back to article How can UK TV product placement do better, asks report

A new analysis of paid product placements, which have been legal on UK television since February 2011, shows that it hasn't generated all the powerful stream of new revenue the industry had been hoping for. Worse, the technique is in danger of destroying a previously successful industry. When product placements became legal, …

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  1. J.G.Harston Silver badge

    My chippy sells crisps.

    1. frank ly

      I'm wondering .....

      .... why they don't make them on the premises. They already have hot fryers running, so the profit on a portion of fresh or recently cooked crisps could be very good.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      And indeed Mr C(harles) Brook, the originator of the crisp brand in question, ran a fish and chip shop in Bradford.

  2. graeme leggett Silver badge

    cartoons as toy adverts etc

    "twas ever thus" - we can go back to Transformers for that.

    1. Lamont Cranston

      Re: cartoons as toy adverts etc

      Quite. I suppose it depends on your definition of "modern" if the author wishes to consider this a new phenomenon (or maybe they just grew up without a TV - oh, the horror, the horror!).

  3. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge
    Stop

    > product placement has been present in UK TV for (at least) three decades,

    They mean:

    "product placement has been laughed at on UK TV for (at least) three decades"

    An occasional flash of a Coke can or Nescafé jar is one thing, but when it becomes so blatant that viewers end up playing "spot the placements" during the shows, it surely has a negative effect? "Oh, Waitrose Sauvignon Blanc! Been watching that lezzie chick-soap again, have we, John?"

  4. Luxsy

    Product placement will end being another weapon that TV uses to shoot itself in the foot.

    For all their pleading that it adds to the reality of a the program, and that viewers love it, they'll end up completely overdoing it and make programs barely watchable.

    1. Matt 21

      Indeed

      .......anybody who's tried to watch TV in the US can see why we don't want to go further down the product placement route.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Who pay attension to adds anyway ?

    If they actually get through my own brains filters so that i remember them I am more likely not to use them.

    "Go Compare" anyone ?

    1. Eponymous Cowherd
      Headmaster

      Curious....

      .....how someone with more than one brain has such a poor grasp of spelling and grammar.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Only seen it pulled off well on two shows

    Only two shows I've seen pull it off and both are US so show what needs to be done.

    30 Rock has some of the most visible product placement I've seen but they make a joke out of it and it's just about bearable.

    Mad Men also is very heavilly littered with product placement but due to the nature of the show it fits.

    Not sure how it can be pulled off can think of many terrible examples the worst of which was all the bloody Cisco integration in the last couple of series of 24 - "Yes the pardon from the president will be digitally signed and delivered by Cisco Webwhatsit" - Absolute rubbish and totally takes you out of the show.

    If it comes down to a choice though of product placement or one of those stupid dancing graphics at the bottom of the screen that the US networks love so much I hope they stick with the badly done product placement.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It has its purpose.

    The only people I (and I suspect anyone else) ever saw using a Kin phone - ever - were on 'Gossip Girl'.

  8. Graham Marsden
    WTF?

    Brand awareness...

    .... != desire to purchase that brand.

    I'm aware of lots of brands, but that doesn't mean that when I want to buy something I'm going to purchase something from it because I've seen it being used by someone on TV.

  9. CmdrX3

    None on the BBC?

    For a company that's not supposed to advertising products, I've seen more Apple Macbook Pro closeups on BBC factual & documentary programs than any product on the other channels.

    They usually do a closeup of them running video clips of people talking or browsers running a certain webpage or some other such crap.

    1. Malcolm 1

      Re: None on the BBC?

      The BBC is heavily populated by Apple fanbois (and girls) so I'm not entirely surprised. I have noticed that the iPad has become the accessory du jour for history documentary presenters to present historical documents, but it's fairly practical I guess. Until recently using the only non-apple alternatives would probably have involved something unnecessarily clunky (windows) or laggy (android) which would have detracted from the point somewhat.

    2. Eponymous Cowherd
      Unhappy

      Re: None on the BBC?

      I suspect "back door" product placement. Macbooks have "designed for product placement" stamped large upon them in the form of the large, illuminated, Apple logo on the lid.

      All Apple have to do is distribute enough complimentary products to enough senior TV execs and producers to be sure their glowing logo will appear on-screen with tedious regularity.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: None on the BBC?

        The BBC are generally quite good at covering it up, for example the presenters of F1 have a cover over the back of their iPads.

        1. Lone Gunman

          Re: None on the BBC?

          Re: @AC 12:18

          No covers when Jake first started to use the iPad on the F1 a few years ago. I remember rather a lot of complaints about it at the time. It took them a while before they started to do the different covers to match the races.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    White Heat Of Technology

    Why don't they print one of those newfangled "Newspaper" things, and put adverts in there, I hear they're all the rage. Grandad.

  11. David 45

    Another rubbishy idea

    Oh dear. Yet another crummy Yankee idea to REALLY drag our media into the gutter. Didn't know it was actually on the cards, never mind happening as I speak, as I don't watch a great deal of telly and the sort of stuff I view (documentaries, science, etc.) probably wouldn't lend itself to that sort of tripe anyway. The production values of documentaries have gone down the pan of late, with "arty" shaky camera-work, endless repetitions of the same scene and re-caps after each advert. break on the commercial channels. I DO know what I'm watching, thank you very much. However, I digress. TV production values, in general, have declined rapidly over recent years and product placement (in my opinion) will do absolutely nothing to reverse that trend.

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