Product Placement and Subtlety

A few weeks ago, I was listening to Sound Opinions, and the topic of product placements in pop songs (show #144, I think it was) came up in the context of some other discussion.  I found it interesting, and filed it away as something to look into another day.  Well, that’s today.  I just read this article in Wired (via boingboing) discussing how a “brand dropping” company, the Kluger Agency, accidentally offered to place the imaginary product of an anti-advertising organization in an upcoming CD release from a “major artist.”  Oops.

And indeed, much hilarity ensued.  Clearly, this was a mistake on several different levels.  The company Kluger Agency was pitching wasn’t a real company and the “company’s” product was imaginary.  But that made me wonder:  is it really that implausible to do a type of product placement for a product which doesn’t exist or in a format that wouldn’t ordinarily support it?  Could there be benefits to it?  It’s kind of been done before in reverse with the “I Love Bees” campaign and other well known viral marketing campaigns using “fake” games or video clips for an ultimately real product.

One of my favorite shows is the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica. (OK, I’m a geek, but come on! Monotheistic cyborgs trying to kill or convert polytheistic humans with a neo-Steampunk aesthetic?  Oh yeah, that’s the stuff.)  I noticed recently on one episode the first instance of “product placement” I’ve ever seen in the series. There were two shots framed and timed exactly like a traditional product placement shot clearly showing the branding and logo of some imaginary weapons manufacturer on the telescopic sight of an assault rifle.  Then there is the shaving…bear with me…all the men are shown using brushes and traditional wet shaving techniques.

Sure, all of that is part of the show’s hyper-realist vibe.   But I can imagine that logo on the gun being the logo for a product yet to be launched, or perhaps just being very similar to an existing but largely under the radar logo.  And I can imagine some cool-hunting product managers at Giant Corporation X convincing their bosses to pay to show fictional men wet shaving because they are about to cash in on this recent trend by launching a new line of shaving cream designed for brushes.  That sort of back-to-the-past thing has worked before.

A show about people who have literally no contact with familiar brands seems like the last place to promote a product – although if you’re looking for subtlety and street cred, it might also be the best place.  Is that really any more far-fetched than product placements in main stream pop music or hiring models and actors to cruise upscale bars in big cities trying to be superinfluencers?

I suppose the question is:  is there a point where the subtlety of a product placement provides diminishing returns versus a more prominent placement?  Certainly, with pop music, artists are often very sensitive of selling out, and they should be:  it often makes their brand less valuable.  Likewise, most companies and especially “hip” or cutting edge ones are very careful with balancing their image against gains in mindshare.  But as advertising and product placement fades ever more into the background of our cultural gestalt, the most subtle approach may become the most effective, especially if recent findings in neuroscience indicating we make many decisions largely unconsciously are born out in the real world battlefield of sales and marketing.