For 7 years he has made a spectacle of himself at the Tour de France, the most spectacular racing cycle in the world, watched by thousands of TV stations all around the world. After 3 years of inactivity, Lance Armstrong has come back to the tour to make product placement too. Before going to France he participated at the Tour of Italy where the promotional protocol was the same though with a minor impact on the international media. His aim was to give visibility to the project www.livestrong.com, a portal dedicated to health, sport, cancer fight and in general a more correct and healthy way of life. Exploiting his huge popularity, his team sponsors and his own, he was able to propose with an excellent efficacy even his portal. He was constantly managed by a press office, granted interviews to all the journalists (something quite extraordinary considering his fame), daily took part in press conferences and updated his blog with the same frequency. Moreover, at the start and at the finish of each race, a well-equipped gazebo distributed ads material and brochures, while a van followed the Caravan of the two big Tours while selling his famous plastic coloured bracelets (more than 6000 pieces were sold every day), whose proceeds went to his foundation for the fight against the cancer (ten years ago he had the cancer, fought and won miraculously).
But above all his t-shirt and bike, shot for hours, were the best promotional means.The address of the portal was in fact both on the bicycle frame as well on the t-shirt sleeve and even the sports journalists did not miss the chance to underline the importance of such an enterprise maybe considering its importance and all the PR work done behind.
A great operation, managed with professionality and efficiency from which there will lots to learn… by the way the portal is really excellent and I invite you to visit it.
The most required category is comedy without any doubt. Easy plot, brilliant situations and, generally, great locations are the ideal conditions to underline the importance of brands and products. The Teen Movie even are quite required as its public is very attentive to details and identifies himself more frequently with the characters: in this case the Placement works very well. Action and disaster movies follow: products like cars and motorcycles, technological accessories and some sport brands present an ideal profile though more of niche. Quite seldom you can find good product placement or brand integration in spy stories or thriller movies. The bad character can never be a good subject for product placement, to couple with him can be considered a dangerous and losing strategy …maybe once was like this (I have doubts) but nowadays things seem to change. Even Barry Janoff, the clever editor of NYSportjournalism.com (sport marketing and nothing else), has perceived this change. In this case the “bad characters” are the lots of players, genial but with difficult behaviours, that populate the basket, baseball, football and tennis fields. The difference is that once McEnroe or Eve Barkely could lose in credibility and sponsor if they behaved in a bad way, while now they can get rich in popularity, sponsorships and public approval. An example can be the Swimming Olympic Champion Phelbs caught in the act of smoking, that lost a sponsor (Kellogg) to find another one (the underwater H20 mobile), or the undisputed basketball champion Kobe Bryant, always more present in the crime news than in the sports news and very popular among fashion, car, jewels brands….
In these days the most important TV stations have been promoting the new Fall-Winter 2009 scheduling. All the main serials and shows have been reconfirmed and each channel is promoting something new (we have already talked in a past post). It’s curious to note that the prime night begins at 20:00 and not at 21:00 as in most of country. In the weekend the most famous programmes in the USA are proposed already at 19:00, like “America’s Funniest Home Videos” at its twentieth season, “60 Minutes” at its 41st year and obviously the unforgettable “Football Night in America”. Here alleged a complete vision of the weekly scheduling of the Wonder Five from September on.
For all those products that desire to conquer America, the first and most important market is New York. Maybe because it’s the closest harbour, maybe because East Coast people are the most friendly open to new european trends, by sure because in Manhattan and nearby you can find incredible quantities of importers and any kind traders.. whatever it is the Big Apple really deserves its nickname. And for this reason I want to inform you about different movies set in new York that will soon start shooting. A good occasion to profit to do any product placement on the most ambitious market in the continent. Moreover, the productions present actors and distributors really important, guarantee of incredible results.
MVP means Most Valuable Prospect, a new index used by marketing managers to decide where and when employ the promotional budget to make it more efficacious. Gary Kreissman, the founder of Precision Prospect, affirms that if well used this criterion guarantees to double in terms of money and efficacy towards the most difficult clients (leads generation). Actually the term of lead generation includes all the Clients (and maybe even those that aren’t clients yet). Thus so no more classification of clients on the base of age, income, geographic area or lifestyle, but a drastic focusing on all the clients that appreciate or desire the product, or buy it very frequently and are not influenced by economic problems or fashion trends. At last the MVP helps to reduce the costs and increase and consolidate one’s own client package, during periods of financial difficulties. 
Since April peole has been talking about the new George Clooney’s movie. Its title will be “A very private gentleman” and the action is completely set in Italy. In one of the most delicious historical Italian small towns, perfect to hide a killer ready for its next “job”, different stories of love and friendship take place and will upset the killer’s plans….For the made in Italy product placement is one of those occasions that can happen every 10 years…. A Hollywood production (the Focus features co-produces right with George Clooney) completely sets in our country is the best chance for us to present and show all our creativity, personality, quality, taste, sensibility, history, culture, traditions.
It’s worthwhile to remember that product placement has the shift property (as in the best math-economic tradition). A logic deduction that deserves much more attention for being seldom employed… thus much more interesting.
The sequel of Transformer is get out with the title of “The revenge of the fallen”. As expected, General Motors has obtained most of the product placement about cars though not the one about motorcycle. Megan Fox, who is one of the most charming characters of the big screen, will drive an Aprilia RS125. The brand of Piaggio Group has not failed to promote this great result during the AMA Pro Daytona Sportbyke where a RSV 1000 has participated with a huge logo of the movie itself. An intelligent operation of brand integration, in agreement with the production by sure, to promote the movie during the weeks just before its getting out. It’s logic to think that the operation has been quite unexpensive though sufficient “to be heard” in the Old Continent too.
