Advertising II
Reading: Advertising II
Source: Artan Özoran, B. (2015). «Teens as Consumers: A Product Placement Example», in Storying Humanity.
Discussion questions before reading:
What is product placement ?
Discuss ethics and product placement.
With the transition from modernity to postmodernity, consumption practices were changed. Consumption became more important than production, and it became a lifestyle. In modernity, products were purchased on the need basis. Nevertheless, in postmodern times they were bought because they bore an additional meaning and reflected a significant lifestyle, status or prestige.
According to Baudrillard, there is a shift from a new social order in which simulations and models increasingly constitute the world and the distinction between the reality and appearance become erased.This is an information and simulation era. In this era image, simulation and reality are intertwined. According to him, these changes created a new society: consumer society. Consumption
becomes an efficient communication system and a systematic activity which our cultural system depends on. In this society, consumption does not only mean
satisfaction of needs, but also it becomes a phenomenon that is acquired, learned, and trained to desire. Consumption in the postmodern era is a system of signs arranged by codes and rules. In other words, consumption is the consuming of symbols and signs.
Postmodern Consumption and Advertising
In addition to consumption practices, product was also transformed. Yıldız said that the new product is a combination of need and meaning. According to Baudrillard, objects with connotations gained could be replaced by limitless objects. This is because products can gain extra meanings together with their functions. For
example, the washing machine is used as household appliance but it also has another role. The other role is the role of comfort and prestige. Now, objects and needs have become interchangeable. The distinction between real needs and false needs have disappeared. Attaining products became a way of earning privilege and prestige.
Goods owned by individuals have taken the task of setting a status rather than
satisfying their physical needs. In other words, ‘objects became status indicators and signs with the connotations they gained.’
Bauman, identity is established by social position, and then it gives a sense of a cage that people dream to escape from. People, leave the out-dated identities and take the form of a new identity that is recommended at that time. Identity cannot be eternally formed and because of that, people suffer all of their lives.
People, who escape from out-dated identities and head towards new ones, need products of the system to build their new identities. In this age, people desperately seek for the smallest marginal difference that forms them. The
product now in demand is neither a staple nor a machine; it is a personality. The way of creating these new identities is by consuming products that symbolize significant identities. It indicates that consumption has transformed from consuming objects to consuming meanings. The only thing that distinguishes products in the market which have the same qualities and the same price is their meanings
Mass media attributes greatly in the process of these meanings. Especially with advertisements, products gain new meanings; therefore, consumers think they become more beautiful, desirable and acceptable when they buy these
products. With the development of communication technologies,
advertisements can be seen everywhere in our lives. In addition to tools like wireless and television, we see ads on the way going home on a billboard, every website we visit, almost every film or serial we watch. However, these ads are quite different from old ones. With the rise of the concept of differentiation and the position of products as status determiner, advertisements are transformed.
In the modern era, advertisements were intended to give information about products’ features, prices and where can we buy it. However, in the postmodern era, advertisements appeal the emotions.
Postmodern Consumption and Advertising
Ads have an important role to transmit messages from products that become status symbols. Thus, individuals try to learn, adopt and identify with the status symbols by observing what these symbols are and how it is used. For arousing the attention of customers, instead of giving information about products, creating images that appeal cultural and emotional needs were more efficient. For this reason, ads explained how products realized people, not how products realized itself. It is stated that in those days, ads tried to sell the sizzle of the steak, not the steak itself.
Serials and Product Placement
The concept of product placement has been given lots of different definitions.
According to Ginosar and Levi-Faur, it is ‘the purposeful incorporation of commercial content into non-commercial settings, that is, a product plug generated via the fusion of advertising and entertainment.’For Karrh, it is the paid inclusion of branded products or brand identifiers, through audio or visual means within mass media programming. In addition to these
definitions Lehu said product placement and brand placement are
interchangeable concepts and ‘it essentially describes the location or, the
integration of a product or brand into a film or televised series.’ Also, it can be used in novels, songs, music videos or internet.
According to Gupta, Balasubramanian and Klassen, there are two main ways to use product placement in films and serials. The first one is real placement; the ads are created as an integral part of any movie production, often requiring the participation of actors. The second one is virtual placement, where the ads are inserted via digital technology using a process independent from the production of the audio-visual segment.
Serials and Product Placement
According to Williams and et. al. because of the media fragmentation, media proliferation and declining advertising efficacy, product placement is becoming an effective way to reach consumers. It is estimated that two thirds of
television viewers cut the sound during commercials, channel-surf or skip them because they find commercials annoying. In Turkey, due RTÜK’s (Radio and
Television Supreme Board) public opinion research in 2012, approximately %55 of people said, ‘I change the channel when I saw the ads immediately’ and about %30 said ‘When I see the ads, I watch a small part of it then change the channel.’18 Therefore, one can say that most of the audience is not watching the entire commercials. Besides, with a shift in consumption patterns,
companies attempt to promote a status and lifestyle with advertisements. It can be said that this will be more efficient with product placement because in product placement companies have the opportunity to show their product in a story.
Product placement was legalized in 2011 in Turkey. With the Radio and Television Foundation and Broadcasting Service's law no. 6112 published in the official
gazette; arrangements were made about product placement. In this code the
product placement was defined as ‘commercial communication in which a product or service was included in the program by paying its provision and referring them.’
So with this law, it is forbidden to use product placement in the main news bulletin, children's programs and religion programs.
Serials and Product Placement
Serials are a very efficient platform for product placement. Companies prefer serials because the products that actors use in serials become fashionable and people identify these products with actors they like. In Turkey, products appear quite a lot in serials featured once a week and replay more than one time with trailers shown multiple times during the week. Therefore, serials are a useful place of product placement often preferred in Turkey.
