So it looks like commercial television in the UK is going to be allowed to start ‘doing’ product placement, except for anything that advertisers would probably want to advertise in shows:
As revealed by the Guardian last week, the legislation will prohibit the placement of alcoholic drinks, foods and drinks high in fat, salt or sugar, gambling, smoking accessories, over-the-counter medicines, and infant formula and follow-on formula.
Now this isn’t something I care about particularly, and in our little genre it’s probably a good thing and would make prizes easier to come by (what price can I get on a new series of The Price is Right within the next 12 months?) . And possibly at last we might finally be able to work out what Simon Cowell and co are drinking on those blurred out shots on American Idol (*).
However there is good product placement and bad product placement.
- GOOD: Deal or No Deal sponsored by Marmite. “There MARMITE be £250,000 in your box, but there MARMITE be a penny! It’s a real MARMITE situation!” (Noel has a bite of some toast with some Marmite on it).
- BAD: Any situation where a contestant may have to go on about how “completely super” something is. We’re not bloody America, and we don’t do deference very well. Examples are: any task involving a product on The Amazing Race other than carrying a Travelocity Gnome around.
(*) Don’t bother.
Time for a Crush A Grape revival sponsored by Marmite, perhaps? Dick and Dom to host. It’s not just for eating any more! (Or not even for eating, in my case.)
Scratch that, Marmite is 11% salt. Probably for the best.
Does it sound to anyone else like ring tone companies will be allowed to place their product? Hmm-m-m-m-m-m.
THE BANKER SPONSORED BY CRAZY FROG!
If they were to replace the big black phone with a mobile going buh buhhh buhhhh ring a ding ding ding wheeeeee (*) then it would surely kill the show stone dead… wouldn’t it?
(*) I have actually forgotten how the Crazy Frog goes and am in no rush whatsoever to be reminded.
Just watching this week’s Only Connect on Iplayer. When can we play the connection walls online?
When the quarter finals start at the beginning of March
Incidentally, just watched Charlie Brooker’s Newswipe and I see Glenn Hugill’s gone all BBC4 on us. Amazing.
Speaking of product placement, is the incredibly blatant product placement in this week’s Deal Or No Deal actually legal?
What, exactly? If it’s the icelolly.com plug, then yes. On game shows, I think the supplier of a prize is allowed two verbal mentions and a brief (usually taken to be 5-10 seconds) on-screen caption.
Is that, in turn, a relatively recent change to rules on advertising itself?
Not at all, it was common during the Les Dennis Family Fortunes years. I suppose it’s mainly because there’s been more cash prizes and less cars/holidays.
Was blatantly obvious yesterday too that Noel’s reference to icelolly.com had to be added in in the post edit.
I don’t mind that kind of product placement – a but dubious about it being in soaps and drama, though if it’s anything like the US imports most people won’t notice it anyway. Don’t want to see logos everywhere Idol style though. Also still fail to see where this imaginary pot of money advertisers are holding back to spend on product placement is going to come from other than existing TV advertising and sponsorship budgets.
Yeah, that’s the thing – Just like with sponsership, I can’t see this having more than a temporary increase in funding for commercial channels. Any money made from it outside of that temporary increase will be at the expense of sponsership and/or breaks (…Though in theory it might move from non televised advertising areas)
There’s a limited budget for advertising, I think, and increased vectors to advertise doesn’t change this budget, it simply dilutes it more.
From what I can remember from seeing the games filmed lived, Noel mentioned icelolly.com during filming.
I have no views on product placement – and I would never stoop so low as to advertise any product..
Not even MARMITE? Mmm! Lovely Marmite.
I share Reginald D Hunter’s opinion of Marmite.
Even here in America, product placement is a lot more subtle than having a show “brought to you by” a certain product. That pretty much went out as a by-product of the Quiz Show Scandals of the late 1950’s. (It was, however, a slow process, and some time slots “belonged” to given sponsors into the early 1970’s.)
I suspect that the new rules may not mean all that much difference.
After all, “The Crystal Maze” got by without showing any Swarowski trademarks, or even acknowledging that they were Swarowski crystals. (I know. I was watching this show on a well-known internet channel until all the full episodes were pulled almost two weeks ago. And just when I was getting into the episodes starring Ed Tudor-Pole!)
I’m not entirely sure I’d refer to the blatant product placement on that animal/jungle themed Funhouse style show Brig linked to a video of either last year or the year before as ‘subtle,’ myself, but…
…Or Hiro’s Nissan on the first series of Heroes, for that matter.
Ha ha ha, I don’t think I’ve ever seen product placement in US stuff that isn’t subtle, to be honest!
Did you ever see the US version of “Dog Eat Dog”? It ran for two summers over NBC, in 2002 and 2003. There was plenty of blatant product placement, right down to the “Netzero Countdown Clock”, and other examples. The other major difference is that the Loser’s Bench became known here as “The Dog Pound”. Otherwise, it was an entertaining show, reminding me of nothing so much as a ramped up version of “Beat The Clock”.
Yes indeed, I did a feature on it which I’ll probably put back up this weekend.