Филологические Науки/ 7. Язык, речь, речевая коммуникация

PhD. Sorokina O. N., Andreeva M. V., Razgulyaeva E. O.

ФГБОУ ВПО «Сибирский государственный аэрокосмический университет им. академика М.Ф. Решетнева»

The Analysis of the Product Placement Effectiveness in Russian and American series

The research is devoted to the study of Product Placement which becomes one of the most effective and simple alternative of any advert. Authors analyze audience’s attitude to obvious Product Placement in Russian and American series through the sociological survey.

Key words: Product Placement, advertising, influence, series, American, Russian

Nowadays it is really hard to do your brand more successful using only usual advertising and PR. Everyday people see millions of advert in the streets, in newspapers and magazines, on TV, in the internet and etc. Because of that an advert often becomes a mass product which doesn’t attract attention of the target audience.

In this situation Product Placement becomes one of the most effective and simple alternative of advert. Surreptitious advertising allows advertising product insensibly for consumers, including brand in script of some films, books, TV or radio shows. Thus brand placements can be more effective than advertisements.

Product Placement is a kind of the embedded advertizing, placement of a certain trademark, the goods / service or a mention of it in the film, serial, the television program, a performance or other representation. The income from Product Placement can cover to 10% of the budget of the movie and about 20% of the budget of a TV series. There are three main types of placement: visual PP (static placement), when the audience only see a product, service or a logo; verbal PP (the comment of the character), it is a mention the actor or a voice-over of a product, service or firm; introduction of a product to one of scenes when its presence is beaten (dynamic placement). Placement which means the application of PP, usually includes both visual, and verbal elements. In the western practice of PP large television projects usually followed by campaign of cross promotion when the brand and a work of art are advertized in common, and film merchandising when images of heroes or symbolics of movies become a trademark for release of various goods. The PP can’t replace completely direct advertizing, but it can successfully supplement direct advertizing or to be, for example, a source of images for it [1].

One study found that subjects preferred radio brand placements to regular radio commercials. They also thought that brand placements on the radio were more “legitimate” than commercials. Although this study was done with radio, but it is likely that these findings may also apply to film and series.

The problem is that originally Product Placement shouldn’t be identified by people like an advert. The main task of this technology is that customer perceive advertised product like an integral part of hero's character, his life style. Now we can see more and more obvious and persuasive Product Placement and people reaction on this is negative. If this being so people probably will stop react on this kind of ads technology. In Russian legislation product placement is not considered advertising. However, it is an effective method of promoting products and services that can greatly enhance the effect of the campaign.

Based on this we suppose that modern audience has negative reaction on obvious Product Placement. In order to test our hypothesis we conducted sociological survey, in which 113 people took part. By results of the survey 80% of respondents know about the existence of Product placement. 96% respondent told that they could remember one or more scene from the movie, the telecast or series where the embedded advertizing was used. As for the attitude of people to Product Placement, 15% respondents told that consider it neutrally, 36% have negative attitude when it’s too much and 49% have negative attitude anyway.

So, our hypothesis about some negative relation of people to obvious Product Placement was confirmed. Also we showed our respondents 6 examples of PP and asked them to chose what examples in their opinion are successful and on the contrary unsuccessful.

These are the results of our experiment:

The best example of РР was recognized in Breaking Bad, in which car Pontiac Aztek advertised (by 47 respondents). The big bang theory, where Speech Interpretation and Recognition Interface (Siri) was advertised was recognized by 42 respondents. And “Fizruk”, where the main character during all seasons travels by car "Gelandewagen ", was recognized by 24 respondents.

The worst PPs were called in the next examples:

The series "Sasha Tanya" and the advertising of one of the most popular Russian reality show "House 2" has been chosen as the worst examples by 86 respondents. Respondents said that advertising of reality show is too obvious. The series “Arrow” and the advertising of Microsoft has been chosen as the worst example by 24 respondents. The reason is excessive evidence of the advertised product.

The second place in the top three worst is series “Molodezhka” which advertised “Reebok”. It was chosen by only 3 respondents. Most of respondents did not even notice the presence of PP.

As you can see in certain cases such advertising looks organically and in some it looks ridiculous and too busy. Also in American series the advertising is more popular among respondents. They consider it as more correct.

In conclusion we would like to say that this technology is really effective. In many cases, it can bring big profits to producers but only if it is correctly applied. PP shouldn’t be too obvious or too hidden. It is necessary to competently include brand in the plot of series. Only then it probably will work.

References:

1. Marketing. Big explanatory dictionary. Under the editorship of A. P. Pankrukhin, the 2nd prod., 2010.

2. Beryozkina O. of the Item Product placement. Technology of the embedded advertizing//St. Petersburg, 2009.