Product placement 2.0
Hollywood and Madison Avenue call it “brand integration”, but it’s just an euphemism used to hide product placement. The upcoming Tv season will be full of ads outside the traditional 30-seconds spots. The New York Times explores the characteristics of “product placement 2.0″ where “advertisers and their representatives are increasingly working with a show’s writers and producers and the network’s ad sales staff to incorporate products into the story lines of scripted shows as part of more elaborate marketing deals.”
This is already happening on catalan TV here in barcelona. The other day on a show an actress asked for the detergent that removes really tough stains… its a bit pathetic and really ruins the flow of the shows script
Product Placement 3.0 isn’t far behind - when Internet and television converge completely (this is one reason Dell and Gateway are getting in on selling TVs), you will literally click on an actor’s sweater at any point in the program and immediately be taken to the retailer that sells the exact product.