Product Placement: Entertainment with advertising

Marketers and advertisers are always on the quest for innovative ways to reach their target audience in the most effective way. The concept of product placement(also known as In-film advertising) deals with the placement of a specific product/brand in a movie in order to attract and persuade the target audience. This strategy has been gaining momentum not only in Hollywood but also in Bollywood and Tollywood. Cut-throat competition and increasing consumerism is encouraging advertisers to find more creative ways to communicate with audience in order to win the market.

In-film advertising helps advertisers and brand owners, to penetrate this clutter in order to receive the utmost attention of the target audience. The product/brand should be placed in the movie, in such a way, that the audience feel it is natural and tend to develop a positive opinion towards that brand. This is one of the innovative and best way of advertising, since it gets viewer's attention when they are in a relaxed mood.

Why this mode of marketing communication is more profitable for a company over other modes of communication?

1. Product placement allows advertisers to place the company's offerings along with the movie stars, as a result it gets instant brand visibility and that too at a price cheaper than the celebrity endorsement.
2. This strategy gives an additional push to the brand, even though the star do not directly endorse the product.
3. Products/brands, if placed effectively or as per situations in the film ensures high brand recall.
4. Helps in fast market penetration and customers mind too.

Bournvita brand in Krrish movie

The movie 'Krrish' came recently in movie theaters. The film featured Hrithik Roshan in a lead role and was playing a character of superhero. As you can see in the movie, in starting few minutes only you can find a Bournvita ad in the movie. The Bournvita company realizes the motive of the film and placed their brand to get visible among their target audience.

Shahrukh Khan promoted Nokia Lumia in chennai express

Another one is in movie 'Chennai express'. Here Shahrukh khan has promoted the Nokia brand. While conversation with Deepika in the movie, he enumerated the features of Nokia Lumia. This concept of product placement is not new but it has given a remarkable results to the companies.

Indian women's hockey team with Ultra Tech t-shirt in Chak De(image courtesy: Indiafm.com)

The movie 'Chak De! India' came on the floor in 2001 and was again featured by Shahrukh khan. This movie placed many brands like McDonald's, Puma, Bisleri and even Ultra-tech Cement. The Ultra-tech brand was shown as the official sponsor of the Indian women's hockey team in the movie. It is not about big or small company, everyone is incorporating this strategy to get maximum profits out of it.

According to Chuck Blore, "Advertising is the art of arresting the human intelligence just long enough to get money from it". Marketers have realized that the attention span towards a brand is becoming small day by day. Hence movies have become an integral part of our life and marketers have discovered this concept of In-film advertising to get long term success in this cut-throat competition.

Vampiring: Manipulating customers mind

It is also known as Vampire ads or Vampire effects. It is a stage where a celebrity becomes so dominant in promoting a particular brand that the main advertiser's message is lost. The main product message become secondary and the celebrities are in the limelight. Advertiser's are well aware of the categories which needs celebrity endorsements. Although, it looks very simple but lot of in-depth analysis has to be done before choosing a celebrity for a particular brand. The personality of a celebrity should match to that of the brand which will persuade a consumers to have same brand image in their mind.

Advertisers generally targets celebrities for advertising lifestyle products, because these products are used in our day to day life. This type of brand association with the celebrity will definitely increase their brand image and at the same time profits too.

Sachin Tendulkar endorsing boost ad

Take a simple example, whenever we ask our children which health drink they would like to have, they will prefer Boost, not because they like it, but because Sachin Tendulkar is saying 'Boost is a secret of my energy'. They just associate their role model to the brand which he is promoting. Here, the boost is an energy drink which will keep you fit and healthy, so they have chosen Sachin for endorsement which perfectly goes with both, celebrity's personality and the product personality. So, this kind of brand association plays a vital role in building the brand image of a company. People treat celebrities as god, so whatever product they will promote, the customers will use the same product and they will think its right for them. 

One of the common example is lux soap. This brand is endorsed by so many celebrities, but here in this advertisement Shahrukh has worked with so many of his co-star to promote lux. As a result, when we think of buying soap, without any second thought we think of lux.

Katrina Kaif in Lux ad

Shahrukh Khan with his co-star in lux ad

Customer should be aware of the  situation where the celebrity is overwhelming the image of brand. Customers  should go with those products which are really genuine and worth consuming. They should not  buy any product just because their role model or celebrities are promoting. After all the Celebrity is associated to the brand not the vice verse.

Here is a link with more information on vampire effects.

http://www.kaminibanga.com/professional/articles/brand-equity/16-blogs.html