Product Placement

The first news article I saw discussing the advent of product placement on British television showed a picture of the judges of American X-Factor sitting with Coca-Cola glasses. I think this aptly sums up my first reaction; that this new era is exemplary of the amount of American influence on British culture.  My second reaction was that product placement should not really come as a shock, for it is just the inevitable consequence of a consumer society.  It is this society that is the problem, not product placement.

Product placement has obviously been done to boost profits, yet one cannot help but feel that it is reflective of how much America saturates our popular culture.  American music dominates the charts, American TV shows and Hollywood films are standard and larger than life American celebrities dominate the glossy magazines shoved into our face in every supermarket we enter.  I, of course, do not mean to say that all American culture is like this; I am emphasising popular American culture. Similarly, there is likewise hope in Britain, with the independently made ‘The King’s Speech’ dominating the Oscars. Nonetheless, it will be in the sphere of popular culture that these product placements will operate.

This popular sphere is already dominated by consumerism, and thus product placement is merely a natural progression. Some of the mediocre programmes in which these product placements will appear are already corporate machines; the X Factor’s real aim, for instance, is the profits generated by the winner’s (hopefully) number one single.  Both Cheryl and Danni are the faces of beauty products, the ads of which inevitably appearing in the intervals, along with numerous other: television is already a site for companies to display their goods.  Out with TV, our society is one where we are continually reminded of Easter, Mother’s Day or whatever holiday, so that someone can cash in. We are told that certain products are absolutely necessary to our lives, that we will be made happier by buying these branded names.

Two points; I am firstly not setting myself on a pedestal, as I am just as submissive to this consumerism.  Secondly, it is probably obvious by now that I watched ‘Fight Club’ the night before writing this article.  Thus, I have in my head the lines ‘advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy s**t we don't need’ and, the classic, ‘the things you own end up owning you’.  I thus apologise for the generic ‘anti-establishment’ vein running through this article.

My point is merely to show that this consumer society is already engrained. More importantly, as shown by such films as ‘Fight Club’, we are already aware of it.  Just because a certain logo is blurred out in a TV programme, doesn’t mean that we are not fully aware that there is a certain identifiable product there.  We are fully aware of the shameless advertising of companies and we are fully aware that, for instance, Valentine’s Day is one of the biggest money-makers in the year.  Companies themselves are aware that people are aware of this; the Orange ads are such an example of self-aware promotion.  I would also argue that we are fully aware that these advertisers are attempting to show us an idealised way of life that we apparently want. For instance, we are aware that the minds behind L’Oreal hairspray have given us an image of Cheryl’s luscious long hair to show us that this is how we want to look, and that, if we buy this product, we will achieve this.  I register tentativeness however, as, in the last example, we have seen the amount of pressure on advertising companies to state that she is wearing hair extensions or that she has been airbrushed.  This, to me, seems that there is the possibility of complicity through subliminal messages. I am not denying this but I would strongly argue against such an acceptance of advertisement as transparent truth: even if some unintentional complicity is inherent, we are not stupid.

And so, I would argue that the advent of product placement perhaps reflects our society’s American influence, but, more importantly, such placement is not a new step.  Nor is it one that will radically alter our perceptions, as we are already aware of such advertisement.  What seems to be the problem is thus society itself, a problem I don’t know where to begin tackling.  The more aesthetic problem, though, is the fear that such product placement will make producers emphasise the products over good filming.  We can only hope that the integrity of some producers will survive, even if some in the mass media have to give in to financial pressure.

Roisin O’Brien