Product Placement

Why Does E.T. Love Reese's Pieces So Much?

We are all familiar with the scene. A young boy coaxing an abandoned alien to his room with a trail of candy. But not just any candy; Reese's Pieces. Welcome my friends, to the world of product placement.

In a (very official) nutshell, product placement is: 'the promotion of branded goods and services through a non-traditional advertising technique, usually through appearances in film, television, or other media'. When you see a product or service appear in a TV show, or in a film, the company behind it has usually (but not always) paid for their brand to make an appearance. In the case of Steven Spielberg's E.T., Hershey agreed to produce a million dollars' worth of advertisements for the film and in exchange Hershey could use E.T. in its own ads. Within two weeks of the films premier the sales of Reese's Pieces increased by 65%.

Today, advertisers have taken product placement to a whole new level. It has expanded from movies to include TV shows, video games, music videos and even books and plays. The following are just a few favourites of mine.

Television:

The writers of NBC's '30 Rock' take a different approach to product placement, poking fun at it with a tongue-in-cheek attitude as can be seen in the hilarious clip here: 30 Rock's Snapple Plug. Rather than hate the shamefully obvious product plugs, viewers and companies have come to love these over-the-top gags.

Video Games:

Video game product placement looks to be the next big step in advertising. One of the most prominent examples in video game history is Sega's 'Crazy Taxi'. The basic aim of Crazy Taxi was to make as much money as you could by picking up passengers and dropping them off  to their selected destinations. While passengers could request generic locations such as the railway station or the police station, they could also choose branded locations like Tower Records, the Levi's Store, Pizza Hut or KFC. 

Books:

Yes that's right, even the written word isn't immune to the world of product placement. One of the largest genres to feature product placement is children's learning books. Well known brands like Cheerios, Twizzlers, M&M's, Hershey's Skittles and Oreo have all jumped on the band wagon. 

Music Videos:

Lately product placement has become as much as an occurrence in music videos as the singers themselves. My personal favourite has to be Lady Gaga's 'Telephone', which may as well be a nine minute infomercial. The video features numerous brands those of which include; HP Envy 'Beats Limited Edition' Laptop, Heartbeats Earphones, Chevrolet, Little Debbie's Honey Bun, Polaroid, Wonderbread, PlentyOfFish, Virgin Mobile, Diet Coke, Miracle Whip and Chanel. Bringing us a total of eleven different products - phew, no wonder the video is so long.