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Group Asks Gov't to Crack Down on Product Placement

Posted by michael on from the drink-pepsi dept.

Buck Mulligan writes "The rise of commercial-skipping Tivo has resulted in greater reliance on "product placement," and Commercial Alert has filed a petition (pdf) with the Federal Trade Commission urging the agency to crack down on the practice. Gary Ruskin of Commercial Alert writes: "The interweaving of advertising and programming has become so routine that television networks now are selling to advertisers a measure of control over aspects of their programming. Some programs are so packed with product placements that they are approaching the appearance of infomercials. The head of a company that obtained repeated product placements actually called one such program 'a great infomercial.' Yet these programs typically lack the disclosure required of infomercials to uphold honesty and fair dealing.""

12 of 614 comments (clear)

  1. Stop inviting the government everywhere by Brahmastra · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why should companies be prevented by the government from doing product placement? Now, if a program sucks because of product placement, people will stop watching the program, and the company that makes the product will stop doing the product placement. Let the market control how shitty TV programs are and stop bringing government into every damn thing.

    1. Re:Stop inviting the government everywhere by Entrope · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Why should the government impose any limits at all on advertising? If enough people die from taking drugs for a condition where the drug hurts rather than helps, people will stop buying that drug, right?

      Government intervention may be appropriate here because product placement is a form of commercial speech, and courts have recognized that the government has legitimate interest in limiting some forms of commercial speech. The steps you hypothesize for the market to limit the product are naive: How many old TV shows or movies stopped using cigarettes because they caused lung cancer?

    2. Re:Stop inviting the government everywhere by Brahmastra · · Score: 5, Funny

      There's actually plenty of product placement in the news. Most of those products are F-15s, F-22s, Apaches, and other stuff made by companies like Boeing and Lockheed Martin. They're constantly admiring and raving about the cool weapons. The final product they want to sell is of course war.

    3. Re:Stop inviting the government everywhere by weston · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Let the market control how shitty TV programs are and stop bringing government into every damn thing.

      Because the market is doing such a great job of controling the quality of television programming here, especially compared to places where the programming quality is clearly inferior, like those socialist English folks and their BBC.

      That's not even really the point, of course. What's being suggested is that product placement needs to be monitored for the sorts of suggestions that made truth in advertising laws necessary.

      --
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  2. I agree. by jjp5421 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yes, as I sit here reading with my ice cold, refreshing Coca-Cola, I think that you are correct. The only way to get this to stop is by signing the Adobe Acrobat PDF petition.

  3. Just turn the box off... by TedTschopp · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I know it sounds wierd... but people need to realize that watching TV is not a right. And the producers of programs need to be compensated for their production.

    Do you want the governemnt to get larger and create more regulation? Do you want free TV? If so then expect commericals. Expect product placement. If you don't then purchase your TV channels. Or just turn the silly thing off.

    Read a book. Perferably a classic... but that's another topic.

    Ted

    --
    Fantasy remains a human right; we make in our measure and in our derivative mode... -- JRR Tolkien
    1. Re:Just turn the box off... by honeygrl · · Score: 5, Informative

      "If you don't then purchase your TV channels. "

      We do purchse our TV channels. The cable company pays X cents per channel per Y # of customers for each channel they offer. Each channel sets their price. My hubby works for the local cable company and told me the reason cable prices had gone up was because they had been paying 10 cents per channel for Y number of customers and the price had gone up to 30 cents. The stations can pretty much raise the price all they want and people don't complain to them because they don't know how it works. They just complain to the cable company about their prices going up instead.

    2. Re:Just turn the box off... by szquirrel · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I know it sounds wierd... but people need to realize that watching TV is not a right. And the producers of programs need to be compensated for their production.

      You might have a point when it comes to cable and satalite TV but we do have a right to dictate how the public airwaves are used. We the public grant TV stations the right to use the airwaves for their broadcast in return for their promise to adhere to a standard of quality that we set. The TV companies are then free to do anything that will make them a profit but only as long as they play by the rules we set.

      That means that if enough people want to regulate product placement, then product placement will be regulated. Our airwaves, our rules.

      --
      Never approach a vast undertaking with a half-vast plan.
  4. Product Placement in comments by generic-man · · Score: 5, Funny

    As I sit down in front of my Dell monitor drinking Mountain Dew Code Red ("A taste as real as the streets"), I can't help but wonder the depths to which product placement has affected us. After all, wasn't it in "The Matrix" - Catch The Matrix Revolutions only in theaters this November where we are encouraged to "free our minds"? I can't believe that TiVo - TV Your Way is being blamed for a decline in traditional advertising on networks like Fox -- check out their new Monday night line-up!.

    I think people need to mellow out with a Guinness Draught - drink straight from the bottle and just learn to enjoy the ride. After all, if you really wanted to enjoy some independent thought, you wouldn't watch Philips High-Definition Plasma Screen - higher-resolution than reality.

    --
    For more information, click here.
  5. Re:Howard Stern by tpaddock · · Score: 5, Informative

    It was Kathy Griffin, and she said she got paid to go tour around all the talk shows with her only goal being to advertise the product. She would slip in it in story, and often had to tell the show beforehand that she was there to promote the product.

  6. Re:Just don't look. by Short+Circuit · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Ah, the classic "don't buy from X and they'll stop" approach. That doesn't work very well if you're in the minority.

    And considering that many, many viewers are teens who probably use the product placement as a form of guidance, I think those in the dissent will be in the minority.

    --
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  7. My thoughts by Experiment+626 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Characters in TV shows and movies have to use various items as props. Sometimes these are chosen with business motivations in mind. As a viewer, I'm okay with this, as long as it does not detract from the show.

    For instance, Halle Berry has a Ford Thunderbird in the latest 007 film. That's fine. But if Bond had borrowed it for a gratuitous car chase, all the while commenting on its superb handling and acceleration, that would certainly have ruined the movie. Stick a product in in a context where one might realistically encounter it. Don't comment on it, extol its virtues, or zoom in for a close up of it.

    Trying too hard to avoid product placement can be just as distracting. A can labelled "COLA" and with a not-quite-Coke design looks fake. Pixellating out the names of products and stores as if they were nudity is annoying.

    Basically, I don't care whether the hero reaches for a Dasani or an Aquafina as long as it's unobtrusive, realistic for the character, non-distracting, and so on. If the audience consciously notices the item as being plugged, the advertising was too conspicuous.