Product placement prickly predicament

Let us now skewer a new advertising industry technique for so thoroughly concealing itself as to trick us into believing some ads don't exist. The trickery I'm referring to is called "product placement."

The average American consumer is pounded daily by ads in newspapers, on television, on radio, at bus stops and train stations, via roadside billboards, in Internet pop-ups and recorded telemarketing spiels. Ads, ads -- they're everywhere. But a much more venal form of capitalism's unwanted stepchild (the relentless pitch) has grown in use and efficacy to the point where advertising as we know it is falling from favor.

Product placement is a more venal (and subliminal) pitch mode.

Advertisers traditionally procure an annoying but nonetheless legitimate marketing segment that is separate and distinct from the entertainment vehicle in which it airs. Now, advertisers have found they might penetrate your subconscious all the more stealthfully by placing products in the content portions of those programs.

This mendacious trend apparently started in the movies. One of the earliest examples dates back a half-century when, notes, "Gordon's Gin paid to have Katharine Hepburn's character in 'The African Queen' "toss loads of its product overboard." Since then, there have been countless placements in thousands of movies.

In fact, surreptitious sales pitches are so ubiquitous, the trailer for the movie, "Josie and the Pussycats" spoofed the practice. It squeezed "placed" products from all the following companies into a two-minute time frame, according to "America Online, American Express, Bebe, Billboard Magazine, Bugles, Campbell's Soup, Coke, Entertainment Weekly Magazine, Evian, Ford, Kodak, Krispy Kreme, McDonald's, Milky Way, Motorola, Pepperidge Farm Cookies, Pizza Hut, Pringles, Puma, Ray-Ban, Sega, Starbucks, Steve Madden, Target and T.J. Maxx."

Not all product placements are purchased. Some come free of charge in exchange for providing a studio or network with badly needed props at the last minute. Yes, so cunning and sadly successful is the scheme, of late it has expanded beyond Hollywood. At least in movies, it could be argued, no consumer so much as expects reality, honesty or even most times, intellectual rigor.

Now advertisers are venturing into other media. A recent Wall Street Journal interview promoted a rising network executive star who gushed shamelessly about her cross-platform product-placement powers (the woman is in charge of placing products on a variety of co-owned broadcast and cable networks as well as other media).

Call me crazy, but I prefer to know when I'm some ad agency's target of opportunity. I need to know so I can ignore the message. I need to know so I can vent my resentment. I need to know so I can go out of my way NOT to patronize the brand or product that invaded my space. I need to know so I can buy the generic version (if one's available).

Then I'm secure in the knowledge no one's exaggerated the capabilities of my small-dollar purchase (cleans all surfaces, relieves cold symptoms, etc.). I rest easier knowing my money is not subsidizing the exorbitant salary of some Madison Avenue sorcerer who is owed as little toward that product's success as the Wizard of Oz was for getting Dorothy back to Kansas (and we all know the curtain was pulled on the Wizard's lame shamanics, too).

Major advertisers are beginning to understand that consumers don't trust ads. Some are shifting resources away from traditional advertising and toward more hidden product placement or feel-good promotion.

The Gallup Organization noted in a 2002 Web posting, "There is mounting evidence that leading companies may be questioning the role of advertising and the amounts they have been spending on it. Mega-advertiser Philip Morris recently announced that, rather than increase its advertising budget, it would greatly increase its promotional expenditures in the fourth quarter of this year, adding $600 million to $650 million on top of an already announced $350 million targeted for price promotions."

As that happens, we as consumers and as targets need to be on guard for the barrage of hidden sales pitches, so we can inure ourselves to them, as we are inuring ourselves to the obvious ones.