Download Research on the Reason of Declining Product Placement Effects and

EASTERN ACADEMIC FORUM
Research on the Reason of Declining Product Placement Effects and
Its Countermeasures
DU Liyan
School of Economics and Management, Northeast Dianli University, P.R.China, 132012
[email protected]
Abstract: With the rapid development of the new technology and new Medias, the effect of traditional
advertisements becomes more and more weak. A new style of advertisement, Product Placement,
develops quickly. It is not only inexpensive, but also effective to the consumers. This paper starts from
the analysis of the reason of declining Product Placement effects, and then put forward some
countermeasures to improve the communication effects of the Product Placements such as choosing the
suitable mass media, using the implanting manner, showing the major characteristics of the product,
applying the index system and promoting the legislations.
Keywords: Product placement, Communication effects, Target market, Tri-parties win totally
1 Introduction
Product Placement is also called Implantable Marketing, refers to putting the products, brands or service
and its typical visual symbols strategically into movies or TV programs with various forms. It lets the
audiences leave impression unknowingly on the products and brands through the images of the scene,
and achieves the purpose of selling products. The mutual fusion of Product Placement and media carrier
can make the goods or service information reach the audiences in the performance of the
non-advertising methods, and let the audiences accept the information unconsciously.
Product Placement has been accessed in China since 1990s. During the short more than ten years’ time,
Product Placement has developed rapidly in China and it has brought huge economic benefits and
visibilities for Chinese enterprises. But at the same time, Product Placement appeared all sorts of
problems during its development. A lot of products implanted stiffly and the trace of forced implanting
was too heavy. Even some Product Placement and television or film appeared the situation of primary
and secondary inversion.These decreased the Product Placement effect obviously.
2 The Reason of Declining Product Placement Effects
2.1 The advertising subjects want to succeed quickly
The most important characteristic of Product Placement is invisibility. Product Placement gives the
massages of the products to customers through the way that not as the usual advertising. It reaches the
audiences quietly by hiding in the attached carrier and combining with it. So the harder the Product
Placement combined with the implanted plot, the better communication effect is. But because of some
of the advertisers and advertising agencies want to succeed quickly, they ignored the invisibility of
Product Placement and focused on product logos, ignored the developments and rationalities of the
movies plots. So the advertising trace became too obvious. The result of these is that movies plots is
fractured, the artistic of the film and television works is damaged, and the audiences will have less
liking and trust with the Product Placements, so the Product Placements maybe have bad effects.
2.2 The target market positioning is not clear
The target market is one or several market segments which selected by an enterprise to satisfy the actual
or potential consumer demands with the corresponding products or service. Advertising positioning is a
stable impression that making the target consumers buys your products through the dissemination of the
advertising information. And during this process, the enterprise determines the basic grade of the
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commodity, settles the status on the competition and determines a position in the target market by
highlighting commodities’ personality characteristics which meets the needs of target market. If
advertising positioning is inconsistent with the target market, it would be useless to sale products and
improve visibility, but confuse consumers and let them cheesed. This kind of phenomenon is pervasive
in the spread of the Product Placement.
2.3 The implant effects evaluation is improper
Under the condition of market economy, the effect of any marketing tools can only be decided by the
market. The operation of the Product Placement requires a feedback mechanism, which means that the
feedback of whether the audiences properly understand and accept the information which is conveyed
by the Product Placement. Then the data of promoting audiences to buy your product should be given to
manufacturers. But at present most of the advertising agencies’ goal is only the arrival rate of statistical
Product Placement. While the efficiency of whether it could convert to the potential and reality
customers is out of consideration. So this feedback in the feedback mechanism exits a little unreasonable
and inaccuracy character. However, using the evaluation index to assess the implant effects of Product
Placement is unscientific.
2.4 The relevant regulations are lack
Product Placement in China does not have a long history, but its rapid growth has not only produced
amass commercial interests, but also brought a lot of controversy. The way of some Product Placements
is stiff and the frequency of the implantation is high, which have already brought a disgusting emotion
among the audiences. It exposed the reality that related industry participants only keep an eye on the
Product Placement because of its business interests, while the lack of understanding of the regulations
induce the lack of corresponding specification. Facing the explosive growth of Product Placement, the
phenomenon of our country on legislation and the regulation has deficiencies in some aspects and the
relevant functional departments fail to make accurate assessment about the legitimacy and rationality of
Product Placement.
3 The Countermeasures to Improve the Effect of the Product Placement
3.1 Choosing the placement carrier that can reach the target market
Advertisers and advertising agencies should give priority to the question weather it has intersection
between the target market and the target market when they take the measures of Product Placement.
Separating advertising audiences and target market will cause ineffective or inefficient advertising. Only
at the time that advertising audience involve target market, can Product Placement enhance the effect of
brand awareness, improve the effect of target audience awareness, brand recognition and favorable
impression, can Product Placement enhance the brand image of the product and market influence, and
then expand the target market, achieve the advertising target of advertiser’s expecting.
To achieve these goals, advertisers and advertising agencies must consider the strategy of brand image
and brand promotion, and as far as possible to choose Product Placement vectors which is closely
coincide with the brand positioning, brand image, visual identification, target market positioning,
marketing strategy. Otherwise they are unable to obtain good communication effect.
3.2 Using natural and harmonious methods
The best advertising is not like advertising. The main design point of Product Placement is to appear the
products in the program naturally, and not to give audiences the feeling of apply mechanically. In order
to achieve this kind of natural harmony, implanted products must be integrated into a TV show, movie,
story, plot, scenes, props and characters’ dialogue, dressing and interests, to let the audiences accept the
products’ information insensibly. If the audiences accept products’ information with no defensiveness,
the unconscious attention will be converted into conscious attention, and then the audiences will have a
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profound impression and strong sense of convincing to the products. The fundamental role of Product
Placement is to produce natural advertising effect. No one can make their products over to the carrier,
they must serve the plot, serve the figures.
3.3 Choosing products which are personalized and have some popularity
Not all brands or products are suitable for being implanted, because in a very short period of time, a
person can only remember 1 to 3 brands. Therefore, when people are looking for a brand from memory,
the brand which can be rapidly recalled was preferentially to those needed to be further explored to
remember. The audiences are not aware of the existence of advertising when they watch the film,
television or drama. However the audiences will not go to dig into the depths of the brain whether they
have the impression of the brands which are not well-known for them, but will not take the initiative
action to memorize the brands which are not popular. Furthermore the main concern of the audience is
the development of the plot, not paying attention to the brands which are not well-known by people, and
this will result in spending a lot of money for implanting the Product Placement to advertisers, but
receiving no effects. Thus, the implanted brand must have certain popularity, preferably lying in a
growth or mature stage of products, so as to let the audiences to accept the story at the same time, which
will unconsciously increase the order of brands in our brain and consolidate the position of brands in the
minds of consumers. So brands or products that are implanted should have a certain visibility in order to
achieve the desired results.
Other than that, brands or products that are implanted should have individual differences. Product
Placement and traditional advertising are different Products or brands in the Product Placement do not
play a leading role, so the appearance rate is generally not very high. The implanted products or brands
must have the different brand visual image to make the audiences recognize and memorize them at the
first sight. For example, the unique color, unique shape, unique performance, or unique sound effects
and so on can all help the audiences to distinguish the products or brands at the first sight. If the
implanted products you choose are similar with the same kind of products, the audiences will confound
the implanted brand into other brand easily, and it makes businesses to do advertisings for someone else
for free.
3.4 Establishing scientific evaluation system of placement effects
Evaluation methodology of arrival rate which is only statistical Product Placement in the past is
obviously biased. Currently, evaluation methods commonly used domestic Product Placement is
originated from the traditional hard advertising business, which is mainly through the calculation of
advertising exposure time to measure advertising effectiveness. The longer the exposure time is, the
better the communication effects are. But the Product Placement broadcast environment and hard
advertisement environment are entirely different. Although PVI which is calculated through the visual,
auditory and plot can correct the exposure time, the effect that the target audiences whether correctly
understand and accept information conveyed from the Product Placement work and whether they take
the purchase behavior does not reflect. Therefore, Product Placement results ultimately should be
obtained by several indexes such as exposure time, visual, auditory, plot, arrival rate and conversion rate
of purchase behavior. And in the computation we must put larger weights on arrival rate and conversion
rate of purchase behavior.
3.5 Setting up laws and regulations for Product Placement as soon as possible
Up to now, there is no concept of recessive advertising and Product Placement in“Advertisement Law”,
other relevant laws and regulations in our country. Therefore, the regulation of Product Placement has
been in a state of disorder. In recent years, the rapid development of Product Placement demand to enact
and improve rules and regulations. To enact relevant standards, accountability and review procedures is
very necessary and urgent.
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Product Placement is a kind of innovative marketing methods to a certain extent, and its essence is still a
kind of advertising. If we don’t carry out “Advertisement Law” effectively, the outbreak of the negative
effect will make consumers damaged and advertising regulation system collapsed. Fortunately, Product
Placements which more and more appear in the party, TV shows and movies have attracted the attention
of regulators. The State Administration of Industry and Commerce recently replies to the suggestions
proposed by the National People's Congress representatives that they will put forward related proposals
on legislation and they will be combined with ongoing revision of the Advertisement Law aimed at
Product Placement. But as a new thing, Product Placement must combine its own characteristics and
guarantee its survival and development space when the legislations are promoted.
4 Conclusion
Product Placement combines with advertisers, media and target audiences. The trend of Product
Placement is developing rapidly, but it also has a series of related problems. Under this stage, it is
necessary to find a way to make the advertisers, media and target audiences achieve tripartite win totally.
Only by choosing those placement carrier which can reach the target market, using natural and
harmonious methods, choosing products which are personalized and have some popularity, establishing
scientific evaluation system of placement effects and setting up laws and regulations for Product
Placement as soon as possible, can improve advertising effect of Product Placement , promote healthy
development of the Product Placement.
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