Brand Building Guerrilla Tools: 1. Product Placement

Posted by Silvia Azmitia on August 14th, 2009 at 11:58am

A few nights ago I was changing channels when the image of a terrible product placement hit me in the face. The show was Packed to the Rafters and the product was a bottle of Masterfoods tomato sauce. The bottle was in a privileged position within the shot with the label was facing the camera. It was obvious and false. The first thing I thought was: ‘What a waste of marketing budget…’

Marketers get it wrong when they think product placement is about increasing awareness. It is not! It’s about adding strength to the brand by linking the product to a tangible or emotional attribute or by increasing believability of the product.

Fedex’s appearance in Runaway Bride seeks to increase recognition of a tangible attribute when Maggie jumps into a FedEx truck running away from her wedding: “wherever she’s going, she’ll be there by 10:30 tomorrow”. FedEx has also done great communicating timeliness and accuracy in their processes within the whole Castaway Story. They then leverage in a funny commercial.

Junior Mints in Seinfeld linked the product to an emotional attribute such as fun.

Cisco has in my opinion looked to increase believability of its Telepresence devices by placing a “holographic video-conferencing inside the Joe’s headquarters”

In my opinion, there are certain indicators to distinguish a good product placement from a bad one:

  1. The scene wouldn’t work the same if we take out the product [please note that I said product, not brand] i.e. Jujyfruits in Seinfeld
  2. It doesn’t feel like the Company has paid for the product to be in the shot, for example  Dr Pepper in Spiderman is an example of bad product placement while Diet Coke in Friends is an example of good product placement.
  3. It generates positive word of mouth: i.e. Junior Mints and the Seinfeld Scene. My workmates still laugh remembering that scene.
  4. And if you get this, it’s definitely a success: the scene would not be the same without the brand mention or brand placement i.e The Hermes Birkin bag and its 5 year waiting list in Sex and the City
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