The Rules of Product Placement

In this day and age, with the new-fangled Internet and DVRs, television heads are reverting to an old form of revenue – product placement. Despite studies that show that most people watch the commercials of their DVR'ed shows, and those who don't still know what is being advertised – in addition to me personal belief that the average viewer finds product placements annoying, thus neutralizing their intended effect – this seems to be a trend only growing in popularity (at least among television executives. In order to make this whole process go down a lot smoother, I hereby present rules for all instances of product placement.

1. Make the dialogue about the product sound natural. Simple rule to follow: Would somebody talk like that is real life? If not, then you need to re-write the scene.

And Microsoft? Nobody ever uses the phrase “Bing it!”, so stop trying to make that happen.

On the other hand, this Stephen Colbert plug worked quite well (and it was for a good cause). 

2. Only use product placements where they make sense. Should characters of Men of A Certain Age, when they are working in a Chevrolet dealership, talk about Chevy cars? Certainly?  Can the ad men of Mad Men talk about the benefits of a product, within the context of discussing ad ideas? Absolutely. But beyond that, you're going to be stretching it.

3. Ground the product placement within your characters. We ultimately have to believe that whatever character is hocking your product, would actually be excited about said product. To have your character to suddenly rant about your product throws people off. I would, for instance, believe that Phil Dunphy really wants that iPad:



But Kevin Malone being excited about that paper shredder? That's a far more difficult pill to swallow.

4. If your show is a comedy, make the product placement funny, or better yet, make fun of the fact that you are doing a product placement. This is quite simple, really. Nothing will make your product placement stick out more than for it to be tonally different than the rest of the show. Name dropping doesn't work in comedies. Jokes, however, do.



5. Showing the product is fine; lingering on it is inexcusable. Name brand products exist in the real world. This is why (for me at least) having name brand products in the background of any given scene. However, when you make a lingering shot of the product itself, or have object positioned so that we can see the whole label (i.e. unnaturally) then it destroys any chances of realism. 

I mean, that's just terrible.

6. Putting your characters in commercials that air outside of the show itself is no better. In fact, most of the time it's even worse.

Well, unless they're this: