Product Placement Revised

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Product Placement
In the current marketing world, the various marketing practices raise ethical questions. Murphy and other researchers have argued that at the macro level, marketing practices have raised concerns of overconsumption leading to wastage of resources and unsustainability (Murphy, Patrick, Laczniak, and Wood 38). Marketing communication bears most blames on the basis that some activities in this sector lead to promoting overconsumption among the customers. Marketing communication encourages materialism and greed. Hackley, Christopher, and Tiwsakul defined product placement as a practice that marketers use to lure the targeted customers (Hackley, Christopher, and Tiwsakul 70). It involves placing brands in scripts of entertainment or even on the mediated news. Some people also know product placement as brand placement because the practice has migrated from movies to radio, TV programs, popular songs, video games among others. The YouTube video clip provides a perfect example of product placement. One of the characters argues that he “can’t bow to any sponsor,” but ironically does the opposite by promoting different products on the movie clip. Marketers are more motivated to push their products than before. The rise in media platforms has encouraged the marketers to get effective ways of reaching the users and potential users. However, product placement uses manipulation through media and advertisements to reach targeted customers, adult or young.

The curious and impulsive nature of human beings makes us easy targets for the product promoters. Companies employ experts who can help them understand consumer behavior. Consumer behavior involves the factors that make customers make smarter and better decisions to buy a product or not. Product placement can influence the implicit attitudes of the consumers directly. For example, an individual can associate him/herself to a program on TV because of the products placed on the particular program. It means that the emotions that make someone watch a specific program can be transferred to the products that the program directors put during the program. However, most of the times the viewer can be unaware of the shift from focusing on the program to the product placed on it. For instance, the YouTube clip, Wayne’s World, the characters confuse the viewer. This is because the viewer will have more focus on the products that the characters are promoting than the content of the conversation. The script comes out in way that shows the products are part of the scene. For example, when the character says, “…and it’s the choice of a new generation” while holding a Pepsi drink. It means he is marketing the product to the younger generation, indirectly. Celebrities at times associate themselves with particular products that sponsor them for the particular aim of manipulating the customers that the celebrity uses the product or believes it is suitable for all the fans.
Unfortunately, implicit product placement is rising in the face of society with little reaction from ethical theorists. On the other hand, the regulators have made understated responses towards the practice that is increasing in scale each day. Even though the marketing practice exhibits strength in promotional activities, it raises major ethical issues. This is because the customers do not usually realize that the brand reference they watch on their favorite programs has a promotional purpose. It qualifies for the category of “hidden” promotion. On the other hand, some customers could be aware that the practice has a promotional meaning, but they do not usually have the opportunity to separate the context of entertainment from the brand reference. Therefore, in this sense, product placement does not separate editorial and advertising work. It also does not give the advertiser an opportunity to convince the consumers.
Product placement should be regulated. Children are a vulnerable population when it comes to the discussion. Children are not sensitive enough to understand the promotional motive of products appearing on their favorite shows (Avery and Ferraro 230). Ethical concerns arise from a customer for particular products including drugs, guns, alcoholic beverages, and tobacco, among others. The promotion of such products can raise worries across all ages. Therefore, the regulatory bodies should strictly play the role of controlling advertisements reaching the public.
Works cited
Avery, Rosemary J., and Rosellina Ferraro. “Verisimilitude or advertising? Brand appearances
on prime‐time television.” Journal of Consumer Affairs 34.2 (2000): 217-244.
Hackley, Christopher, and Rungpaka Tiwsakul. “Entertainment marketing and experiential
consumption.” Journal of marketing communications 12.1 (2006): 63-75.
“I Will Not Bow to Any Sponsor.” YouTube, uploaded by Wayne’s World, 9 Oct 2011,
www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjB6r-HDDI0
Murphy, Patrick E., Gene R. Laczniak, and Graham Wood. “An ethical basis for relationship
marketing: a virtue ethics perspective.” European Journal of Marketing 41.1/2 (2007): 37-57.