For Those Who Think Product Placement is a New Concept

Posted By: Peter DavidPosted On:

On the drive home from visiting Kathleen’s folks in Atlanta, we listened to the Classic Radio Program station on Sirius XM. I gotta tell you: modern day product placement has nothing on the days of classic radio. George Burns taking time to discuss the wonders of Swan soap while Gracie Allen raves about Maxwell House coffee. On a crime drama, a detective lights up a cigarette and discusses with his partner the healthful benefits of smoking Lucky Strikes. In a Sherlock Holmes drama, Doctor Watson–in character–chats with the announcer about a particular brand of tea.

The only programs on the air nowadays that are radio-era blatant in their product placement are “Chuck” with Subway (which admittedly helped save the series) and “30 Rock” where they’re gleefully self-conscious about pushing various items that you just know was thrust upon them from the powers that be.

So for those who despise the idea of blatant product placement, bad news: it’s a practice that goes back decades which means it’s probably not ending anytime soon.

PAD

53 comments on “For Those Who Think Product Placement is a New Concept”

  1. I’ve listened to a lot of old time radio. I think the difference is back then, shows were paid for by sponsors. One advertiser did all the backing. In many cases there were commercials like we’re used to (“We’ll return to The Shadow in a moment, but I’d like to take a minute to tell you about Blue Coal”).
    .
    But in many other cases, rather than interrupt the show with commercials, the commercial was inserted directly into the show. I’m not sure but I think there was a correlation between if the show was recorded in front of a live audience (like Burns and Allen), where rather than have the audience just sit through a commercial, they could continue to enjoy an uninterrupted story (and often ad-libs which made the commercials entertaining).

  2. Peter David: On a crime drama, a detective lights up a cigarette and discusses with his partner the healthful benefits of smoking Lucky Strikes. In a Sherlock Holmes drama, Doctor Watson–in character–chats with the announcer about a particular brand of tea.
    Luigi Novi: Oh god, because you mentioned cigarettes and Lucky Strikes at the first part of this quote, I thought the part that ended with “a particular brand of tea” was going to end with “Holmes’ habitual cocaine use, and how he’s been trying to get him to switch to the less harmful cigarettes.”
    .
    🙂
    .
    Peter David: The only programs on the air nowadays that are radio-era blatant in their product placement are “Chuck” with Subway…
    Luigi Novi: Pawn Stars seems to have some deal with Subway too, if the rather blatant mentions of them in a couple of episodes (one of which featured Corey and Chumlee having lunch in a Subway, and Core using Chumlee’s meatball sub as a metaphor for something he was trying to explain to Chum) are any indication.

  3. .
    LSMFT! LSMFT!
    .
    I’m a Jack Benny geek from way back. I could easily sing most (if not all) of the spots from that show.
    .
    C for comedy!
    A for Abbott!
    M for Maxwell!
    E for Ennis!
    and
    L for Lou Costello!
    .
    Put them all together and they spell… CAMEL!
    .
    Followed by a discussion about Camel cigarettes somewhere in the actual program and an advertisement discussing the “T” Zone and how 4 out of 5 doctors recommend Camel cigarettes for their low tar and flavor.
    .
    Never had an issue with modern ad placement myself. It only ever bothers me when they try to push a product in a way that kind of throws you out of the story for a moment. But for the most part I could never figure out why people bìŧçhëd about it so much. So what if the guy in the film is knocking back a Pepsi or stopping at the Burger King drive through. People in real life do the same thing.
    .
    Of course, when they don’t do the product placement thing and either hold objects oddly to obscure the name or make up fake products to use the same people that whine about the product placement make fun of how stupid that looks. Ðámņëd if you do, dámņëd if you don’t.

    1. My wife is a big Days fan, and she’d save the awful product placement bits for me to watch. And they WERE awful. And I could only wonder “When is this gonna start in comics? Has it already, and if not, why not?”

      1. As I recall, several years ago, a clothing company made a deal with DC in which characters would be drawn wearing the company’s (supposedly) uniquely identifiable designs. There was even an advertising supplement for the clothing line included in DC books with the characters wearing the clothes.
        .
        –Daryl

      2. A while back there was a new Niki logo that was inserted on to character’s shirts. Unfortunately, it was after the art was completed so it would be this weird two-dimensional picture on top of a shirt that was wrinkled or at an angle. It also showed up once in a bathroom stall, which was just weird.

  5. I was listening to an old Archie radio program online a little while ago, and all action stopped at the midpoint of the story when the doorbell rang and a Mr.Smith or Jones or whatnot stopped in to talk about Swift’s Premium Franks (the sponser of the show, naturally). Mr.Andrews and Jughead chimed in as well, in character, to sing the praises of this product, before the shill left and all went on as if nothing had happened. It felt rather surreal.
    I agree with Jerry Chandler above in that product placement doesn’t bother me when, for instance, you see a character on a show eating a Whopper or drinking a Coke, because people actually do these things. When they practically break the third wall to call your attention to a product, though, it just gets distracting.
    I find it amusing, though, that people actually go so far as to have nostalgia about commercials and how they are presented. I am often amused by commercials myself, but having an attitude of “why, in the good old days, they worked to make commercials charming and funny” seems like stretching the “nothing these whippersnappers do today is any good” attitude a bit far.

    1. .
      I’m not sure that it’s nostalgia about commercials and how they were presented (especially since I wasn’t around in the radio days) as much as it’s just discussing the humor and/or clever nature the commercials were done.

  6. Hi all,

    You don’t have to go back to old time radio to find decent product placement. The James Bond flicks of the 60s and 70s did a great job of inserting 7up or Red Stripe beer into a scene to make it obvious but real. (or in Gray64’s words “eating a Whopper or drinking a Coke, because people actually do these things. When they practically break the third wall to call your attention to a product, though, it just gets distracting.”)

    Bond movies NEVER broke the third wall but created a real environment with real products. This not only was not distracting but also added a sense of realism to the scene as these are real products.

    Captain Naraht

    2. Ian Fleming did the same thing throughout the original Bond books; the constant mentioning of brand names wasn’t intended as advertising, just to punch up Bond’s world and make him look like a guy who got the best of everything.
      .
      (Fleming borrowed the technique from Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe books – which get a mention themselves in one Bond novel. The difference is that Stout was very disturbed to find that his product mentions were seen as de facto advertising, and rapidly shifted to using fictitious brand names after the first few novels. Didn’t hurt the effect at all.)

  7. There seems to be a lot of automobile product placement now. We always see the manufacturer’s logo whenever someone drives a car. then there was Heroes use of the Nissan Versa (I think it was the Versa).

    The difference is that we seemed to be rid of it for a few decades and now that is coming back, it seems crass.

  8. The great William Claude Dukenfield (better known, of course, as Lavatory Meadows … errr … W. C. Fields) once starred in a radio series sponsored by Lucky Strike.
    .
    Until someone noticed, he would tell stories about his (apocryphal) son, Chester…

  9. Some shows do a better job with the product placement than others. Chuck I really appreciate because, yeah, Subway helped save the show. Plus, the writers make it funny.

    However, the episode with Summer Glau did seem to be laying it on a bit thick. They just kept coming back to the Subway references over and over until-

    Did he just say meatball sub? Man, those are good. I really do like Subway’s meatball subs. All is forgiven, I’m gonna go get a one of those.

  10. Oh, one more think. Even the most blatant Subway plug on Chuck isn’t half what I’ve seen on Telemundo shows. One character spent a full minute on the phone with his State Farm agent thanking her for all the excellent service. In other episode they showed a woman leisurely put on Ponds face cream, except her hand covered the label. The next day they had the *exact same scene* of her in front of the mirror, except this time they made sure not to cover up the name of the product.

  11. While Stephen Colbert did point out how blatantly soap operas are pushing their sponsors (good call-out, DonBoy), THE COLBERT REPORT often gleefully works in its own over-the-top product placement. Wasn’t Colbert’s presidential run “sponsored” by Doritos Sweet-and-Spicy Chips?

    1. I recall reading somewhere that the anime Code:Geass, in the original version that aired in Japan, is awash with Pizza Hut (or Pizza Hat, as it’s known over there) images, as they, I believe, helped produce the series.

  13. Product placement is not new. You all are right.
    I think it’s because it’s advertised that they are doing it, that makes it annoying. Advertising the advertising.
    However, there is a good way to do it and a wrong way to do it. It has to work in to the story some way, or just stop and say ” now a word from our sponsors”. Speaking of Soaps, last year GH was the worst in that they had two characters do a scene just to plug a movie. We hadn’t seen them in weeks and not for weeks afterward. Bit too blatant, wasn’t handled in a natural conversation manner.
    They didn’t even say they were going to see the film.
    Bad handling.

  14. As a huge old time radio fan, I’m well aware of the relationship between the various shows and their sponsors. And in actual fact, some programs were actually identified by the sponsors’ names, not the star’s. Technically, it was never The Jack Benny Show, but The Jell-O Show (or program) or The Lucky Strike Program or the Grape Nuts Flakes Program.
    .
    And yes, as Saul said above, radio shows usually had one sponsor, so you didn’t have endless commercials like you do on both TV and radio now.
    .
    Fibber McGee and Molly was sponsored for many years by the S.C. Johnson company, makers of Johnson’s Wax. Announcer Harlow Wilcox (who’d later promote Autolite spark plugs on Suspense) would sing the praises of the product when he stopped in to visit the McGee’s or when they ran into him somewhere in town. In some cases, they’d be talking about some completely unrelated topic (say McGee picks up a shiny new penny) which would suddenly “remind” Wilcox (called “Waxy” by McGee) about Johnson’s Wax (in this hypothetical example, the product’s shine).
    .
    In some cases McGee (Jim Jordan) would essentially say, “let’s just get this over with” when Wilcox would stop in. So on Fibber McGee and Molly they both integrated the commercial into the action of the show itself, and acknowledged that it was a bit surreal.
    .
    During the 1938 and 1939 summer seasons of The Shadow, the sponsor was Goodrich tires (specifically the “Goodrich Safety Silvertown with the ‘life saver tread'”), and in commercials at either the start or midpoint of the program (I forget which, or even if it alternated) the Shadow himself would warn of the dangers of driving on wet, slippery roads with poor tires.
    .
    Speaking of Swift’s Premium Franks, Bob Hastings and Rosemary Rice, who played Archie and Betty, respectively, are regular guests at the annual Cincinnati old-time radio and nostalgia convention; and a few years ago, along with the late Hal Stone (who played Jughead), participated in a re-creation of an Archie Andrews episode, complete with the cast singing the praises of the product in the opening theme song.
    .
    Bob Hastings also voiced Commissioner Gordon on Batman: The Animated Series, by the way.
    .
    Also, radio-related, “Lipton Tea and Lipton Soup presents Inner Sanctum Mysteries.”. And during the Lipton years, a woman named Mary would try to turn the subject from the gruesome situation of the particular episode to the merits of Lipton Tea and Soup. Though her interchange with host Raymond Edward Johnson was during a proper commercial break. Thankfully, mystery and drama shows didn’t integrate commercials the way comedies like Fibber McGee and Molly did.
    .
    Can’t say I’m familiar with a particular episode of a detective series where one detective talks about the benefits of a certain cigarette, but on Dragnet Jack Webb would remind us, out of character, that we should be smoking Chesterfields. There are probably instances (though I’m blanking on them) where someone asked for a cigarette and was told something like, “sure, have a (brand name).”
    .
    .
    As to modern day automobile product placements, one egregious example that stands out for me is an episode of Smallville where Chloe tells Clark something along the lines that her Yaris has great gas mileage, but even so, she wouldn’t be able to drive to some distant point on the gas in her tank. Who mentions their car by either the make or model? In real life, wouldn’t she just say “my car”?
    .
    I don’t have a problem with people in movies and TV shows set in more or less the present day eating at real restaurants or munching on real candy bars or potato chips. Unless the characters go out of their way to comment on the product, it’s just part of the scenery. Having people eat generic no-name foods and drink generic pop would actually take me out of the story. True, there are such products, but unless it’s a plot point of a particular story, having someone eat potato chips labeled “potato chips” and candy labeled “candy”, without also consuming some brand name product, would seem awfully contrived.
    .
    Finally, and returning to OTR, one collection of old time radio shows I have includes a program booklet with an introduction by (if memory serves) Jerry Lewis. In this introduction he mentions that he wasn’t allowed to smoke a particular brand of cigarette in the studio because it wasn’t the sponsor’s brand. Never mind that this was radio, where no one could see him.
    .
    His solution, as I recall, was to put his brand in a package of the sponsor’s cigarette brand. The sponsor, watching the performance from a booth, could see the package, but couldn’t possibly have identified the cigarette itself.
    .
    Rick
    .
    P.S. Nothing to do with commercials, but I’m suddenly reminded of an Abbott and Costello episode where Costello suddenly asks “what page (of the script) are you on?” To which Abbott replies, “never mind what page I’m on.”

    1. His solution, as I recall, was to put his brand in a package of the sponsor’s cigarette brand. The sponsor, watching the performance from a booth, could see the package, but couldn’t possibly have identified the cigarette itself.

      Joe “King” Carrasco (described by a bass-playing friend – who was appearing on the same bill with him the night this happened – as “Joe ‘Lee Roth’ Carrasco”) lost his sponsorship by Miller when he was caught out back of the venue pouring Budweiser into Miller bottles, remarking “I don’t drink that horse-pee, I just take their money,” or words to that effect.
      .
      (Personally, i slightly prefer Miller Genuine Draft to Bud, if i’m drinking USAian beer at all.)

      1. .
        “(Personally, i slightly prefer Miller Genuine Draft to Bud, if i’m drinking USAian beer at all.)”
        .
        Oh, so you just don’t drink beer then.

      2. No, i drink beer.
        .
        Just very little of the stuff that USAian breweries (and most Mexican ones) call “beer”. (Bohemia, from Mexico, is pretty decent – but that’s because, like Tsing Tao, it’s really German.)

      3. .
        Yeah, I was just making fun of the American beers you mentioned. When I use to drink more than a sip once a blue moon I was a
        .
        .
        The presidents of Anheuser-Busch, Miller and Guinness go to lunch.
        The Anheuser-Busch president says, “I’ll have American’s best-selling beer; the king of beers. I’ll have a Bud.”
        The Miller president says, “I’ll have America’s best-tasting beer. I’ll have a High Life.”
        And the Guinness president looks at the other two and then at the bartender and says, “I’ll have a Coke.”
        When the other two look at him like he just grew a second head he just shrugs and says, “Well šhìŧ, if you’re not drinking beer, neither will I …”

    2. .
      “During the 1938 and 1939 summer seasons of The Shadow, the sponsor was Goodrich tires (specifically the “Goodrich Safety Silvertown with the ‘life saver tread’”), and in commercials at either the start or midpoint of the program (I forget which, or even if it alternated) the Shadow himself would warn of the dangers of driving on wet, slippery roads with poor tires.”
      .
      Yeah, it alternated. I’ve even got one or two where he does the commercial at the end of the show.

      1. .
        “Who mentions their car by either the make or model? In real life, wouldn’t she just say “my car”?”
        .
        Really? I know lots of people who sometimes refer to their car as “the Chevy” or “the old Dodge” when talking about it; especially when it’s in the context of saying something like that.

      2. I said, “Who mentions their car by either the make or model? In real life, wouldn’t she just say “my car”?”
        .
        Jerry said, “Really? I know lots of people who sometimes refer to their car as “the Chevy” or “the old Dodge” when talking about it; especially when it’s in the context of saying something like that.”
        .
        Okay, I should have just said “model”, since it’s perfectly natural for people to refer to their trusty Fords, Pontiacs, Chryslers or (baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and) Chevrolets; but that’s still different than the scene with Chloe and Clark. It’s one thing to say something like, “don’t worry about reaching the top of that mountain. This trusty old Dodge ain’t let me down yet.” and another to say something like, “my (truck model) will make a molehill out of that mountain.” The former sounds more like natural dialogue to me (though it could be a regional thing), and Chloe’s comment was closer to the latter than the former.
        .
        Jerry also said, about the Shadow Goodrich commercials, “Yeah, it alternated. I’ve even got one or two where he does the commercial at the end of the show.”
        .
        I thought it alternated, but couldn’t remember and don’t have access to my radio shows at the moment. Curiously, one Bill Johnstone Shadow episode in my collection contains a Welles Goodrich commercial.
        .
        Rick

    3. On the subject of soup, back in the 80s a major German publishing company inserted ads for soup and tea companies into their novels. The main characters would be in a really dangerous situation, and then suddenly take a break to make tea.

      1. David said, “On the subject of soup, back in the 80s a major German publishing company inserted ads for soup and tea companies into their novels. The main characters would be in a really dangerous situation, and then suddenly take a break to make tea.”
        .
        Not the same thing, but some decades ago, some paperbacks had cards with cigarette commercials inserted into the middle of the books. I have a few of them.
        .
        By an interesting coincidence, last night I was paging through the copy of The Simpsons World I got for Christmas and, at random, I turned to the entry on the episode “Three Men and a Comic Book.” One of the highlights of the entry is a commercial from the old Radioactive Man TV series in which Radioactive Man and Fallout Boy tout the benefits of Laramie Cigarettes.
        .
        Rick

    4. Can’t say I’m familiar with a particular episode of a detective series where one detective talks about the benefits of a certain cigarette, but on Dragnet Jack Webb would remind us, out of character, that we should be smoking Chesterfields.

      Listen carefully, though: Dragnet went to some lengths to make sure the listener knew when someone was smoking. Aside from the odd bits of dialogue (“Got a cigarette, Joe?” “Sure, Frank.”), you’ll regularly hear the click-snick-snap of a lighter in the foreground. (And it’s not accidental – Webb really was a heavy smoker, but was never seen on or off camera lighting up with anything but a match.)
      .
      The 1954 theatrical movie goes all-out, though. Every public building the cops go into, there’s a bright red Chesterfield cigarette machine somewhere in the shot. When they have a crook turn out his pockets, the first thing to hit the table is – yep – a pack of Chesterfields. (There’s also an oddly prominent display of Libby’s baby foods in one scene, suggesting that the ad agency managed to fit in a second client.)
      .
      (Lewis’) solution, as I recall, was to put his brand in a package of the sponsor’s cigarette brand. The sponsor, watching the performance from a booth, could see the package, but couldn’t possibly have identified the cigarette itself.
      .
      It wasn’t unknown (in fact, Rex Stout used something similar as a plot device in one Nero Wolfe mystery.) Lucille Ball did the same trick (for more obvious reasons, since it was TV) on I Love Lucy, smoking Camels out of a Philip Morris pack.

  15. BONES has done some pretty blatant advertising in episodes. Angela seems to be stuck doing most of it, going out of the way to praise her minivan and such. Plus there was the whole episode with the “camp out to see AVATAR” B-plot. (Kinda cute because the BONES intern-of-the-week for that ep was played by Joel Moore who also appeared in AVATAR)

    1. Yeah, about halfway through the movie, which I didn’t get around to seeing until several months after that ep, I suddenly laughed out loud remembering that he was in that ep and didn’t actually make it into the movie.
      .
      I thought that ep was particularly egregious, since it was an entire subplot… though the ep where Angela & Hodges are arrested because they’re playing with their car’s toys, mentioning the car by make & model and all the features by full official name, and end up getting pulled over for swerving was pretty bad.

  16. They didn’t actually do it, but at one point there was some talk that Chuck would move Sarah’s cover job from being in a fictional yogurt shop to being in a Subway.

    We’ve now hit the point where there’s product placement in commercials. Well, sort of. See the latest Jack in the Box commercial at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diowp4yE8WA which plays off product placement (JitB actually does commercials that are usually funny).

    1. There are a few other examples of that sort of thing. Lucky Strikes got a bit of a plug by having their commercial parodied by some pizza-like snack manufacturer. There’s also a beer company that made great use of an infamous ice cream company in a mildly steamy scene that makes you think it’s about the ice cream right up until the end.
      .
      “Don’t you just lurve it?”
      “No.”

      1. Much to the annoyance of my girlfriend and a chunk of my friends, I think part of the reason the JitB commercials work so well is because of the acting by Tim Heidecker (best known for Tim & Eric, one of the most product unfriendly shows ever).

        Good comedians can make good ads (just check out Michael Ian Black in the pets.com commercials – people still remember those because he’s good at comedy). One of the best ads I’ve seen for a charity in years was for Malaria No More. It was just a bunch of comedians making fun of themselves, celebrity public service announcements, and fundraising, but it works really well in making me want to make a donation. Plus, every psa should end with Aziz Ansari threatening to kick diseases in the face.

        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1J_pSEXVH0c

  17. On Men of a Certain Age, one of the characters, Andre Braugher, works at a Chevrolet dealership and Chevrolet is one of the sponsors. Last week, he was at a automobile convention and another character, his father, touted the Volt.

  19. Then there were the spots for various products made by subsidiaries of Union Carbide that would be interrupted by the Energizer Bunny.
    .
    And, before that, there was Krendleman’s Coffee (or however it was spelt), a fictitious product created for the purpose of doing teevee spots that the Salada Tea (i think) guy interrupted.
    .
    The spots were so effective, that they actually built sufficient demand for Krendleman’s Coffee that the company actually produced the brand for sale in markets where the spots had run.

  20. The 60s ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW had it right where the actors stayed in character and drew on the episode’s plot for a short bit where they plugged the main sponsor’s product. But at least they waited until after the episode per se was over.

    This one reason to especially like science fiction and fantasy shows where, depending on the setting, contemporary product placement is impossible. or risks being soon dated. Check 2001’s Pan Am Space Clipper for an unfortunate example of the latter.

    1. Yeah, that theory didn’t work very well in “I, Robot”… just made Will Smith mention that everything was “classic.”
      .
      I swear they even managed to product-place the Olympics, with the robots gymnasticking their way through the tunnel.

    2. .
      Actually, sci-fi can pull off some funny stuff with product placement and advertising. Eureka was doing some goofy stuff one season with it that was (most of the time) kinda clever.

  21. CurrentTV’s Infomania does a great job with old school sponsorship. One of their segments, Viral Video Film School, is always sponsored by Geico, so the host of the segment mentions them once or twice during the segment and there’s sometimes a Geico logo in the corner. To make it a bit more fun, he’ll sometimes make jokes involving Geico; my favorite was the Halloween episode where he made a joke about his Halloween costume having been picked out for him followed by a shot of him in a giant gecko costume.

  22. I think the most blatant I saw last season was the Ipad episode of Modern Family. I’m an Apple fan and their placements are everywhere, but this was just over the top.
    My favorites from the old school were the Flintstones’ cigarette commercials. Just something about about animated characters selling (alleged) cancer sticks.

      1. I always figured the big dive off the evolutionary cliff took place when Bam-Bam hit puberty (Lame spinoffs to the contrary). I picture it as Natural Born Killers as directed by Quenstone Pterondino.

  24. I have a cd of the the Lux Radio Theatre broadcast of IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE. While they’re not worked into the story, the ads are just as hilarious, my favorite line is from a discussion between the show’s announcer and budding starlet Susan Blanchard: “Jane Wyatt is my ideal of a stage and screen star, so talented and so lovely to look at. Just as lovely in real life, too… It wasn’t long before I discovered that she’s as keen about Lux Toilet Soap for beauty care as I am.”

  25. One of the most annoying instances of product placement was (perhaps still is) in the game show “Catch 21.” In the final segment of the game, the contestant is given several “power chips” which s/he can turn in to take away a drawn card. Obviously, the show was sponsored by Burger King, but it wasn’t enough to call these things “Burger King Power Chips.” No no, the host, as well as the contestant, referred to them as “Burger King Have It Your Way Power Chips.” And it didn’t matter how completely unnatural the sentence would sound; it was still a Burger-King-Have-It-Your-Way-Power-Chip (Or it might’ve been “my way,” but still… why split hairs?). Good *God!*, it was irritating!

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