Product placement becomes part of the story?

[royandhg]

My wife and I just finished watching "Bones" from the first episode up to the latest one. In the last two seasons something really creepy and pathetic started happening - the actors started having a dialogue about the Toyota they were riding in. This has involved two separate Toyota vehicles and each time the conversations changed from worrying about the grisly murder case to the benefits of radar cruise control or cameras in blind spots. The actors practically deliver a 30 second adverti*****t about the Toyota Prius etc. woven into their normal concerns and actions.

Before anyone jumps on me for this - I know that "visual" product placement has been around for ages and is here to stay. However - when did product placement graduate from static brand positioning in the field of view to being something we are supposed to believe the characters are enthusiastically talking about?

Does anyone else know about other TV shows including this type of marketing? It's beyond the one-off quip of "I can't make it through the day without my Coca Cola" etc. - the characters perform an obvious adverti*****t that rings so abruptly false that it stops the show dead. It would have been less intrusive for them to be wearing "I love Toyota" T-shirts for the entire show.....

[skamiam]

yes, it is happening in more and more shows. It is the fallout of vcrs and pvrs and people being able to skip commercials. Advertisers know that people don't want to watch commercials - they leave the room, they tape the show to skip through them, they avoid them. So in the interest of their dollar not being wasted, they are trying to find more and more ways to advertise where people have no choice but to see their message. We hate it, but they are just doing what they can to get our attention - good or bad. Even if you don't like it, you're noticing it and commenting on it and that's all they want.

[palehorse]

I don't have a problem with product placement as long as it feels well integrated in the story line, rather that than endless commercials and shortened run-times for programs. And to be honest it was much more unrealistic when all products had to be generic and they had to hide labels etc.

[mcelebrate2]

tonight on isle and izoli I think that's the spelling of the show, the mother Lauren Bracco was complaining about heels the character immediately pulled a dr footie gel thinghie for her to insert and right after a commercial came on about it. My fav ad placements are the Apple ads you never see a character using a pc it's always a mac.

[Desdemonia]

I know that some german editions of Terri Pratchett books had Maggie soup adverti*****ts in them *lol* it was kinda weird, and probably why he broke with that publisher, it was apparently quite common to advertise in pulp books in germany