Hollywood Writers Call For Product Placement Regs
Exhausted with the task of crafting scripts with embedded advertising, Hollywood writers and actors unions are urging studios to develop rules around product placement.
Writers and actors alike argue they aren’t getting their fair share of product placement dollars networks are enjoying, and that the practice itself deceives audiences. The unions are asking for clearer disclosure to viewers when products are integrated into a TV show’s plot.
The Writers Guild of America West, the Writers Guild of America East and the Screen Actors Guild, held a news conference yesterday calling for a code of conduct on product placement and show plot. The groups also released a study yesterday denouncing the practice of product placement.
“The weaving of paid-for product advertisements into the storylines of television and film raises serious ethical questions,” said WGA West president Patrick M. Verrone, in a statement. “The traditional standards and practices governing commercial product placement are increasingly being swept aside in favor of product integration and branded entertainment. In their race to the bottom line to create the so-called new business model, network and advertising executives are ignoring the public’s interest and demanding that creative artists participate in stealth advertising disguised as a story.”
According to the Writers Guild and Screen Actors Guild, the code of conduct would call for the following:
- Full and clear disclosure of visual and aural disclosure of product integration deals at the start of each program, so the audience knows well in advance it will be subject to “hidden or stealth” advertising.
- Strict limits on the usage of product integration in children’s programming.
- A voice for storytellers, actors and directors (achieved through collective bargaining) regarding how a product or a brand is integrated into the content.
- Extension of all regulation of product integration to cable TV.
“Just as there is an established right to truth in-advertising, there should be a similar right to truth-in-programming where advertising is concerned,” said Alan Rosenberg, president of the Screen Actors Guild, in a statement. “The sharp increase of product placement in film and television too often takes place without any compensation to the very performers that are expected to push those products and more often is done without any consultation with those performers.”
If the industry does not agree to the code of conduct, the guild groups said it would take the issue to the Federal Communication Commission.
While product placement is nothing new, the use of the tactic as advertising has grown tremendously, from a cup of Coca-Cola on American Idol to a task sponsorship by Burger King on The Apprentice, in which competing teams wore company uniforms and worked in the QSR as part of the show.
The Writers Guild cited Burger King’s placement on The Apprentice as an example of product placement gone overboard. In May, PROMO Magazine awarded its Best Overall EMMA Award to Equity Marketing for the product placement deal between Burger King and The Apprentice (PROMO May 1, 2005).
The value of product placement is expected to soar another 22.7% to $4.24 billion in 2005 per Stamford, CT-based PQ Media. And by 2009, the value is expected to rise at a compound rate of 14.9% to 6.94 billion (PROMO May 1, 2005).
