Star Struck

Ronald Fleury, a special agent for the FBI, has just received the assignment of a lifetime. After a deadly attack on Americans working in Saudi Arabia, he must assemble an elite team and in one week travel to Riyadh to hunt down and capture the terrorist mastermind behind the assault.

That’s the plot of The Kingdom, a movie scheduled for September release. While there’s no word yet on how it ends, it can categorically be reported that characters will at some point drive a Range Rover manufactured by the Ford Motor Co.

And Ford should get top billing because it has probably captured more time onscreen than co-stars Jamie Foxx and Jennifer Garner put together. Roughly 441 of its vehicles were prominently placed in motion pictures and television programs over the last year, and The Kingdom is one of only several flicks on tap for this year.

“The visibility is vitally important,” says Bob Witter, the Global Brand Entertainment manager for Ford.

Even better is the fact Ford didn’t pay for the placements.

But does all that star power translate into sales?

That’s debatable. But brands like Ford say for sure that you can’t beat the exposure of product placement. And many are willing to pay for it.

Global paid product placement grew 37.2% to $3.36 billion in 2006 and is forecast to increase by 30.3% to $4.38 billion this year, according to a report released last month by PQ Media.

That growth, while smaller than last year’s, is driven by emerging Asian markets and new European Union regulations that have opened the door to place products.

In the American market, the continuing transition from non-paid to paid placement has been a key driver of the global growth. Brands have discovered that paying brings leverage in script writing. They get more say in how and where the brand is placed, how the characters interact with the product to show its use, and whether or not it is mentioned by name.

“It’s all about brands paying to get in shows and get a very prominent placement within the programs,” says Leo Kivijarv, vice president of research at PQ Media.

In Europe, the European Commission decided that TV networks needed new ways to generate revenue and last month eased the “Television without Frontiers” directive to allow product placement in some TV programming.

The United States will remain the largest single market for product placement this year, accounting for $2.9 billion, or two-thirds of all spending. But U.S. growth, though it will stay in the double digits, will decelerate over the next four years, the PQ Media report said.

“The industry is getting larger and it just can’t sustain the very high growth rates it has in the past,” Kivijarv says. “But it is still very healthy in terms of actual dollar increases.”

TV placements remain the dominant choice of brand marketers, accounting for $2.40 billion, or 71.4% of all spending in 2006, with projected growth of 33.9% this year.

The most prominent examples include Coca-Cola’s sponsorship and placements on American Idol, and appearances by brands like Dairy Queen, Ford and Sue Bee Honey on The Apprentice.

Popular contest shows are a big draw.

On an edition of the CBS Early Show, three finalists were handed bowls filled with Lucky Charms cereal. Each contestant was told that a gold coin was hidden in one and that the person who dug through to find it would win a weekend trip to Morocco.

As Lucky Charms began to fly, the gold coin was thrown to the ground without the contestant noticing. Weather anchor Dave Price picked it up and showed it to the winner, who began jumping up and down and screaming.

Then there are the movies.

Film placements comprised 26.4%, or $885.1 million, of global spending in 2006 with forecasted growth of 20.5% this year. This growth will be based, in part, on cross-promotional packages linking movie placements to ad spots, Web sites and P-O-P displays.

Small indie filmmakers need not apply — blockbusters are the big draw.

Brandchannel named Casino Royale as the winner in two categories, one for featuring the most brands, 25, the other for achievement in press coverage. But not all the coverage was positive. The Los Angeles Times said the film was, “stuffed to its wattle with product placements.”

Consumer Reaction

Placements have long come under attack by critics who argue that they turn scriptwriters into hucksters and are a sneaky way to get a brand in front of an unwitting consumer (see accompanying story on page 20).

At the top of the no-no list are the use of cigarettes in youth-rated films, which critics say contribute to smoking by young people.

The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), last year released a report claiming that the 390,000 new teen smokers recruited each year by U.S. movies are worth $4.1 billion in lifetime sales revenue to the tobacco industry.

“In terms of the movies as a form of subliminal advertising and promotion, a kid going to a movie today is going to come away thinking smoking is about as common as it was and that’s leaves them more tolerant to it and more likely to do it themselves,” says Stanton Glantz, professor of medicine at the UCSF.

The 1998 Master Settlement Agreement prohibits tobacco product placement, but UCSF says that smoking on films has steadily increased.

“When you see someone waving a pack of Marlboro, I simply refuse to believe that’s happening by accident,” Glantz says.

Focus on Ford

But most brands aren’t faced by these challenges. So they are free to pursue all the movie and TV deals they want.

Placement is so important to Ford that it created its Global Brand Entertainment department three years ago. The unit has one mission: to secure quality, relevant roles in television and movies for Ford vehicles.

“It’s such an important part of the marketing universe right now,” says Al Uzielli, senior advisor to GBE, and the great, great grandson of Henry Ford. “I don’t think there is a more genuine way to emotionalize your product or brand than to put it in one of these properties where it really fits.”

One of Ford’s most visible placements came in last year’s Casino Royale. In it, James Bond drove an Aston Martin and was also seen briefly driving a Range Rover Sport and a Mondeo. Ford last month sold a controlling stake in Aston Martin to a consortium of investors in a deal valued at $925 million.

The theatrical release coincided with the European launch of the Mondeo — not available in the U.S. — and Ford Europe ran a major promotional tie-in with the film.

Meanwhile, Ford appeared in more than 40% of all No. 1 films last year, including Borat and The Departed, according to Brandchannel.

“We look for quality versus quantity,” Witter says. “What’s the best possible role that we could find for this vehicle and who would be a great partner to work with?”

Return on Investment

But it is not easy determining the ROI of a placement. Legendary cases like the now famous appearance of Reese’s Pieces in the 1982 film E.T. with its 65% sales surge, are rare. And many players, including agencies and the brands themselves, are proposing devices for tracking results.

The challenge lies in the complex number of variables that can impact the return. These include consumer attitudes and behavior, the nature of the placement and factors like size, exposure time, recurrence, visibility of the name, contact with the actor, plot integration and whether the role is positive, says author Jean-Marc Lehu, whose book, Branded Entertainment: Product Placement & Brand Strategy in the Entertainment Business, is set to debut in the U.S. in May.

“Trying to precisely explain a certain percentage of sales with a certain placement budget could be perilous,” Lehu says.

Ford uses an internal tracking system.

“We absolutely think placements help influence and bring into consideration in the consumer’s mind Ford as a car company when they consider buying a car,” Witter says. “A consumer might buy now, or it might be an aspirational vehicle. Three years later when they land their big law firm job, we hope they go out and buy a Jaguar XK.”

As a rule, Ford does not pay to get placement for its cars, Witter says. It supplies the cars and provides shipping, and production support during filming.

Creative Control

Unlike Ford, Dairy Queen does not have a formal product placement strategy, but gets plenty of calls from network producers and filmmakers who want to incorporate the iconic American brand in their scripts, says Michael Keller, chief brand officer for the chain.

The requests are considered carefully, with an eye toward costs, fit, content and the scenes leading in and out of the placement request.

“You have to think of the average American seeing one of these movies, so you have to be smart about those movie brands that you want to associate with because they create consumer impressions and feedback,” Keller says. “You are often viewed through the lens of the company you keep and when you choose to keep company with a certain movie that says something about your brand.”

Dairy Queen also has to consider its franchisees, which operate more than 5,700 locations in the U.S, Canada and 22 other countries.

“In our case, we are advertising and promoting our franchisees’ brand,” Keller says. “We have to be concerned about what they’re proud of as well.”

In that light, they couldn’t have been too happy about a query earlier this year from the Fox drama series Prison Break. It sent Dairy Queen a script placing the brand into a scene in which a male and female employee are getting “hot and heavy” while being watched by an intruder.

“We looked at that and said, ‘OK, this isn’t anywhere we want to go,’” says Dairy Queen spokesperson Dean Peters, who fields all placement proposals. “We try to be very, very careful where our logos and our name are mentioned and control it as much as we can.”

Dairy Queen did let producers film the scene in a store, but did not allow any of its logos or branding be shown.

The Dairy Queen brand also pops up in a number of unplanned — called incidental — placements.

In a scene from Cast Away, starring Tom Hanks, a Dairy Queen cup can be seen in a cup holder in the car that Hanks is driving. In The Weatherman, Nicolas Cage gets pelted with a variety of things, including a Dairy Queen cup. And in the recent Astronaut Farmer, Billy Bob Thornton slaps a Dairy Queen logo on a model rocket he hopes to use to entice sponsors to help him pay for fuel to launch his homemade rocket.

So do these placements translate into more Blizzards and Flame Thrower chicken sandwiches being sold?

“It’s already tricky enough to measure traditional advertising let alone product placement,” Keller says. “It’s impact on sales and brand building? It’s all pretty fuzzy out there.”

The toughest part, brands say, is the lack of creative control.

When Dairy Queen appeared as a task sponsor on The Apprentice in 2005, it happened to land right in the middle of an episode when tensions among members of the female team were running high.

“It makes for great TV, but do you want your beloved, happy-making brand associated with that tension?” Keller asks. “Well, you have to take the good with the bad.”

So how much creative control do brands have in script writing?

“They can’t write it,” says Stephanie Sperber, executive vice president, Universal Studios Partnerships. “We facilitate a conversation between brands and filmmakers so filmmakers understand the key attributes of a brand and what are the negative portrayals they want to stay away from. You would never see a mechanical failure in a VW in any of our films.”

Uzielli, the great, great grandson of Henry Ford, has been on both sides of the fence, working for a brand, and as an independent film producer.

“In the creative world it doesn’t serve anybody well for a brand to come in and try to force-fit something that doesn’t work,” he says. “It’s as much our concern as it is the creative concern to make sure everything is organic, because if it comes off looking forced or unreal, it’s just not going to work on any level.”

Casting Call

In his book, Branded Entertainment, Lehu outlines five types of product placements.

• Classic The product is simply placed, as part of the stage set, more or less visible. (Bottles of Corona beer in the 2007 film Knocked Up.)

• Corporate Focuses solely on the brand name. For example, when actor Hugh Grant says he had “googled” Drew Barrymore’s character in the 2007 film Music and Lyrics. A recognizable brand name is easier to place than a product and will benefit all the company’s products.

• Evocative Placement does not show or cite the product or the brand. Its packaging or its shape is sufficient to be identified, like the Mercedes Smart Car in last year’s film A Good Year.

• Stealth The most discrete way to place a brand and/or a product. No name is mentioned or heard and the product cannot be identified. For example, the Brioni clothing worn by James Bond in the 2006 film Casino Royale.

• Fictional The film uses a fake name because no partnership was available or possible. For example, the Trans Latin American airline company shown in the 2007 film TMNT does not exist.

Universal maintains a stable of long-term corporate partners, among them are Volkswagen, MasterCard, Coca-Cola, GE Money and Nestlé Waters. The partners buy in for five to 10 years, paying an annual fee and committing marketing dollars to co-market the film, Sperber says.

“It gives the brand blocking out of all competitors in all Universal films and that’s worth money,” she says.

Product Placement Checklist

1. IDENTIFY a program that reaches the target audience: Is the program broad or narrow in scope, entertaining, informing or educating? Buzz worthy with the audience?

2. MATCH the show’s content with the brand attributes: Is the brand user likely to watch the show? Does the user identify with the characters? Does the show share the brand’s values?

3. Ascertain OPPORTUNITIES to integrate the brand: Is there a character that best meets the brand’s image? Is there an episodic plotline that could demonstrate the brand? Can it be part of a storyline that covers multiple episodes?

4. EXECUTE the integration to maximize message and reach: Are there tie-in opportunities with the show’s Web site or other media? Are there opportunities within the brand’s own marketing to tie-in the integration? Is the message clear, concise and amiable to the show and viewers?

5. Evaluate the INTEGRATION: Do you understand the opportunity cost of doing the integration? Do you have clear expectations set forth in an agreement with the network/producer? Do you have a methodology in place to value the integration or obtain ROI?

Source: Teressa Tucker, director, product integration, MAGNA Global Entertainment

Give Me a Break

Professor Edward Wasserman weighs in on the ethics of product placement

And now, a word from the other side.

Professor Edward Wasserman, knight professor of journalism ethics at Washington and Lee University, is one of several critics who feel that product placement can be unethical and that it corrupts the scriptwriting process.

PROMO recently spoke with Wasserman to discuss what he says is “a widening circle of influence that product placement is begining to have on the surrounding drama or creative programming.”

PROMO: Are marketers aware that product placement is not universally loved?

WASSERMAN: Product placement does pose some ethical concerns and I don’t think the people involved with placement like to acknowledge that. They defend it as introducing an element of realism in fictional programming. They argue that we live in a brand-rich environment, so these programs ought to reflect that. It’s true that when you see people drink something labeled “beer,” you say, ‘This looks fake — this is not the world that I live in.’ So they have a point. But the question is how you furnish that brand-rich environment.

PROMO: What impact does product placement have on script writing?

WASSERMAN: The types of products written into a show really ought to be up to the writer. It’s part of their creative vocabulary. What product placement does is auction off elements of that vocabulary in ways that I think are not ethically permissible. It turns what is meant to be a creative artist into a huckster.

PROMO: Does the type of product make any difference?

WASSERMAN: It’s not only the choice of products that’s at issue, it’s what you do with them. What we see is a widening circle of corruption. A company pays to get Capt’N Crunch on Tony Soprano’s kitchen table, but part of the deal is that Tony can’t pick it up and throw it in Carmela’s face. Products not only have to be present and visible, but they have to be treated in a certain way. You’re not going to have producers turning up their noses at a company that is paying for their product to be there.

PROMO: What’s the impact on the audience?

WASSERMAN: That you’re playing on people’s susceptibility. You are in an underhanded way stalking the fictional environment with suggestions that this would be nice to own and that would be nice to eat. As consumers, we’re used to being bombarded with advertisements, but it comes pretty much announced as advertising. We know what it is, our senses are up, so we’re OK with that. We know advertisers are not going to tell us the whole truth about the product, that’s the currency of advertising.
— Patricia Odell