Its Monday night, the kids are in bed. The TiVo is set to record 24, my new favorite show (I'm hooked like a 16 year old boy to his first girlfriend).
Unlike most TiVo pros I watch some of the ads (or at least take mental note of the advertiser to make sure they are dipping their ad into the right demo pool) . In the case of 24, Sprint is all over this show....on top of an ad in every National ad cycle (you know the one with the CEO riding in a limo saying how hard times are...what an idiot), they have some proprietary content available on their website for 24 previews, interviews, etc. At that point, I'm thinking nice job Sprint for getting more for your ad dollar and nice job Sales team of 24/Fox for squeezing more money out of "the hard times" cell phone provider.
Before I get into my rant...quick side story about my first time noticing product placement or learning that it was actually done. Harken back to the 80's when ET was being filmed. Apparently the studio wanted to get M&M Mars to pay to have ET leave M&Ms as a trail. They didn't buy the program so Reese's ponied up with their Reese's Pieces. The rest is history. Still to this day one of the best product placement success stories.
Okay, back to the rant. One of the big scenes this week on 24 involved a man blackmailing a woman (the President's daughter) for a big news story. She goes through with the blackmail...but right at the end of the scene she produces video evidence on her new Samsung Instinct Video Phone by Sprint. I swear. I wasn't sure if this was the commercial or the show. I had to rewind it like 38 times (okay only once) to make sure. The whole show you are pestered by the ads for the phone and then BAM right in the show they use the product to get the bad guy!!!! From a marketers perspective it doesn't get any better than this. This scene practically mocks Reese's Pieces ("Oh yeah, Reese's, you led ET home...that's cute and all, but we caught the bad guy with our phone, not to mentioned informed everyone about it before the show and during the commercials!!!!). On top of that, Sprint did it with an extremely loyal following. That's the good news.
The bad news is the precedent being set here is out of this world. Don't get me wrong product placement has been happening for decades, but always as a subtle interference. In this case, I believe the studio/network crossed the line. Advertisers changing the content of programming is the equivalent of advertisers changing/effecting Editorial in Newsprint....once that happens the credibility is lost for the media outlet, even major dramas like 24.
Rant is complete.
