They’ve been seen on pregnant bellies and tattooed on foreheads. They’ve invaded bathroom stalls, cellular phones and doctors’ offices. They’ve sneaked their way into movies, TV shows, novels and even Broadway plays.
Not to mention doors of movie-hall restrooms. remember you saw it here first – even before the Baltimore Sun wrote about the new advertising age [register for free and read quickly before it vanishes – is worth the effort – if only to warn you as a consumer, about where you can next expect to find advertising]
I found this article through adverblog which gives this dire warning – Advertising is hijacking all the blank spaces. Eggs, body parts, air-sickness bags… no blank space will survive. The world has become a stage for product placement.
And here is something more to chew on – New Book Reports 37% of All Advertising Is Wasted
Hmm, I wonder why? Are they actually saying that advertisements pasted on air sickness bags and on the doors of the ladies’ at movie theatres are not working? Why do I not find that difficult to believe? And what happens to the other 33%? What is to say they are not wasted?
An in any case, I wonder what is successful advertising – I read through the paper and find that the authors are as confused as the marketers (and the advertising agencies) whose $1 billion ad spend they tracked. What is clear however, is that while on one hand, we see the increase of “unconventional” media planning, marketers elsewhere are returning to tried and tested places – like television.
Personally for me, product placements rarely work – I tend to notice the brand / ad (you never know when you will desperately need a topic for a blog post) and then firmly proceed to ignore it forever – except when I am writing blog posts about it. I am sometimes happily surprised by a nice media plan that shows me an ad when I least expect it, does it subtly and does it well. The one I remember was one of the earliest attempts I remember in Indian advertising – Zee TV was showing Sholay on some national holiday (sometime in the mid 1990s) – and in the scene Gabbar laughs his well, Gabbar laugh, and shoots high up in the air and suddenly a biscuit (yes a biscuit) pops up in front of the gun, breaks into two, and becomes Krack-Jack – and we all went, wft!