Product Placement

A practice in which manufacturers of goods or providers of a service pay for their products to make them appear in films and television programmes in order to advertise them. The systematic placement of products is common practice particularly in American movies and Hollywood blockbusters and a multi-million dollars industry.

Product Placement in the UK

The paid-for placement of products was prohibited in UK television until 28th February 2011, when the country’s agency responsible for media regulation, called Ofcom, lifted the ban and permitted references to products and services in television formats produced in the UK for the first time in the nation’s history. ITV’s This Morning was the leadoff British programme to feature a company’s sponsorship; a Nescafe coffee machine could be seen on the screen. Since 2011, major commercial broadcasters such as the ITV companies, Sky, Channel 4 and Channel 5 have adopted product placement in their television programmes for the purpose of increasing profits. The non-commercial BBC is not allowed to earn any returns from the advertising of products in its programmes. Despite its shows being sold to many countries overseas, which might create a profitable platform for the consumer industry and product placement, the brands featured in BBC productions are provided gratuitously and at the behest of the editorial board.

However, the change in television rules is accompanied by regulations established and watched after by Ofcom. Broadcasters, which apply paid-for ads in their programmes, are required to inform their viewers by displaying a ‘P’ logo for a period of three seconds at the beginning of the show. Furthermore, product placements must be justified by the editors and are forbidden to be exuberant. Certain product categories, including guns, alcohol, cigarettes and unhealthy food (i.e. foods high in sugar, salt or fat) remain entirely prohibited to be displayed as branded paid-for ads. Regulations also have it that news and children’s programmes persist to be free of any industry’s involvement in the form of product placement.

Sources

Hackley, Chris et al. "Unpaid product Placement: The Elephant in the Room in the UK’s New Paid-For Product Placement Market." International Journal of Advertising 31.4 (2012): 703-18.

"Product Placement Ban on British TV Lifted." BBC News (28 Feb. 2011). [1].

"TV Product Placement Off to Slow Start." The Guardian (27 Aug. 2011). [2].