Product misplacement

The next time two characters in your favorite TV show or movie talk about their favorite food, or their new favorite electronic gadget it isn't because they like it. It is because corporations pay big money to have their products discussed, praised, and featured where they will have the most possible viewers.

Quoting CBS television chairman Les Moonves in the September 2005 issue of the Christian Science Monitor, "I think you're going to see a quantum leap in the number of products integrated into your television shows this year."

Our senses that have been dulled by years of television make the gravity of this issue, and our vulnerability to product placement, all the more apparent. Product placement works, and it's not going away anytime soon.

Advertising in the modern age of entertainment has become more sophisticated and covert than ever. One of the worst examples of marketing is the rise of product placement that has invaded the film and television worlds.

From its earliest successes, like the film "E.T." introducing the product "Reese's Pieces" to the masses in 1982 with great success, to more recent cases such as the marketing orgy that takes place on Fox's "American Idol," it does not look like this well-established practice is slowing down.

One of the scariest realities of product placement is the casual way it integrates itself within the storyline and becomes part of a character's life in many different ways. From passive methods such as displaying billboards that advertise a product in a film, to more aggressive methods such as having the characters actually engage in a dialogue about the product, it is clear that this is no simple attempt to make people aware of a brand.

Think of Will Smith donning his "Vintage Converse" in "I, Robot," the numerous chain restaurants in "The Terminal," the shameless use of FedEx in "Castaway" or even the BMW James Bond drives, or the Aston Martin he used to drive.

Product placement can sometimes work at a subconscious level, especially in the case of younger children who are easily influenced by what they see in their favorite television show or movie. It becomes a part of our thought process, and plays into our weaknesses. If film and television stars are so interested in their cellular phones, then why shouldn't we be?

With the popularity of products such as TiVo, people can record their favorite shows with great ease. They also have the ability to speed though the commercials that come between segments of broadcast television, and the networks are aware of this.

They will not stand to lose a major contributor to their profits because people have been given control over how they choose to be entertained. If people can more effectively skip over commercials, then the next choice is clear.

There is no more effective way to force people to watch commercials than have them become part of the show itself. We can thank the newest generation of the advertising industry. They have found a way to turn everything we do and see into a form of advertising, with great consequence to the integrity of their stories.

Television and film stand to lose their current sense of mystery and fantasy when constantly grounded by real-world products that make brief cameos at seemingly random intervals.

Product placement was not as prominent 30 to 40 years ago, and one has to wonder what necessitates the increase in numbers. Has making a television program gotten so expensive that the only way for them to turn a profit is to turn shows into infomercials? Or is it the same corporate greed we see that fuels the constant scandals that plague many large corporations and their need for endless profit?

The networks, in their never-ending quest for profit, have devised a method of earning advertising revenue that is despicable. They have sacrificed what used to be their core business: original content intended to educate, entertain, and inspire. They have turned it into yet another space of the mindless void of advertisers pushing products we don't need.