Movie Product Placements: the wave of future advertising

Nobody likes watching commercials.

Marketers can try all sorts of gimmicks and directors can put as much creativity as they can, but consumers just don?t like commercials. That?s why advertisers are concocting new ways to reach the audience?product placement.

New research suggests that product placement gives brands a boost in stock prices.

??There?s quite a bit of value to be gained from film product placement because the spots are impossible to avoid, and you?re able to tie your product to the characters and what?s portrayed to get rich symbolic associations with the movie and pop culture,? comments Michael Wiles, a marketing assistant professor from the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University.
Wiles is a co-author of the study that is published in the July issue of the Journal of Arizona University.

?We looked at 126 product placements in 2002 films and found an average abnormal stock price jump of .89 percent for the related companies during the films? openings. Interestingly, the bumps up didn?t reverse,? said Wiles.

Wiles and his colleague Anna Danielova studied how products were integrated to films and related it to how the brand performed. They concluded that several factors affect the performance of a product placement.

?The most successful product placements included a tie-in advertising campaign linking the product with the film and announcing the association before the movie?s release,? says Wiles. ?Also, if the brand was already well-known, the product placement was more memorable. As expected, placements in higher-grossing films tended to be worth more.?

However, the study also found that a larger audience does not guarantee an effective placement. Wiles gave ?Blade II? as an example. Product placements in the movie did not perform well. Wiles believes that brands integrated in the film were associated to violence and aggression. That?s why they did not perform well in the advertising measure.

Wiles says that product placements are most effective when they are in a ?moderately enjoyable movie.? Plus, the product integrations should be natural, not forced.

He adds, ?It?s a difficult balancing act to figure out which ones will be worth the most. You also have to avoid having too many placements in the same film. As more brands get mentioned in a film, the placements compete and become less valuable.?

The study gave also gave examples of successful product placements, like Austin Powers in Goldmember, The Italian Job, and Die Another Day.

Source: Arizona State University