Product Placement Discussion - Television Tropes & Idioms

2009-05-07 Jove Hack - I made a mess of things, thinking the list was unsorted and pulling examples in Videogames into a single list. Now it's a mess. If it's possible to revert to before my interference please do so.

Vampire Buddha: I'm wondering if it might be an idea to split the examples by what product is being placed, rather than the medium in which they are placed. There's already a separate section for computers, so there's no reason to to have sections for cars, mobile phones, food and drink, and miscellaneous. Movies and shows that hawk all sorts of things (eg Smallville) could go in the Miscellaneous section.

There is some precedent. Gratuitous Foreign Language is split by language rather than medium, and Anthology Comic is split by country of origin. Additionally, The Red Planet is split into fiction written before and after the Mariner and Viking missions.

The Product Placement Revival (or PPR) has been a long time coming, but its return was hastened by the invention of the DVR (e.g. Tivo) and its ability to skip over the commercials in a traditional format show. They won't buy the ads if they think no one will see them. —Bluetooth The Pirate .

Drop Dead Gorgias: Hey, Gus, I originally had the Laguna Beach entry indented along withi the other reality tv shows. I kind of feel like all reality tv shows automatically have product placement in them, so stand out in a different category, isn't that the case?

Gus: My bad. All better now.

Seven Seals: The frequent sighting of Macs on TV is probably at least as likely to be the result of the fact that Macs look stylish, while P Cs (for the most part) do not. The iMac and iBook especially popped up all over TV land after their introduction. Of course, it's a mutual reinforcement thing: Macs draw attention, so they get endorsed, and because Macs get endorsed, they draw attention.

It's not just because many PC manufacturers are small; I'm sure a company like Dell could afford an endorsement deal if they wanted to. If I were Dell, though, I wouldn't spend money on it either. Consumers are more likely to go shopping for "a PC" than "a Dell PC" (Dell even advertises in some places with "you're not just buying any PC, you're buying a Dell", which sounds more desperate than anything else). P Cs suffer from their genericity; Macs profit from their distinctiveness.

Phartman: Well, 3% of the personal computer market share is a good reason for Apple to be cocky, I guess.

I'm not sure how to put that in the article, if it should go in at all... But thank you for listening. :-P

Eric DVH: Replaced the following:

Since all Mac computers are made by Apple, and Apple is a big honkin' corporation that can afford endorsement deals, whereas PCs are made by a wide variety of manufacturers, many of them very small, and it's much more difficult to identify the make of a PC on sight, you are far, far more likely to find someone using a Mac in the land of TV than you are in the real world.

The above is pretty inaccurate since, first off, Apple hasn't been the #1 PC manufacturer since the early '90s (they're currently in 4th place for new unit sales, well behind behind Dell, HP and Acer). Second, most incidents of Gratuitous Macintosh Syndrome are unpaid evangelism on the part of the Mac users that produce much of mass media. Also, “Mac computers”? that's one step up from “I heard that Mac released a new product today”, jeez.

HeartBurnKid: I've got an interesting example of negative product placement; in Mick Foley's second book, he tells a story about how one of WWE's directors once taped a backstage interview segment, then insisted they tape it again in another location because he didn't notice that there was a Coke machine in the background, and Coke had just recently pulled their sponsorship of the show (thanks to pressure from the Parents' Television Council). I really want to find some way to work this into the article...

Silent Hunter: Product placement is prohibited in UK television.

Kilyle: I may be sleepy enough to have missed it, but is there no reference to Wayne's World on that list?

There is now.

Do people even read these before editing anymore? I saw two enteries for The Truman Show in the same section!

Would Stephen Colbert's use of Doritos count as Product Placement, or Celebrity Endorsement? I'm thinkin' PP parody.

HeartBurn Kid: I'd say Product Placement as a parody of both PP and Celebrity Endorsement.

Travis Wells: I pulled this from the FF 7 entry:

This was also interesting as previously, all references to the cellphone equivalent in the game called it a PHS, and used it as the device which let you change party members. In all other games and properties, including the shooter Dirge of Cerberus, they're simply called cell phones.

The PHS (Personal Handy-Phone System) is a real technology, kind of an early cellphone network. It's now mainly used in China, but it was active in Japan at the time of FF 7's release. It's been supplanted by modern cellphone technology, so rather than being some sort of in-game change it's just technology marching on.

Andrusi: Cut down and amended this rambly and misleading Transformers bullet point:

Optimus may have avoided being an H2 (Ratchet wasn't so lucky) but he almost did become a Dodge Ram in the Alternators toy line, specifically set up to allow our beloved Transformers to actually become licensed vehicles for the first time. Very well detailed vehicles, may I add — very carefully crafted to pass off as normal 1/24 scale models in their own right, but with equal attention given to their alt modes and becoming one of the highest quality Transformers toy lines of all times. The line was ultimately canceled however, mainly due to two things conspiring against it — the high price of the toys (obviously aimed more towards collectors than children) and certain car manufacturers who didn't want to play along, including Volkswagon who's still nervous about their Nazi origins and refuse to be associated with "war toys" and, as rumor has it, GM, who ordered the toy line shut down in preparation for the movie because they didn't want the robots in the disguise of their market rivals.

For the record: The toy line was launched and lasted four-ish years. The Dodge Ram Optimus Prime toy exists and even has its own recolor. There was no shortage of car manufacturers willing to participate. GM is not an evil conspiracy and did not even prevent the existence of competing licensed vehicles in the movie toyline (Barricade's a Mustang). And the first Autobot with a licensed vehicle mode was Side Burn, whose "not a Viper we swear" mode didn't fool Dodge back in 2001, leading Hasbro to get the license.

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