Marketing
A research carried out by Russell and Stern in 2006 indicated that : • 90% of people with digital video recorders skip TV ads • 60% of viewers felt more positive about brands they recognized in a placement. Watching a movie certainly needs more involvement that watching television. Since the movie-goers have actively chosen to invest time, money and energy in the movie, they react much more positively to the brand. Methods of Product placement in movies • Clear visibility of the brand • Clear visibility of the brand with verbal reference • Only verbal reference • The brand shown with the celebrity endorsing it In Bollywood, where the mass follows what the celebrity does, it is not uncommon to see that actors encourage the product placement of the brands that they endorse. A successful case study of product placement in Indian movies was Tanishq with the Shah Rukh Khan’s film, Paheli. The product placement compiled with adequate and proper advertising showed a 13% increase in purchase intent, 10% increase in the favourability of the brand and subsequent minimum average revenue of Rs 14.2 million. The direct as well as indirect endorsement of the brand by the cast of the movie was also an added advantage in this case. Product placement is looked as an interesting way to break into the clutter of brands that fight for the consumers’ attention. This has led to several advertising companies such as Omnicom, MediaVest start special branded entertainment divisions to handle brand placements. The spending on product placements has crossed USD 1.8 billion and is expected to double by 2015. Product placement also becomes important as the advertisements generally fail to fold the attention of the viewers. There has been quite an amount of research with respect to different film industries by Galician and Bourdeau (Hollywood) and Kripalani (Bollywood). Product placements serve the purpose of the advertisers as well the movie makers. Entertainment firms and independent production companies are hoping to reduce their budgets while the brand wants to achieve prominent audience exposure, visibility, attention, and interest thereby pushing up the brand awareness, consumer memory and recall, creating instant recognition in the media vehicle. Nielsen Media Research has shown that product placement in television shows and movies can raise brand awareness by 20% . Flipside It is observed that the highly educated customers find brand placements irritating. Most of them do not immediately get influenced by the product placement and spend some time to research regarding the product. Marketers do not often have enough control over how the product is placed and the kind of brand exposure that is offered. The fear of negative association arises if the brand placed is associated with a character that falls from grace or has a black shade allotted to it. Hence we can say that product placement is a wellresearched subject. However, it is like a double edged sword. As long as the marketers choose the right movie to place the product and the movie makers take care to make sure there is no product disparagement or “tradelibel” with respect to the concerned brand, it can be a win-win situation for both.
iNM - Magazine Vol. 4
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