iTVX.com--- First, she “kissed a girl,” and we all know she liked it. Now Katy Perry is singing about a bipolar boyfriend in her follow-up to that hit “Hot N Cold.” The California-based singer just released the video for the song, and it features a special guest star: a Nokia N96.  In the video, Perry’s boyfriend/fiance flips the phone on only to see an image of Perry. The word “Nokia” is very visible - in plain sight during this small sequence. Nokia is making news of late for its product placement in music videos. Most recently, a model was used in Britney Spears’ “Womanizer” video. Not a bad one-two punch from Nokia.

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Nokia recently launched its first touch-screen phone: the N5800 Xpress Music. For added promotion, Nokia got Britney Spears to feature the phone on her latest music video. It’s a great product placement for Nokia, because it brings the phone to the eyes of their target market (the younger demographics).

To add to that, the new Spears video is creating lots of buzz in the entertainment scene. The album recently set a record-breaking leap in the billboard charts, from number 96 to number 1 in one week.

Now, the pop diva is also the unofficial endorser of the N5800. As reported by Moco News,

“Just 23 seconds into the video, Nokia's new 5800 XpressMusic cell phone gets a 4-second nearly full-screen appearance as the video's lead male character pulls up the device's calendar. Ironically, the appointment glaring at the bottom of his screen reads 'product placement meeting.' The touch-screen phone makes another appearance exactly a minute later as the 'womanizing' fellow shoots video of Britney Spears in landscape mode while she sits on a copy machine in an office break room. In all, the 5800 gets about 7 seconds of screen time in a video that runs for 3 minutes and 46 seconds.”

Seven seconds are a lot of time for a product placement. With this deal, Nokia can rest assured that its new touch-based device will be exposed to the desired target market.

iTVX.com --- Hot off their viral smash first video off their “Red” album (“Pork and Beans”), Weezer has unveiled its second video “Troublemaker” today and it’s a product placement-fueled trip. Videotaped with a Guinness Book of World Records rep on hand, the band shot an all-day video in an L.A. parking lot to help set new records. They succeeded. Among the records broken by fans in attendance: Longest Guitar Hero: World Tour Marathon (it maxed over 10 hours).  Largest Game of Dodgeball, Most People in a Custard Pie Fight. The list goes on. Also of note: the video shows some of the action being captured on a Nokia phone - the Nokia letters are very visible throughout. A person favorite on the video: a guy in a Crazy Eddie shirt. Classic.

About the Author - iTVX
iTVX is the global leader in branded content measurement and valuation to entertainment marketers. iTVX provides strategic tools and guidance to ensure brand objectives are met through branded entertainment in Television, Film, Short Form Content and Web-Video.  For more information visit iTVX at http://www.itvx.com.

According to a study performed by ScienceDaily, a consumer’s fondness for an artist’s music is directly proportional to the consumer’s fondness for the products placed in the artist’s music/music video. That was the conclusion of a research article recently conducted by Psychology and Marketing. 

Recently, it has been unveiled that the collaboration between rap artists Puff Daddy and Busta Rhymes for the hip-hop song titled “Pass the Courvoisier Part Two,” is indeed a product placement.  After the song’s release in 2001, Courvoisier cognac had a sales increase of 20 percent.  

As seen in Science Daily,

That phenomenon got a team of researchers and senior author Christian Schemer thinking about how consumers process brand information presented to them in spot advertising versus how consumers process brand-related information when it is presented in the course of programming (such as music videos).

The researchers found that product placements in videos are potentially harmful, and at the same time potentially beneficial. On one hand, positive feelings can be transferred to the brand (far better than traditional advertising). Plus, music is a universal language; this means that brands will be exposed and understood around the globe, this is most especially beneficial to globally distributed products. 

On the other hand, rap videos are not always known to produce positive feelings, especially for parents.  Lyrics play a key role here.  When rap artists start blurting profanity, parents are not going to like it –hence, it will produce negative sentiments about the brands mentioned in the song.