Thread: Product Placement Ads in TV Shows

Product placement has been a staple of broadcasting since the very beginning.



In both radio and TV it was expected that the commercial would be weaved in to the story somewhere. The Maxwell House Coffee Time with George and Gracie Allen was masterfully done. Gracie would offer a guest or George coffee and it would run into a live free-form commercial. The Commercial would be woven into the comedy bit. When you listen to the "old time" radio shows most of this has been hacked out.

Product placement was so bold as to have brand names plastered on the TV news sets. Here in Cinti, Al Shottlekotte sat in front of a giant "Zenith" TV sign for years. up until the late 60s.

The product placement never went away completely, but it lost some of its appeal for producers due to the emergence of syndication and many independent TV stations looking for material to re-air. They wanted to sell their own ads and the original sponsors weren't going to pay to have their commercials reaired.

Now many new shows using product placement on network TV and even theatrical movies shoot two versions of a product placement scene. One for the original air/theatrical release and maybe the network re-run and another generic version for syndication or home sales. DVRs are not the cause of the so-called return of the product placement ad.

look on the curtain during the wide shots

I love product placements, they make the shows much more realistic. As noted, Big Bang Theory is good at product placement and mentioning products and companies by name. I can’t say I’ve seen an Android based phone on any TV show I watch, yet, unfortunately I do notice lots of iPhones though. Every Nextel phone I’ve ever owned I’ve seen on various TV shows though, I’ve seen my crappy Verizon work phone on an episode of FlashForward. The PDA I own was on an episode of CSI last year, my old 22” HP monitor was in one of the crime labs in one the CSIs. I have yet to see my car on any TV show, hell I usually don’t even see another car like mine on the road at any point.

Castle has featured a Droid, X, I believe.

Simpsons had a funny one... Bart says, "I've never seen stores like this before." as they drive by a 7-11 and a McDonalds.

Hello guys...!
It seems like about half of the shows on tv have a subway commercial written into the show. Personally I'm sick of it. Anyone else? I have decided to boycott subway and if the shows that I watch continue this trend...I will have to boycott them as well.Thanks in advance.

The guys on Hawaii Five-O, who said "Bing(tm) that" followed by a quick web search that found exactly the non public info that they were looking for, used to all have iPhone 4.

Guess Microsoft made a better offer. I bet even McGarrett's iPhone getting tossed off the deck of the USS Missouri in the previous episode was stipulated in the MS contract.

Originally Posted by Pepper

The guys on Hawaii Five-O, who said "Bing(tm) that" followed by a quick web search that found exactly the non public info that they were looking for, used to all have iPhone 4.

Guess Microsoft made a better offer. I bet even McGarrett's iPhone getting tossed off the deck of the USS Missouri in the previous episode was stipulated in the MS contract.

Yeah as if anyone says bing that. In Microsoft's dreams....

Originally Posted by Brian Cowen

Hello guys...!
It seems like about half of the shows on tv have a subway commercial written into the show. Personally I'm sick of it. Anyone else? I have decided to boycott subway and if the shows that I watch continue this trend...I will have to boycott them as well.Thanks in advance.

Here's what we know in the ad business that you don't. For every one like you, there are tens of thousands of viewers who will think "Subway" the next time they are in the mood to grab a quick lunch of this type. Product placement works and creates a subconscious mind awareness that is positive for the product. If it didn't work, we wouldn't use it.


Mike- The Bing placement is to create future awareness, not a proclamation on the popularity of Bing today. Will it work? Personally, I doubt it because Google is too well established. What they need to do is show what advantage Bing has ( if any) . Bing is still in the education phase, so to try and make it an icon of search now is misguided advertising strategy, IMO. Unfortunately, much of what Microsoft has done in the past 10 years is misguided strategy. It's a result of a company that has become too big for one man to run.

If tv shows have product placements, then the channel showing the program should cut back on commercials during the program. Think of it, a program has a Subway placement, then the channel advertises a Subway commercial during the program. With less commercials, less viewers would not ff or change the channel.