So it looks like product placement in the UK is finally going to happen, after years
of behind the scenes campaigning by broadcasters and the marketing
industry. Broadly speaking, this is good news. It will provide a much
needed injection of cash into the TV production industry and
intuitively the inclusion of real brands may make TV shows
more believable in the public's eyes. It always was a bit odd the way
the patrons of the Rovers Return or Dog in the Pond would just say "yeah pint of lager please".
In reality product placement has been happening for years on TV in the UK. The traditional model was for brands to make their products available to TV production companies as free props to use in their shows. For example a major motors brand would supply all vehicles for use in a soap for free, saving the production company a lot of money which can then be spent on improving programming. As a model this seemed to work as it kept placement choice in the hands of the TV producer, and their editorial principles. What's new is that the broadcasters are now likely to be able to monetise this process.
But how is this actually going to work? The assumption seems to be that this is great news for struggling broadcasters like ITV. This assumes that the incremental investment goes straight to their coffers. But will this work? For one this would suggest that broadcasters like ITV can simply sell placement deals as if they were traditional sponsorship packages, and instruct the companies producing their programs to now accept much more aggressive product placement. This may work in some instances, for example with smaller production companies and in house programming, but not universally. Production companies are increasingly powerful entities no longer beholden to the broadcaster. Arguably the larger and more commercially minded of these (e.g. Endemol) will cut deals directly with the advertiser, cutting out the broadcasters.
And for those placements which the broadcaster can control, surely programming integrity will suffer as brand inclusion would move from being the elective choice of the production company to a mandatory instruction from the broadcaster. Surely no one would want this integrity compromised to the extent is in the US, or on the big screen. For the worst case example, three words: Die Another Day.
More broadly this all seems like too little too late if it is intended to help for a broadcasters like ITV. Ofcom has tentatively valued the additional revenue at around £35m over 5 years. Given the TV market slumped an estimated £277m in the first half of 2009, an incremental £7m a year for five years is really a drop in the ocean. Surely Ofcom should be focusing on instigating more structural changes to the broadcasting industry?
Angus
Comments