://mappingpoliceviolence.us/">roughly 1,000 people are killed each year</a> by police officers, many of them needlessly, and some unlawfully.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-13/breonna-taylor-boyfriend-kenneth-walker-2m-settlement-louisville/101767160">Breonna Taylor</a> and <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-minneapolis-police-officer-derek-chauvin-sentenced-more-20-years-prison-depriving">George Floyd</a> are recent high-profile examples.</p>
<p>Yet <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-13013-7_16">research</a> examining public perceptions of US police gun violence has found respondents typically support the use of deadly force.</p>
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<h2>Media priming</h2>
<p>Do these media tropes contribute to a belief that firearms are central to effective policing? And do they contribute to instances of police aggression in the real world?</p>
<p>There’s no simple causal link between the fictional presentation of police gun violence and specific actions in the real world. Indeed, the effects of <a href="https://fusion-journal.com/issue/007-fusion-mask-performance-performativity-and-communication/police-as-television-viewers-and-policing-practitioners/">screen depictions</a> of police gun violence are complex, nuanced and multidimensional.</p>
<p>However, the associations between <a href="https://oxfordre.com/criminology/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264079.001.0001/acrefore-9780190264079-e-33?TB_iframe=true&width=921.6&height=921.6">media priming and copycat behaviours</a> are well documented. That is, people can perceive what they view (such as how police behave in a TV drama) as being indicative of real life, and some may even act out what they see on screen.</p>
<p>Imitation is a key learning tool. We derive such learning from many sources, including family and friends, and also broader social and cultural influences.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-kumanjayi-walker-murder-case-echoes-a-long-history-of-police-violence-against-first-nations-people-179289">The Kumanjayi Walker murder case echoes a long history of police violence against First Nations people</a>
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<p><a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-13013-7_13">Our research</a> suggests that the prominent use of firearms by police within US TV and movies, and the particular ways in which their use is depicted, can affect public perceptions and <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0093854815604180?journalCode=cjbb">expectations of policing</a>. For example, it might lead to a belief that it’s appropriate for police, in almost any scenario, to arrive with their firearms drawn and ready to discharge. </p>
<p>Despite the publicity surrounding high-profile unlawful killings, one <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0093854815604180?journalCode=cjbb">study</a> found respondents who watched US crime shows were more likely (than those who do not view such shows) to believe that force is only used by police officers when necessary.</p>
<p>Serving and potential future police officers are also viewers of TV and movies. Our contention is that the widespread and positive depictions of a firearms-focused, aggressive yet heroic style of fictional policing has the capacity to influence the way in which police officers themselves behave.</p>
<p>Ultimately, <a href="https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/pdf/10.1089/vio.2019.0020">real-world evidence</a> confirms that <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13642987.2020.1811694">minimum-force policing is safer</a> and often more effective than the style of policing so colourfully depicted in US police dramas and movies such as Die Hard.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195920/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Evidence confirms that minimum-force policing is safer and more effective than the style of policing so colourfully depicted in US crime shows and movies like Die Hard.Clare Farmer, Senior Lecturer, Criminology, Deakin UniversityRichard William Evans, Honorary Fellow, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1705022021-11-03T12:24:39Z2021-11-03T12:24:39ZHow children are being targeted with hidden ads on social media<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429715/original/file-20211102-52553-1u0kcfa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1133%2C0%2C4386%2C3368&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Stealth advertising is cropping up in children's social media feeds</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/fr/image-photo/outdoor-portrait-russian-girls-boys-playing-555730687"> BearFotos</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Have you ever accidentally clicked on an advert while scrolling on social media because you didn’t realise that’s what it was? This is what advertisers call “<a href="https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/what-is-content-marketing/">content marketing</a>”. </p>
<p>Using funny memes, insider-driven stories or inspirational content, this type of advertising disguises its commercial nature. Notably, it features no call to action, no “buy this, it’s great!”. There isn’t even an obvious connection to the product or the service being advertised. Anything works so long as it <a href="https://hbr.org/2021/02/want-your-ad-to-go-viral-activate-these-emotions">promotes positive emotions</a> in the consumer. </p>
<p>Stealth advertising is of course nothing new. <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-science-of-product-placements-and-why-some-work-better-than-others-165435">Product placement</a> has been around since the <a href="https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/153449005.pdf">mid-1890s</a> – it is as old as the moving image itself. </p>
<p>But the combination of content marketing and social media creates something <a href="https://theconversation.com/personalised-gambling-adverts-a-troubling-new-trend-166287">far more powerful</a>. And when the product being sold is addictive, or potentially dangerous, the impact on the most vulnerable audiences is alarming. </p>
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<h2>Minimal engagement</h2>
<p>As a brand, if you succeed in building up positive emotional associations in the minds of your consumers, you won’t need to drive a hard sale for your product. In fact, hard sales and direct calls to action do the opposite. Research has shown how they result in consumers <a href="https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/jconrs/v21y1994i1p1-31.html">constructing raising mental defences</a> as they realise they’re being sold to. </p>
<p>To avoid this, content marketing ads are designed to trigger as <a href="https://www.bristol.ac.uk/media-library/sites/news/2019/aug/D1261_Horne_DEMOS_Management%20report_2019_web.pdf">little cognitive engagement as possible</a>. Instead they are designed to create a warm fuzzy feeling or to make their audience giggle. </p>
<p>This way, a brand turns from a market crier to a friendly pal. Which, in the age of social media, is a pal gaining followers. As these followers like, comment on and share any ad, it gains momentum – the holy grail, for marketers, being to see it go viral. </p>
<p>Would you like or share a supermarket advert saying, “Chicken fillet this week only £2.99”? Probably not. But imagine you see a funny post like the one from Aldi shown below, which references the Netflix series <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-hyper-violent-squid-game-has-crept-into-digital-content-targeting-young-children-170209">Squid Game</a>. </p>
<p>If you’ve seen the show, you will get the inside joke and feel like part of the in-crowd. So, you share it, showing others that you get it. It doesn’t matter to you that the post is from Aldi –- you might not even have noticed. But somewhere in your brain (and in the brains of your network and your network’s network), a synapse fires, a new connection has started to build up: Aldi is one of the cool kids. </p>
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<h2>Mental defences</h2>
<p>So far so harmless? Not quite. Not all brands have the same incentives. While some brands sell chicken, others sell addictive, potentially dangerous products – from alcohol to gambling – and for them, content marketing is as attractive as sheep’s clothing is to a wolf. </p>
<p>Take gambling brands. In a recent study, we analysed more than <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0743915621999674">888,000 Twitter gambling adverts</a>. We found that 40% were content marketing. Coming back to those natural mental defences that we build up immediately and automatically when we detect an ad – if the ad’s telling us to gamble, the defence will be even higher. So content marketing is more sneakily effective. </p>
<p>But there is one target audience for whom the effects can be disastrous. Under-25s – including children below the legal gambling age – are not so good at putting up mental defences. And this is the group that, according to <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0743915621999674">our research</a>, engages – likes, shares, follows – the most with gambling content marketing on Twitter. </p>
<p>Children have fewer <a href="https://www.apa.org/pi/families/resources/advertising-children.pdf">skills</a> for recognising advertising than adults – they just don’t have the experience. And 17-24 year olds are more prone to process advertising <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1509/jppm.2005.24.2.202">affectively</a> because, as neuroscientific research confirms, their brain structure is undergoing dramatic changes and the neocortex (where rational decisions are made) is in upheaval. </p>
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<p>When presented with content marketing, it is nearly impossible for children to immediately recognise the posts’ persuasive intent. And while young adults might be able to recognise that the posts are advertising, they find it much harder than older people to resist being persuaded. So neither group is likely to make the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233894671_Who%27s_messing_with_my_mind_The_implications_of_dual-process_models_for_the_ethics_of_advertising_to_children">mental counter arguments</a> needed to resist being taken in by content marketing. </p>
<p>For our <a href="https://www.bristol.ac.uk/media-library/sites/management/documents/what-are-the-odds-rossi-nairn-2021.pdf">new study</a>, we worked with 650 participants and compared the reactions of 11 to 16-year-olds, 17 to 24-year-olds, and those over 25 to gambling content marketing on Twitter. We measured both whether their reactions were positive or negative and the intensity of the emotion.</p>
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<p>Not surprisingly, gambling content marketing was much more appealing to all three groups than ads with a clear call to action. But the appeal of content marketing to children and young persons simply went through the roof – they found gambling content marketing posts nearly four times more appealing than those over 25. </p>
<p>This effect was even stronger for <a href="https://theconversation.com/esports-could-be-quietly-spawning-a-whole-new-generation-of-problem-gamblers-147124">esports bets</a> – which have an almost inherent appeal to children, teens and young adults, because children and young people love games. This is alarming when you consider that two-thirds of all UK-based Twitter followers of gambling accounts are <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0743915621999674">under 25 years old</a>. They may come for the banter, but because they are young and their brains make them impulsive, they could well stay for the gambling addiction.</p>
<p>What makes this even more serious is that the Advertising Standards Authority <a href="https://www.asa.org.uk/uploads/assets/c389c59b-8d64-4f39-afffbd93dca42df6/Gambling-and-children-update-response-to-GambleAware.pdf">won’t regulate content marketing</a> – it will only regulate where there is a mention of the product or service, which is exactly what turns consumers off.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/170502/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The less an ad explicitly tells us what to do, the more likely we are to engage with it. This is particularly true – and more detrimental – when we’re very young.Raffaello Rossi, Lecturer in Marketing, University of BristolAgnes Nairn, Professor of Marketing, University of BristolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1654352021-09-08T12:24:27Z2021-09-08T12:24:27ZThe science of product placements – and why some work better than others<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419347/original/file-20210903-13-1ewghjq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=11%2C51%2C1258%2C905&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">New Balance shoes are front and center in a scene from 'Ted Lasso.'</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://productplacementblog.com/tv-series/new-balance-blue-shoes-worn-by-brendan-hunt-as-coach-beard-in-ted-lasso-s02e06-the-signal-2021/">Product Placement Blog/Universal Television</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In “The Variant,” an episode from the Disney+ hit streaming show “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9140554/">Loki</a>,” it’s tough to miss the barrage of product placements, with fast-paced action and dialogue taking place in front of Charmin toilet paper, Dove soap and Arm & Hammer deodorant. At one point, Loki barrels down an aisle with vacuum cleaners and fights off an opponent with a corded vacuum while iRobot vacuums are prominently featured on the shelf. </p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=vFCS00oAAAAJ&hl=en">As someone who studies such advertising techniques as product placements</a>, I’m starting to notice them crop up more and more. </p>
<p>With viewers migrating to streaming services and web videos, this trend makes sense. (Who actually watches the full ads that appear at the beginning of a YouTube video?) But not all product placements work as intended, and my research has shown that advertisers need to engage in a delicate dance with viewers to effectively influence them.</p>
<h2>Ads that you can’t skip or mute</h2>
<p>Let’s start with a little background. Product placement is a form of advertising in which a company pays a content creator to place its product on the set of a movie, TV shows or music video. While many product placements are the result of such paid relationships, some product placements happen because of creative decisions, such as a writer wanting a character to wear Gucci to convey the character’s affluence. Viewers aren’t typically given information to distinguish between paid and unpaid product placements. </p>
<p>Product placement isn’t new. The oldest examples of products appearing in films date all the way back to the invention of motion pictures, when the Lever Brothers’ Sunlight Soap appeared in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1207/s15506878jobem5004_1">the Lumiere films in Europe in 1896</a>. In the 1930s, Procter & Gamble sponsored daytime dramas to feature their Oxydol soap powder, beginning shows with lines like “now here comes Oxydol’s own Ma Perkins” – an advertising technique that <a href="https://medium.com/knowledge-stew/why-are-daytime-dramas-called-soap-operas-ee052d9edf17">birthed the colloquial phrase</a> “soap operas.” </p>
<p>This form of marketing really started to take off after the release of the 1982 blockbuster “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083866/">E.T.</a>,” in which Elliott leaves a trail of Reese’s Pieces to cajole his alien friend out of hiding. Since then, box office hits ranging from “<a href="https://blog.hollywoodbranded.com/top-product-placements-in-home-alone-1-and-2">Home Alone</a>” to “<a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2001-01-08-0101080173-story.html">Cast Away</a>” have memorably incorporated brands into their storylines. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Man shakes out green Tic Tacs into an outstretched hand." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419348/original/file-20210903-17-stgcij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419348/original/file-20210903-17-stgcij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419348/original/file-20210903-17-stgcij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419348/original/file-20210903-17-stgcij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419348/original/file-20210903-17-stgcij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419348/original/file-20210903-17-stgcij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419348/original/file-20210903-17-stgcij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tic Tacs were among the many product placements in the 1990 film ‘Home Alone.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://productplacementblog.com/movies/tic-tac-home-alone-1990/">Product Placement Blog/Columbia Pictures</a></span>
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<p>But as streaming has become more popular, product placements have become an even more attractive option for advertisers. Global spending on them is expected to top US$23 billion in 2021, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-21/marketers-embrace-product-placement-in-streaming-tv-shows?utm_medium=social&cmpid=socialflow-twitter-business&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&utm_content=business&utm_source=twitter">about a 14% increase over 2020</a>. At the same time, marketers plan to <a href="https://cmosurvey.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/The_CMO_Survey-Highlights_and_Insights_Report-February-2021.pdf">decrease their spending</a> on traditional advertising, like TV and print ads.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1287/mksc.2018.1147">My research</a> highlights one key driver of this shift: We’re more prone than ever to avoid traditional ads. We’re <a href="https://www.adweek.com/convergent-tv/covid-19s-economic-fallout-will-accelerate-linear-tvs-collapse/">watching less and less linear TV</a> – the kind that has a slate of ads interrupting the entertainment every seven or eight minutes – and thus are exposed to far fewer traditional TV ads. </p>
<p>And when watching web videos, <a href="https://adage.com/article/sharethrough/reaching-consumers-video-interruptibility-myth/313945">about 90% of consumers either skip or ignore</a> those ads that run before the video starts.</p>
<p>So as advertisers struggle to reach consumers, they’re increasingly turning to product placement, spending their advertising budgets to get their ads into media content in ways that can’t be skipped or muted. </p>
<h2>Not all product placements are equal</h2>
<p>There’s also the fact that product placements work really well.</p>
<p>Studies have shown they increase <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijresmar.2021.01.003">viewers’ awareness of products and their positive attitudes toward them</a>. They can also make people more likely <a href="https://doi.org/10.1287/mksc.2018.1147">to talk about the products and search them online</a>. </p>
<p>Not all product placements are equally effective, though. Those that seem to influence viewers the most are those that strike the careful balance between being noticeable and not too overt. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1287/mksc.2018.1147">Research I conducted with marketing professor David A. Schweidel</a> shows that viewers tend to be turned off if the product placement is too prominent – as when a character in the show holds the product and talks about it. They’re also averse to product placements surrounded by other advertising – say, a Nike ad that autoplays before a YouTube video followed by a product placement for Nike in the first few minutes of that same video.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">A product placement that’s too obvious can be a turnoff.</span></figcaption>
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<p>These kinds of prominent placements annoy viewers for two main reasons. First, they make it obvious that they’re trying to sell us something, triggering something called “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/209380">persuasion knowledge</a>” – the phenomenon of getting defensive when we know someone is trying to persuade us. In general, product placements are less likely to trigger persuasion knowledge than traditional ads, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/344432">as they tend to be more subtle</a>. But that doesn’t mean product placements are immune.</p>
<p>Second – and in some ways related to the first point – prominent product placements can annoy us because <a href="https://doi.org/10.1287/mksc.2018.1147">they interfere with our viewing experience</a>. Most viewers don’t want to be immersed in an intense drama only to be reminded that they’re being targeted by corporations. </p>
<h2>How to strike the right balance</h2>
<p>So how do marketers find the right balance of being noticeable without prompting persuasion knowledge?</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1287/mksc.2018.1147">Our research</a> offers two key insights. First, we’ve found that viewers are most influenced by product placements in which the product or brand name <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/17/business/advertising-placing-the-product-in-the-dialogue-too.html">is spoken by one of the characters</a> but not shown – what’s called “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1287/mksc.2018.1147">verbal product placement</a>.” </p>
<p>These product placements are more likely to be noticed by viewers than products that are simply shown on the screen. And they’re also less likely to trigger persuasion knowledge than placements in which the product is both shown and spoken about. Verbal placements seem to find a sweet spot.</p>
<p>Second, our research shows that viewers may be more susceptible to product placements <a href="https://doi.org/10.1287/mksc.2018.1147">that appear earlier in a show or movie</a>. I believe that this might happen because we become more engrossed in the plot and characters of a show or movie as it progresses. If a placement appears at the climax – the moment when our attention is fixated on what will happen next – we’re either less likely to notice the placement or more likely to be annoyed by it if we do notice it.</p>
<p>Now that you know the tricks of the trade, perhaps you’ll be more likely to spot product placements on TV. Will this trigger persuasion knowledge – and, with that, cause the power of these ads to wither?</p>
<p>[<em>Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklybest">Sign up for our weekly newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/165435/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Beth L. Fossen receives funding from the Marketing Science Institute.</span></em></p>Global spending on product placements is expected to top $23 billion in 2021, about a 14% increase over the previous year.Beth L. Fossen, Assistant Professor of Marketing Kelley School of Business, Indiana UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1157882019-07-26T13:02:24Z2019-07-26T13:02:24ZFrom ‘Pretty Little Liars’ to ‘The OC,’ television producers need to stop encouraging teen drinking – here’s how they can<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/284611/original/file-20190717-147303-1jdd0w7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Teens who see drinking on TV are more likely to drink themselves</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/drink-teens-culture-social-standing-friends-521848093?src=_G5bZHUT7alad9DjugQB6g-1-3&studio=1">Rawpixel.com/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Teen drinking is rampant on television these days.</p>
<p>From “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1578873/">Pretty Little Liars</a>” to classic shows like “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0362359/">The O.C.</a>,” you don’t have to look hard to find 16-year-olds sneaking a drink from a flask or getting drunk at a party.</p>
<p>The problem is that as teens see their <a href="https://www.hbo.com/entourage/season-02">favorite characters</a> having a beer on TV, they’re more likely to have one themselves. </p>
<p>The majority of <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3007591/">TV shows teens watch depict characters drinking alcohol</a>, often heavily, with few negative consequences. Sometimes, alcohol brands that appear are <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3007591/">placed there purposefully by alcohol companies</a>.</p>
<p>Alcohol companies are prohibited from advertising their products to teenagers on billboard near schools or buying commercial time during programs in which the majority of the audience is under 21. But there isn’t an explicit ban on paying to have <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/ftcs-endorsement-guides-what-people-are-asking#productplacements">their brand</a> appear in a television show. This practice is called product placement.</p>
<p>As a researcher of media influences, I became alarmed about what seemed to be a <a href="http://www.camy.org/_docs/resources/reports/alcohol-advertising-monitoring/CAMY_CableTV_2018_Q1-Q2_3.pdf">loophole in regulation</a>. Based on my own <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1086/383431">research</a>, I knew that the more viewers immersed themselves in a show’s narrative, the more they’re likely to be influenced by what it portrays.</p>
<p>In a recent study, I found that teens are particularly susceptible to this effect because they can easily develop <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1086/383431">a connection</a> to characters with whom they identify.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1509/jppm.17.092">My research</a> <a href="https://vcresearch.berkeley.edu/faculty/joel-w-grube">with marketing and</a> <a href="https://www.usuhs.edu/national/faculty/dale-russell-phd-mba-ms">public health</a> <a href="https://www.hofstra.edu/faculty/fac_profiles.cfm?id=4725">colleagues shows</a> that even a single episode shapes viewers’ beliefs about drinking, drinkers and their own intentions to drink.</p>
<p>So how can producers counter this effect?</p>
<h2>Ineffective regulation</h2>
<p>In the United States, alcohol promotion is largely regulated through <a href="https://www.distilledspirits.org/code-of-responsible-practices/">voluntary industry marketing codes</a>. These codes forbid alcohol advertising in media, including digital media, where 28% of the projected audience is under 21. </p>
<p>In the <a href="http://www.camy.org/_docs/resources/reports/alcohol-advertising-monitoring/CAMY_CableTV_2018_Q1-Q2_3.pdf">absence of independent oversight</a>, alcohol companies have long realized that product placement provides a relatively easy way to get around these regulations, to the increasing worry of <a href="https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/126/4/791">consumer advocates</a>.</p>
<p>Alcohol is one of the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021849905050038">most actively placed product categories</a> in Hollywood TV programs and movies. The growth of product placement consistently outpaces that of traditional advertising.</p>
<p>In a broader program of research on viewers’ feeling of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/383431">connectedness</a> to a TV series, my colleagues and I found strong evidence that TV characters’ diets, clothes and even dialect influence viewers, especially when they connect to the characters as if they were real.</p>
<p>Across many studies in different countries and across different TV genres, I found evidence that the emotional connections viewers feel to television characters affects their real life behaviors. Audiences <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00913367.2019.1579690">want to be like the “friends”</a> they see on TV.</p>
<p>These powerful influences have fueled the practice of product placement – in this case, of alcohol – and its success.</p>
<h2>Making a TV show</h2>
<p>I wanted to figure out if there was a way to counteract this effect. With funding from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, I created my own TV episodes.</p>
<p>I wrote the script, collaborated with film and theater students at San Francisco State University, professionally edited the videos and even dubbed the shows in French for conducting studies in France, too. </p>
<p>The experiment consisted of 18-minute, professional-quality TV episodes about Tom, a high school student. Tom and his friends drink at a party, which gives Tom the confidence to approach and kiss Katie, his romantic interest.</p>
<p>We used these TV episodes in a series of studies. Participants who agreed to give feedback on a TV pilot – that’s how we presented the research study to them – would watch one version of the episode and then answer questions about the story, characters and degree to which they were transported into the story.</p>
<p>After the episode, we also measured beliefs about the consequences of drinking, attitudes toward drinkers and intentions to drink in the future.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/285637/original/file-20190724-110170-w0cb8s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/285637/original/file-20190724-110170-w0cb8s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/285637/original/file-20190724-110170-w0cb8s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285637/original/file-20190724-110170-w0cb8s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285637/original/file-20190724-110170-w0cb8s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285637/original/file-20190724-110170-w0cb8s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285637/original/file-20190724-110170-w0cb8s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/285637/original/file-20190724-110170-w0cb8s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tom is a character from the author’s TV episodes who experiences positive consequences after drinking.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In one version, we <a href="https://doi.org/10.15288/jsad.2008.69.459">included warnings before the episode stating</a> that alcohol products were advertised inside the TV episode. But the viewers who were most immersed in the story and its characters, as measured by their levels of reported “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/383431">connectedness</a>,” were immune to the warning.</p>
<h2>Immersive epilogues</h2>
<p>We also filmed epilogues that featured the main character correcting the pro-drinking message in the story.</p>
<p>Half the participants saw the epilogue in which a main character talked directly to the camera to say: “What you see on TV is not real. You do not need to drink to look cool and fit in.” The other half saw the episode without an epilogue. </p>
<p>Though viewers who were immersed in the pro-alcohol storyline reported more favorable attitudes toward drinkers and higher drinking intentions following the episode, we also found a hopeful outcome.</p>
<p>The epilogue was able to correct this influence, but only for viewers who were aware that they were being persuaded to buy a product. In other words, the epilogue had the most corrective power for those viewers who were both transported by the story and recognized someone was selling them something.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/39DLJn2YbyA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The author studied ‘That 70s Show’ in one of her earlier studies.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Getting savvy</h2>
<p>So what does this all mean?</p>
<p>Just as marketers have recognized and embraced that today’s teens are naturally savvy about marketing efforts, so should public health campaign developers.</p>
<p>Today’s teens are growing up with branded content and product placement. They recognize it when they see it. So, get savvy with them: Let them enjoy and get immersed in the stories they watch, but remind them that what they’re watching is in fact fictional – and so are the consequences the characters face.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/115788/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cristel Antonia Russell receives funding from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.</span></em></p>Teens who see alcohol on TV are more likely to drink. A marketing professor explains how to counter this phenomenon.Cristel Antonia Russell, Professor of Marketing, American University Kogod School of BusinessLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/658212016-09-23T15:31:29Z2016-09-23T15:31:29ZHow Bridget Jones boosted the market for big underwear<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138663/original/image-20160921-21695-7orajn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99411388@N06/12928123383/in/photolist-kGq1F2-ejW1sw-eVZt3a-bBhfo9-8Fznx6-6LEMK7-dt6JML-eARRLv-6LACQF-onRUN6-eAUV9q-7qS7RQ-7qSJ55-eAURrm-8vXg8F-9srcCP-6yxoUH-8FzpMx-8vXfSM-7qNDu4-8vXfZn-bwZEmW-bYZEqC-eARLDB-6qvyZ5-aG9VCc-5VMhXs-8Fzk2e-bYZEoj-8FCAsu-5XMH3S-7qNDFc-8vXfV4-r7opU9-6LEMLW-bYZEpE-7qNDcH-7qNbBt-8FCwJu-bYZEvf-bYZEz3-8FCzhQ-bYZEty-7tWnnX-eAURBQ-8w1isE-bYZEn7-8Fzmqa-8FznNB-7qSA1h">Mlls De Mode/flickr</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>We all giggled at the enormous underwear scene in the first Bridget Jones film, but despite these garments once being seen as a byword for unsexy, shapewear has become one of the great success stories of the lingerie market. It is 15 years since the film’s release, and the famous “hello mummy” quip when Hugh Grant’s character Daniel Cleaver discovered that Bridget was wearing “absolutely enormous panties”.</p>
<p>With that one scene Bridget and Daniel made it acceptable, even sexy, to wear support pants – and to talk about them. Today, the market for this larger form of underwear has grown significantly. A number of brands make it and UK-based retail chain Debenhams recorded a 200% increase in shapewear sales <a href="http://v3.test.lingerieinsight.com/article-2929-debenhams-shapewear-sales-grow-200-in-5-years/">between 2007 and 2012</a>, a trend which has continued. It is now one of the most significant segments of the underwear or “intimates” market. </p>
<p>One country that has ridden this wave is Sri Lanka. It is now at the forefront of shapewear innovation, design and manufacture, having invested heavily in research and development over recent years. As a result, it developed a key technology involved in shapewear in 2008 and is now a market leader. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138665/original/image-20160921-21674-1usr7yj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138665/original/image-20160921-21674-1usr7yj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138665/original/image-20160921-21674-1usr7yj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138665/original/image-20160921-21674-1usr7yj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138665/original/image-20160921-21674-1usr7yj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138665/original/image-20160921-21674-1usr7yj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138665/original/image-20160921-21674-1usr7yj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bridget Jones unwittingly starting a shapewear revolution.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/asdesimple/5377716873/in/photolist-9cdcSr-oUh5Yq-a3sk2t-a3vcvY-dz6z4n-gdosb-8ZnVKU-2D5Km-Cx8MpR-9igit1-a3sjQ4-58Fk19-a3skzc-4AMqB4-2n1zeZ-7uxk5J-a45K1j-9igis9-dLPsHS-6RjNxD-ei42zz-odrWys-ei9Ltq-pUf8UW-ei9LwW-a3skvB-osG5Sn-9nQVFE-a9F8e4-cns2BE-4kbkJW-ei42Cx-ei42Ba-iyXeUv-66Lgpr-5kpQoP-bAR2Xu-eeUKL-dLHX9X-bmWSCD-7rTdLB-2sgi7h-6nz7KA-fhaDEA-7kr8qh-6h1axB-pd911G-2VrEUs-4hthfN-a45NaL">Danitza Cabezas Jofré/flickr</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This growth in its popularity has been led by an unprecedented level of innovation within the sector. Manufacturers have invested in the design of shapewear, reducing the size, increasing the comfort and improving the style. And it has involved a significant supply chain, which I’ve studied with my colleague Rivini Mataraarachchi from the University of Moratuwa in Sri Lanka.</p>
<h2>70,000 miles</h2>
<p>Manufacturers have worked hard to develop products that consumers want at affordable prices – and have built a strong supply chain around it to do so.</p>
<p>A complex supply chain exists to make one item of shapewear, using materials sourced from Sri Lanka, the US, Germany and Eurasia. A typical pair of shapewear pants involves bringing materials together over more than 70,000 miles, 16 different manufacturing sites, across three continents, to provide a pair of pants to a customer in London.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139011/original/image-20160923-29886-17xfh09.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139011/original/image-20160923-29886-17xfh09.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139011/original/image-20160923-29886-17xfh09.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139011/original/image-20160923-29886-17xfh09.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139011/original/image-20160923-29886-17xfh09.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=698&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139011/original/image-20160923-29886-17xfh09.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=698&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139011/original/image-20160923-29886-17xfh09.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=698&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The 70,000 mile shapewear supply chain.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Janet Godsell</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is heartening to see that Sri Lank’s shapewear industry has used local capability where possible – for both the base materials and packing items – and sourced other components globally where technological advantage lay elsewhere. Advanced thread technology from the US is used to ensure that the different seams are soft, comfortable and have the correct degree of stretch and draw. Eurasia has developed the ancient Chinese <a href="http://www.textileglossary.com/terms/flocking.html">flocking</a> process, which adds the velvety embossed pattern (made up of fibres called flock) to the shapewear. Labels and hangers, meanwhile, are sourced in Germany.</p>
<p>By leveraging and combining these different technologies and manufacturers from around the world, new innovative products can be brought to market faster and cheaper. </p>
<h2>Constant innovation</h2>
<p>Even in a product as apparently simple as underwear, innovation is critical to ensure long-term survival in what will otherwise become a commoditised market, which is when companies compete primarily through price in a race to the bottom. Market-share can be lost to countries with lower labour costs, unless other innovative ways are found to increase efficiency in an ethical and responsible way. </p>
<p>We are also seeing the innovation developments in shapewear crossing over into other clothing ranges, including <a href="http://www.bases.org.uk/write/Documents/BASES_WINTER_18_19.pdf">compression wear</a> for sport, which is popular among athletes for the support and comfort the shapewear technology lends itself to. Nike put silicone embedding technology to the test in their kits for both the England and France teams in the 2011 Rugby World Cup. Branded “silsoft”, the panels are designed to <a href="http://www.ft.lk/article/566619/Silueta-first-company-in-Sri-Lankan-apparel-industry-to-get-ISO-9001-2015-Certification">increase the grip and durability</a> of the shirts, to improve the circulation and enhance the performance of the rugby players that wear them. </p>
<p>The discussion of underwear sparked by the first Bridget Jones film has inadvertently boosted shapewear sales, and this largely invisible world of global supply chains has sprung up to capitalise on it. It shows how centres of excellence around the world can be linked together to produce innovative new products with real user benefits, in an ethical and responsible way, at affordable prices. </p>
<p>Who would have thought that there was so much innovation, technology and a 70,000-mile supply chain supporting a simple pair of pants?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65821/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Janet Godsell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The growth in popularity for larger, supportive underwear has, in turn, led to huge amounts of innovation in the sector and a 70,000 mile supply chain.Janet Godsell, Professor of Operations and Supply Chain Strategy, University of WarwickLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/388092015-03-16T11:21:28Z2015-03-16T11:21:28ZPhilip Schofield scolds Ofcom but there’s more to this than bondage<p><em><strong>Editor’s note: Philip Schofield has responded to this article on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ConversationUK/posts/415114391990240">our Facebook page</a>.</strong></em></p>
<p>Philip Schofield is wrong, but bondage is only part of the problem. The This Morning presenter has hit back after broadcast regulator <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-31695866">Ofcom said it would investigate</a> the 119 complaints it received about an item broadcast on February 3 featuring bondage clothing and paraphernalia. </p>
<p>“Sex expert” Annabelle Knight talked the sometimes giggling presenters through a series of bondage aids from “beginners” to “advanced”, accompanied by what the Daily Mail described as a “scantily clad couple” who “<a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2975599/ITV-s-Morning-faces-investigation-bondage-beginners-lesson-inspired-Fifty-Shades-Grey-draws-120-complaints.html#ixzz3UHNT9NN8">were seen on a bed playing kinky games</a>”. The feature was prompted by the newly released film adaption of E L James’s Fifty Shades of Grey, and timed for Valentine’s Day.</p>
<p>With the announcement of Ofcom’s investigation, <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/phillip-schofield-criticises-outraged-middle-england-after-this-morning-fifty-shades-of-grey-bondage-complaints-10097778.html">Schofield hit out</a>, telling the Press Association the complaints were “minor” and expressed “middle-England outrage”. Schofield defended This Morning as having always “pushed the boundaries”, citing the show’s coverage of Viagra, testicular cancer and other important subjects deemed shocking by some viewers. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EfvnJ4d7bLU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Let’s deal with the bondage issue first. No doubt most of the complaints were that the discussion of adult sex aids was inappropriate for an early morning broadcast. Ofcom said it was investigating whether the item was suitable for broadcast before the 9pm watershed. </p>
<p>For <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2937812/Steamy-scenes-50-Shades-sex-toys-tested-LIVE-Morning.html#ixzz3QsdYIW6j%20">Vivienne Pattison</a>, the director of pressure group Mediawatch-UK, the show set a dangerous example: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Quite apart from issues of taste and the fact that people might not want to speak to their children about this, I think it is dangerous to normalise this kind of behaviour. [50 Shades Of Grey] is putting across ideas that humiliation is pleasurable and torture is gratifying and I don’t think those are healthy for anybody at all. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Broadcast after 10.30am, and with advance warnings by Schofield, the feature was likely to be seen by adults overwhelmingly, with most school-age children in classrooms, and included content that was unlikely to disturb pre-school children. </p>
<p>Certainly there is a case against the broadcast, since it would be seen in both broadcast form and then online by children – and the material <a href="http://www.itv.com/thismorning/hot-topics/our-ladies-of-leather-dominate-in-the-bedroom">remains available on ITV’s website</a>. Showing the feature on daytime ITV can certainly be critiqued as the normalisation of porn, within a deeply sexist mainstream media culture whose articulations of sexuality are contradictory and compromised. </p>
<p>But the objection I would make was not that that any discussion or even depiction of sexual stimulants should be verboten on daytime TV. My criticism is that this was a shopping channel masquerading as an independent television show. </p>
<p>Annabelle Knight, who has appeared previously on This Morning and other media, breathlessly promoted a series of products giving repeated brand mentions accompanied by still images of the items. The entire feature was organised around the promotion of products, tied to the lucrative Valentine’s Day market.</p>
<p>What Schofield and ITV are defending under the hazy claim of public interest journalism is the shift to a more lucrative commercial space on television. We are seeing the return of the so-called “ad mags” created in the early years of ITV, in the 1950s, as experimental ways to show advertised products and draw in revenue, where characters in settings like pubs would discuss the latest brands. The ad mags were banned after the Pilkington committee in 1962 reaffirmed the principle established for ITV, that programmes and adverts should be kept separate. </p>
<p>That was largely sustained until <a href="http://consumers.ofcom.org.uk/tv-radio/television/product-placement-on-tv/">product placement was permitted</a> in the final weeks of the last Labour government. ITV’s This Morning was the first programmes to embrace product placement when ITV reached a <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/8350382/Nescafe-coffee-machine-on-This-Morning-is-first-product-placement-on-TV.html">£100,000 deal</a> with Nestlé to feature a Dolce Gusto coffee machine for 13 weeks. </p>
<p>Section nine of Ofcom’s Broadcasting Code covers commercial communications and while product placement is permitted in some genres, broadcasters must ensure editorial content is distinct from advertising and that there is no “undue prominence”. Unfortunately Ofcom has confirmed to me that none of the complainants made the argument that the broadcast breached section nine, so this issue will not be part of the formal investigation. </p>
<p>The longer-term importance of this incident may well be the way ITV is advancing the integration of commercial communication into programmes. That is why Schofield is wrong and why we need robust complaints mechanisms that allow people to challenge powerful companies. Schofield is also wrong to disparage the complaints process. I am sure many readers will share some of Schofield’s concerns that broadcast output should not be set by the taste range of “middle England”. But that is to misrepresent the process. Complaints are investigated, not relayed, by Ofcom. </p>
<p>As a media reformer I want to see ways to strengthen how complaints are dealt with, and encourage the challenge to commercial integration that was missed on this occasion, so we should not join powerful media figures in dismissing the process. Complaints mechanisms are a vital component of a responsive system of democratic regulation of communications.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/38809/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan Hardy is affiliated with The Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom <a href="http://www.cpbf.org.uk">www.cpbf.org.uk</a></span></em></p>Sex isn’t the issue – we should object when TV programmes try to sell us anything.Jonathan Hardy, Reader in Media Studies, University of East LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/347322014-11-27T06:22:35Z2014-11-27T06:22:35ZWhy product placement on YouTube can’t be regulated like television<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/65622/original/image-20141126-4217-adqdz2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The product placement is obvious, but are viewers aware that it is paid for? And do they care?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E20D4sMwUlE">AmazingPhil</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Names like <a href="http://www.zoella.co.uk/">Zoella</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/dicasp">Caspar</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/PointlessBlog">Alfie Deyes</a>, and <a href="http://www.tanyaburr.co.uk/">Tanya Burr</a> might not trip off the tongue for the over 35s, but they are among the vloggers (video bloggers, that is) at the vanguard of radical changes in the media and advertising scene. </p>
<p>The typical internet business model is to build viewer traffic and then wrap advertising around it. Try to watch a popular YouTube clip and you’ll probably be forced to see a few seconds of a paid ad first. With up to six million subscribers to their channels, some vloggers can earn a very good living from conventional advertising, not to mention extending their fame to sell books and acquire TV presenting slots, <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/zoella-youtube-sensation-zoe-suggs-debut-novel-expected-to-become-overnight-bestseller-9881453.html">as Zoella has</a>. More controversially, they can also earn thousands of pounds <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/sep/28/vloggers-changing-future-advertising">each time they mention a brand</a> in their video content. </p>
<h2>Old issue, new medium</h2>
<p>Until now, this has taken place with a relative lack of regulation by advertising watchdogs. But the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has now <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30203816">warned that vloggers need to make it clear</a> when they are paid to promote products in their videos. Vloggers must now change the way they label their promoted videos, by putting the words “promoted” or “paid for” in the title. The ASA insists that viewers should be forewarned when seeing promoted content. </p>
<p>Product placement is, of course, is <a href="https://theconversation.com/literatures-long-love-affair-with-product-placement-34384">nothing new</a>, but since the ASA had its digital remit <a href="http://www.asa.org.uk/News-resources/Media-Centre/2010/ASA-digital-remit-extension.aspx#.VHWg8CgrgeE">extended in 2011</a>, it has had to take a much closer look at advertising on the internet. The ASA tries to ensure that advertising and editorial content are always clearly distinguished and the distinction is a central pillar of UK advertising regulation. And, in light of the research colleagues and I have done into product placement, it <a href="http://bit.ly/1uHte2d">can be deceptive</a> if viewers are not aware of the commercial intent within content they are viewing or reading. </p>
<h2>Increasingly problematic</h2>
<p>Separating content and advertising is increasingly problematic, however, since the shift to digital media. On one hand there is the rise of “native advertising”, which makes promotional content look like editorial. Sites would argue that the content they promote is clearly labelled for readers to see, but the labelling can be so subtle it is hardly noticeable. More to the point, it is valuable to brands precisely because it is buried within ostensibly non-commercial reporting. So, the labelling might satisfy the regulator, but does it change the meaning of the content if the content looks and reads like editorial?</p>
<p>What is more, we can ask what difference labelling really makes. Paid-for product placement has been permitted on UK TV since 2011, and promoted content has to carry a small logo in the corner of the screen as the programme begins. But does this render the advertising transparent to the typical viewer? And does it change our sense of what we are viewing or reading, by virtue of seeing it labelled? </p>
<p>It isn’t easy for the ASA to police promoted content, especially on the internet. For example, many celebrities incorporate brand mentions in their Tweets, and some have been <a href="http://www.brandwatch.com/2013/10/celebrity-twitter-endorsements-regulations-allegations-and-selling-out/">accused of breaking advertising regulations</a>. But, does this mean that Twitterati are not allowed to mention brands spontaneously? Does the ASA need to censor all Tweets for promoted content? </p>
<p>Turning back to TV, the ASA now has a strict set of regulations for paid-for product placement – but UK TV has been awash with brands in scenes for 30 years, even on the BBC. Brands give their products to product placement agencies who then <a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/11/16/product_placements/">supply them free of charge</a> as props to studio managers and show producers. The agencies take a fee from the brand, and the viewer gets a realistic scene. </p>
<p>The alarm over the start of paid-for product on UK TV in 2011 showed that many people in the UK, including regulators, were blithely unaware of this arrangement. Back in 2009, when regulator Ofcom first consulted over allowing paid-for product placement on UK TV, then Culture Secretary Andy Burnham <a href="http://www.utalkmarketing.com/pages/Article.aspx?ArticleID=13378">resisted calls to allow it</a>. But Burnham’s decision was <a href="http://www.utalkmarketing.com/Pages/Article.aspx?ArticleID=15282&Title=What_product_placement_changes_mean_to_marketers">quickly reversed</a> by his successor.</p>
<h2>Generational divide?</h2>
<p>There may be a generational divide in the assumptions around promoted content. Many young consumers assume as a default position that media content typically has a promotional angle, and they enjoy spotting the ways brands try to outwit them. This is something colleagues and I found <a href="http://bit.ly/1zXZMdp">when researching product placement on UK television</a>. Younger consumers take a buyer-beware position. </p>
<p>So, do they, and we, need a regulator to nanny us? Or should the regulator accept that a new generation of consumers are media literate enough to make judgements on the credibility of branded content? </p>
<p>Policing promoted content is a major problem for regulators. Advertisers can be slippery, and media brands are under huge pressure to monetise content without interrupting the consumers’ online experience. Labelling branded content might seem a way of applying the principle of the separation of editorial and advertising, but it may be less of a solution than it appears.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/34732/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Hackley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Names like Zoella, Caspar, Alfie Deyes, and Tanya Burr might not trip off the tongue for the over 35s, but they are among the vloggers (video bloggers, that is) at the vanguard of radical changes in the…Chris Hackley, Professor of Marketing, Royal Holloway University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/343842014-11-19T12:04:03Z2014-11-19T12:04:03ZLiterature’s long love affair with product placement<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/64972/original/image-20141119-31623-14xsm87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">William Boyd's latest protagonist.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/our-planet/6055672868">Land Rover Our Planet</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Best-selling novelist William Boyd’s decision to take a commission from Land Rover <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/nov/13/william-boyd-land-rover-product-placement">to write a short story</a> might strike some as a sell-out of the highest order. Indeed, some publishers and writers <a href="http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/arts/books/article4268561.ece?CMP=Spklr-112221824-Editorial-TWITTER-TimesNewsdesk-20141115&linkId=10562142">claim to be aghast</a> at this intrusion of a sponsor into the literary realm. But this deal shouldn’t shock anyone. </p>
<p>Boyd is in good company when it comes to this kind of sponsorship. In 2001, Fay Weldon took a cheque from jewellers Bulgari to write her novel <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/03/business/media/03BOOK.html">The Bulgari Connection</a>, while BMW commissioned writers to produce audio books in 2005. Ian Fleming was <a href="http://literary007.com/2013/08/12/flemings-lost-state-of-excitement/">commissioned by the Kuwaiti Oil Company</a> to write a book on the country and its oil industry (though it was never published because the Kuwaiti government disapproved). Artists need patrons, and patrons have priorities. It was ever thus.</p>
<h2>An obvious fit</h2>
<p>Boyd was expected to mention the product in his story The Vanishing Game in exchange for a reported six-figure fee. Like Weldon before him, he found the brand became the centrepiece of the narrative. In fact, brands can be useful literary devices for characterisation and plot development. </p>
<p>Ian Fleming’s later novels, for example, signalled Bond’s Scottish antecedents and sophistication with his taste for Macallan scotch and Rolex timepieces. The whisky brand even <a href="http://www.scotchcinema.com/2013/01/every-macallan-scotch-sighting-from_6.html">featured free of charge</a> in the latest Bond movie Skyfall to keep a sense of authenticity in the characterisation.</p>
<p>Rolex fared less well, since Omega made the producers an offer they couldn’t refuse several movies ago. There is no report that Fleming used the brands in his novels for anything other than creative reasons. </p>
<p>Product placement might be an obvious fit with visual media, making scenes more realistic in films, TV shows and video games. Paid placements have been present in movies since the silent era, and the techniques have become increasingly transparent. Today, producers are far from coy about their brand deals in spite of the disdain of die-hard movie buffs. Recent hits such as Skyfall, Transformers and Superman have <a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/going-out/film/superman-film-man-steel-rakes-1947071">trumpeted their placements</a> as part of the PR hype surrounding the launch. </p>
<p>Brands have also maintained a vivid presence in TV since the fifties. The product placement industry in British TV has thrived for more than thirty years because of the need for verisimilitude in scenes, even before media regulator Ofcom allowed TV companies to earn fees for it in 2011. Product placement agencies provide free scene props where producers can’t sell the space in the scene. Radio and music have also been known to accept payment to include brands in scripts or lyrics. </p>
<h2>A long-time literary tradition</h2>
<p>The paid-for product references in literature may be more controversial, but it is an even older tradition. Thomas Holloway, the founder of my college, is <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=w6HBt9V0FjAC&pg=PA102&lpg=PA102&dq=dickens+dombey+and+son+holloway+medicine&source=bl&ots=1Ev5M193GR&sig=s4sgAZEK04EIxfLEvicuSPPJ7KQ&hl=en&sa=X&ei=r4VsVOC1ONXaaousgMAG&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=dickens%20dombey%20and%20son%20holloway%20medicine&f=false">said</a> to have asked Charles Dickens to mention Holloway’s branded medicine in Dombey and Son. It is thought that Holloway had better luck getting mentions in London stage plays of the time. Dickens, of course, did not baulk at paid commissions. </p>
<p>Today, many commercially successful fashion designers, musicians and actors such as Madonna, Lady Gaga, Iggy Pop, Mark Jacobs and many more see no stigma in commercial partnerships with consumer brand companies. But should successful writers be above that sort of thing? </p>
<p>Granted, many movie and TV scriptwriters are now used to working closely with brands to devise plot-congruent brand mentions. And, clearly, popular novelists are not above the fray. But there is a weight to the written word that lends it a different character to a visual reference. Reading is more active than seeing; and writing, perhaps, carries more weight than film. </p>
<h2>Native advertising</h2>
<p>In fact, the authority of the written word is driving a shift in product placement into print media. Product placement is a hybrid promotional technique combining elements of celebrity endorsement, advertising, sponsorship and PR. It is in the latter guise that brands are secreting themselves into digital and print media in the form of brand blogs and <a href="https://theconversation.com/branded-content-how-online-advertorials-are-changing-the-shape-of-modern-journalism-32831">“native advertising”</a>. </p>
<p>Once called advertorial, this brand-sponsored editorial is composed to look “native” to the publication. In other words, it can be almost impossible to tell that it isn’t editorial. And they are often no mere puff pieces – the branding can be subtle, since the aim is to engage readers. Perhaps surprisingly, this kind of content enjoys a high degree of trust from enthusiasts of these brands, especially when it is mixed in with apparently objective comment and reporting. </p>
<p>Brands don’t like to tell lies because they’ll get found out. PR operates in a zone that is neither fact not fiction, but opinion, and the insertion of brands into non-advertising media content is a powerful ideological strategy normalising and valorising brands in an ostensibly neutral setting.</p>
<p>Novels, of course, are not editorial but creative fiction. We read them to be entertained, and if they inform us too, it’s a bonus. Brand journalism and native advertising, on the other hand, trade in the art of factual representation. They can be seen as editorial that is spliced with promotion. Perhaps, then, we should cut novelists more slack than we give to journalists when it comes to taking money from consumer brands.</p>
<p>Distinctions between editorial and advertising, and between creative writing and factual reporting might be unhelpful in understanding why brands want to pay to be read about. The force of the written word is an attraction for advertisers, and the media context is becoming less important as genres merge in the era of media convergence. Perhaps we should just accept that all media content is branded: it’s really just a question of degree and transparency.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/34384/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Hackley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Best-selling novelist William Boyd’s decision to take a commission from Land Rover to write a short story might strike some as a sell-out of the highest order. Indeed, some publishers and writers claim…Chris Hackley, Professor of Marketing, Royal Holloway University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.