Lights, Camera, Enter Product Placement

For those of you who know the world of public relations, you know that our work centers largely around relationship building, crafting important messaging and sometimes naming our first-born child after a reporter (yes, this is a joke), just to secure important editorial coverage. The value of unpaid placements is not often questioned and that is why the new trend in television and film product placement has thrown us all for a bit of a loop.

Television and film viewership numbers often rank in the multi-millions and it is no surprise that clients are jumping at the opportunity to have the newest, hottest A-list celebrity hold and promote their product on camera. The challenge that we as publicists are facing is the blurred line between which of these opportunities are paid, and which are not, and arguing the value for each. For example, the sparkling bling featured on the cast in the movie The Devil Wears Prada is unpaid product placement, the promotion of Ancestry.com in the new celeb series Who Do You Think You Are? is a paid sponsorship, and the episode-long iPad promo on Modern Family a couple of weeks ago, still remains a mystery.

Don’t be fooled by the categories of paid and unpaid product placement. Whether paid or unpaid, the clever weaving of products into a TV or movie script is not just luck. With a lot of proactive effort on the part of a skilled publicist and in some cases the use of pay-for-play as well, these items were carefully selected from a list as long as the Nile River. Brand integration is very competitive and some of us in the public relations business spend years and years developing valuable stylist and set director contacts for a chance to have our client’s newest gadget get its 10-second, famed moment in the spotlight.

So by all means, embrace the value of product placement on camera. Just be prepared to recognize the time and resources involved, and the value of having a qualified publicist to take on this monumental task.

- Samantha O’Lea