There are a few things that seem to be more Italian than others. Objects that cannot be considered different, advanced or modern just because they are perfect and so perfectly “Italian”. As Vespa, Nutella and the Bialetti Moka. If you are at home, maybe in New York, maybe you are a smart 40-year-old woman living in Manhattan that wish to offer her unprejudiced friends an Espresso (very Italian!), it’s impossible not to do it with a legendary Bialetti. The first idea of Sex &The City2 production was really this while, 2 weeks ago, they were setting up Charlotte’s kitchen set. As appetite comes while eating, a few days later the production asked us, as product placement, to get 27 more kitchen articles by Bialetti to provide the set: spoons, cookwares, nutcrackers, graters, etc. Wonderful objects, by the perfect design that do justice to Bialetti and the whole Italy…. However this second order about home cooking articles arrived on August the 20th… when all Italian offices are closed and people on holidays ! So to honor Bialetti and our way of life in the coolest movie of the moment set in New York there is just the wonderful, perfect and irreplaceable MoKa Espresso ….God bless Bialetti !!!!
Interpret is a research society in Los Angeles with two branches in New York and London, and is specialized in monitoring and analysing the entertainment (http://interpretllc.com). Lots of production Companies and international big spenders buy and use the studies of this society to plan their work. Last week a research about the phenomenon of the Web Serials was published and the result has been what different persons of the sector have been thinking for a long time. Passed through the experimental period, the online videos present now some characteristics quite homogeneous and begin to be considered a media with their own language and public. Between the most interesting features there is the dilation of the “prime time”. Contrary to TV that gets the maximum of watchers between 20 and 23 in the night, the online videos have a constant public during all the day long (even in the night), except during lunch time and at the beginning of the night. Such a uniform distribution presents huge advantages as it incredibly rises up the chances that “the product” can be watched by a wide range of watchers as well it gives the chance, through the PC to deepen immediately the contents (even the commercial ones) of the product itself. In fact the 27% of the interviewers affirms to gather information about the ads products during or soon after the vision of the serial (that can be stopped just putting it on pause). The 28% affirms that if they have appreciated the spot or the product placement, they navigate in the sponsor web site for a period as long as the serial itself. The 47% at last, calls the hot line notified by the ads. Moreover the analysts affirm that the attention due to such videos is much more than the one due to TV and more than a third of the public watches the serial with families and friends. Actually there are two kinds of serial, the one completely produced by a sponsor for commercial reasons (see Celia and Chloe, already spoken about in this blog) but good in the realisation (direction, photography, acting, etc) and the independent videos that often present some gaps due to the poor budget though rich in creativity, screenplays, dialogues and inventions. The data coming out from this research should suggest to somebody to plan and project web serials of new generation, where producers and playwriters should propose good products under any point of view, being so able to gather ads from different sponsors already interested in exploring new ways to communicate with the public in a more efficacious way.
The day before August the 15th, Shankar Gupta, an important columnist by Mediapost published an article in which he underlined the ineffectiveness of advertisement within the video games. Even if the target is well defined and the costs not so expensive, the chance to insert sponsor clips is quite doubtful. Nobody of the thousands of players in fact is ready to accept to delay his own game or the next stages, just to watch a promo, even if this would mean to spend less money when buying the videogame (such a theory has to be proved yet). A famous example can be the last game of Sony, Wipeout HD, published at the beginning of this month and containing some ads promos that have provoked lots of controversies. A video sent by a player has demonstrated that the loading had a delay between 9 and 19 seconds because of the presence of these promos. The video has had lots of visitors and promoters, from which the discussion among the advertising men that will probably lasts for a few months. It’s really a pity as the right solution exists and is called product placement. It’s not the correct one for all the games, but in the majority of the case the product placement would not provoke any intrusion and any delay, on the contrary it would help to make them more realistic.
For those that love this kind of cinema this will be a never forgetting summer. For a couple of months RAI UNO has been proposing great and very recent Bollywood movies, sentimental comedies (the most traditional and known kind) with the title of “Loves with…turbans”. Unfortunately for some reasons these movies have been cleaned out of all the dancing, the set design and the songs that on the contrary belong and are an important character of all these productions that normally last more than 3 hours…but it’s better than nothing.
Even in these cases it is worthwhile the opinion of some critics that believe the summer programmes better than those of prime time during the year.”Loves with.. turbans” is a great occasion to meet another kind of cinema though with a great tradition, that for some time has been trying to westernize its products to propose all over the world. “Hearts on air” (Salaam Namastee), for example, is a fresh 2005 comedy on air last Wednesday and set in Sidney though speaking of quite unknown subjects for the Indian cinema such as the extramarital pregnancy, the cohabitation and the independence from the family. But above all a kiss between the lovers, something common for us but not so much for the Indian common sense of modesty.
With this new generation of comedies, the Bombay cinema has begun to raise up its number of spectators, that in the best case reaches the billion of people (considering only the movie and not the DVD release or the TV schedule). It’s clear that some of the most open-minded Companies have thought about this: they have fully provided with clothes and accessories. Diesel and Adidas above all.
The way has been opened and lots of Companies could and should follow it. For info: paolo (at) placement-post.com
In Bejing the Olympic Games had an incredible effect on the ads world.During a few months, maybe one year, lots of agencies have born ready to satisfy on the place the requests of any sponsor coming from all over the world and eager to exploit the visibility window of the games to achieve a world-wide fame. Though without any promotional tradition background but with the best in terms of technology and multimedia, lots of interesting experimentations have grown up. First of all these agencies have a different internal organisation (no copy art, webmaster, pr, media planner, etc). Among them there are playwrights, directors, producers, dancers, state TV businessmen and lots of other people with no direct experience at all. The result has been really great!…. something like an old 70’s long-commercial, where famous actors act in real but short show, or excellent “short film” with interesting plots, good acting and photography, brilliant dialogues, not to talk about the numerous web serials (some of them still present on the web) that though with very low budgets have obtained huge visibility. All these products were so beautiful that they were proposed in all the stadiums, sports buildings, competition fields, etc, to amuse the public during the technical breaks.
Products born to advertise something that become products to amuse somebody. The most extreme vanguard was “Style Experience”, an interactive movie on line produced by the French “Pernord Richard” to promote its cognac “Martell Noblige” (youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2VsKIQ-_c0), a present to James Bond that cooperates with other prestigious brands to propose something quite different from a “poor commercial” and so near to a good “short film” that maybe we can call “AdverMovie”… and the product placement is really happy….
A research just published in the USA on the efficacy of advertising, has given very important data to think upon.
For example, only a third of the interviewers (selected form the Linkedln portal) believe the advertising to be funny. Another percentage (37%) thinks that it’s really informative. More than half (57%) thinks that advertising really gives interesting info about the product. But the datum we are more concerned in is that 26% that considers the advertising as well integrated within the programmes. In conclusion one person over four accepts the ads breaks and does not consider them negative. From this point of view, a product placement obtains a 100% valuation, above all for its capacity to give fun and to be well-inserted within the programme chosen by the viewer. For what concerns its ability to inform and make people reflect it’s necessary to valuate every single case as product placement has such a wide range. And it’s exactly for this reason that there are specialised Agencies about product placement that are able to make a project, plan and give to their Clients excellent occasions for a media exposition with huge potentialities.
