From today, we as the viewing public of the UK will see something new on our screens. No, I’m not talking about a new programme or presenter; I’m talking about the new product placement logo.
That’s right, product placement, as you may have already have heard, is to be allowed on UK commercial television programmes for the first time and there is a new logo to go with it, which has been mandated by communications watchdog Ofcom. We will soon notice the black and white logo displayed for three seconds at the beginning and end of television shows which have been paid to include products.
Product placement actually dates back to the nineteenth century in publishing. When Jules Verne published Around the World in Eighty Days in 1873 he was a world-renowned literary giant to the extent transport and shipping companies lobbied to be mentioned in the story as it was published in serial form.
For the last 55 years, since commercial television first began in the UK, viewers have been used to seeing advertising mostly during the advertisement breaks. Now UK viewers will see placed commercial products in dramas, sitcoms, soaps and other programmes but not on any BBC output, nor on any children’s, news or religious affairs programmes.
There will not only be restrictions to the programmes in which product placement allowed, but also to the types of products that are able to be placed. It will not surprise you to learn that the list of banned products includes gambling, alcohol, baby milk, weapons, escort services and any food or drink with a high salt, fat or sugar content.
Product placement is not entirely new to us however. We have witnessed the power of advertising through films and music videos for many years. Why else do we so closely associate Aston Martins with James Bond, Fords cars with Mulder and Scully and Apple products with Carrie Bradshaw?
It’s not entirely new to TV either. PRs have been placing products for years, and there are PR agencies that are set up do just that. There is no coincidence in the cars that we see characters drive in soaps and TV dramas as well as the cereal they eat and the clothes they wear. Currently brand names can only be placed in programmes if no money has changed hands. The products are considered to be props – programme makers decreases production cost by using them and the company supplying them gets free publicity.
Although product placement will now be more obvious (not least because we all know its coming!) it won’t work unless the product blends seamlessly with the editorial content.
What will this mean for PR agencies? Largely, it will be a suck it and see. But I could well see consumer agencies spending more time looking into these opportunities for clients than they ever have before. These clients will also want to see the proof that it works.
For financial and professional services agencies like Broadgate Mainland, product placement won’t be on the radar for many years to come. But as sad as it may sound, I look forward to the day when Ken and Deirdre are pounding the cobbles of Coronation Street and debating whether to invest their life savings in bonds or equities, only to later catch a glimpse of a brochure for the Jupiter Income Fund on the coffee table. You never know, stranger things have happened.
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