Marketers always look for something new and innovative. And why not, in the world where words like brand loyalty are passé, it is almost necessary for brands to stand out of the clutter. A lot of this depends upon the kind of product you sell and also on how you sell it. The current buzz in the Indian industry is on how to communicate with a potential customer so as to leave a mark on him. One such way that is currently being tapped in a big way in Indian advertising is, in-program placement. There are various ways of using the mentioned medium and this article tries to deal with some such aspects.
Yes, you guessed it right! They are all examples of in-program product placements. Product placement is defined as a still or animated image representing a product or brand placed within a programmable environment. The latest trend in advertising is to make it less advertorial. The current trend is to shift from in-your-face advertising to more subtle ways of communicating, like positioning a product in a real-life scenario, to which a consumer can relate more, and what better vehicle than entertainment to do this! The emergence of new technologies like TiVo and iPod (that make ad zapping and zipping possible) and increasing consumer fragmentation has lead to a shift from traditional media to more innovative ways of communicating with the target audience-embedded content being one of them. According to a survey done by the Association of National Advertisers in the US, it was found that 63% of the total number of respondents (118 senior-level members) had participated in branded-entertainment projects in the past year, and 80% thought that such efforts would be incorporated into their future upfront TV deals.
Before we go into the details of understanding the concept of product placements it is important for us to see as to why it is an issue to be discussed. With the falling importance of TV as a mass medium of advertising there are some emerging forms of advertising like. The marketers are realizing that it is important to connect to customers in more than one way and, hence, the concept of Integrated Marketing Communications. As the TV spots become more and more cluttered and the audience gets the power of zipping through the ads by channel surfing, it has become imperative for marketers to get themselves noticed in some different ways.
One can place an advertisement on TV-serials, interviews, reality shows, talk shows, or movies; or PC games, songs or books. Product Placements help in building an emotional bond with the customers and can be used for introduction or reinforcement. The product if properly entrenched in the storyline or script of the program, can go a long way in building an emotional connect with the consumer because awareness factor is about 1.6 times greater for placements than commercials. Amitabh Bachchan telling how to use ICICI ATMs in Baghban is more convincing than Amitabh Bachchan doing the same in a 30 second TV commercial. Moreover, what you pay to a brand ambassador to communicate about your brand, can be done by paying much less through the same celebrity in a movie or a serial. Thus, brand association through film productions is more economical compared to getting a film celebrity to endorse that particular brand.
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