Spectre of product placement regulations

Biting the hand

Which frankly, is a pretty dumb way of behaving because if anything amounts to biting the hand that feeds you, this is it.

While one can understand a lot of writers being miffed at their editorial integrity and creativity being prostituted by commercial considerations, as far as the TV industry is concerned, the concept of product placement isn't a luxury or just another way of making a lot more money, it is what will sustain commercial television in the future.

Particularly from the point of view that more and more research surveys are showing that the 30-second commercial and traditional commercial break within programmes is on its deathbed and in many cases already dead and in an advanced state of composition.

No alternative

So, any TV writer who wants to keep his or her job needs to understand that the only way that going to happen is to accept that branded television is something that they simply have to live with. Sure its prostitution, but there are very few alternatives.

While many other developed and developing countries are struggling with the branded television concept, South Africa has thankfully done the homework and quite some time ago allowed it on our local screens.

What the Americans are saying, however, is not that they want to do away with product placement but to identify - as one does presumably in this country with advertorial in print media - what products are being promoted within the programme itself.

And clearly enough that viewers are left in no doubt whatsoever about which product appearances are being paid for.

Defeats object

Which, of course, defeats the whole object of product placement. Because by alerting viewers to what is paid for, one might as well just go back to placing 30-second commercials for all the good it will do.

The beauty of product placement, in my opinion, is that it is self-regulating. If advertisers are allowed to make product appearances in programmes too obvious, then from the viewer's point of view the cat will be out of the bag and the impact lost.

So, it pays marketers and advertisers to be as subtle as possible with their product placement because the more subtle, the more efficient it all becomes.