The great outing of Sex and the City girls is the right occasion to talk about Celebrity Seeding. Let’s explain it’s something between PR ad product placement, with the aim to give the products freely to the Stars of the Show Biz and more in general to the V.I.P. (normally fashion clothes and accessories, but even design products, technological gadgets, furniture, etc.), with the hope they can use them, taken pictures of, noted on the press and obtain visibility. The good sense would like each garment and object to be selected by these people with great attention. Such a category has so much money and such acquaintances to obtain the best of the best. And it’s exactly this logical supposition that is at the base of the efficacy of the Celebrity Seedings. But the truth is different: all the people I know accept with pleasure to have and use different kinds of products free. It will be not very nice to reveal the names but I have personally see people predate some departments stores. Not to talk about those who ask their agent to call the producer or some common friends to obtail products free. In a few cases the free supply is sufficient to obtain the Seedings. In other cases it is asked even a good mediatic proposal. The most frequent example is about the design objects or white goods that become the main characters within a photo session distributed to the most important furniture reviews, very happy to publish articles about famous people and their houses. And at that point the circle gets close with the perfect logic of the win-win. The Star gets the products free, the Producing House obtains good references and visibility on important newspapers with no costs and the review gets a free interesting article. But can it be possible that the Hollywood millionaires can loose their time trying to get free the clothes and accessories even from “Sex and the City II”, as the four main characters of the movie itself are revealing just these days on channel E!. The answer to such a question is unknown, even for a rational person like me, but as it works, and works well… it doesn’t matter.

The product placement as artistic or technical choice is for sure the best, being more credible, effective and often quite unexpensive. The World Cup players in South Africa for example are good testimonials for clothing and sports accessories. Sometimes they have got an agreement and are well paid, sometimes no. Not all the players get money for wearing shoes, legwarmers, gloves, hats, etc. The Companies interested by such an important event have been preparing for long time. Lots of new models have been presented on the market just at the beginning of the World Cup, and they are so visible and evident thanks to strong colors and special shapes, such as orange and gold, even for the soles and the studs, or brilliant yellow with huge brands on it. More or less the same happens with the T-shirts, where the “three stripes” of a famous German brand are present on the shoulders of almost half of the teams present. The lesson we can read is easy. To exploit such a visible and important event, it is necessary to plan in advance the placement, with well-known products, with great esthetical and/or technical content, so to make them essential for the players. Among the players who would not get the last technological shoes, or among the music stars the new guitar with vocal control pick up for his/her performance at the MTV Music Awards?

When a few months ago, with great surprise, Oprah announced the end of her famous programme, lots of people din’t think she could retire. Her programme infact has become one of the longest in the story of the American TV and it would have been absolutely no logical to stop such a successful format and all that got around her. A few time later the announcement of her new project arrived: Oprah Winfrey Network, an entire TV channel dedicated to her and like her. Even if it was not so clear how it would have been and what kind of programming it would have had, the press office of Oprah Winfrey network began to make note press releases of brand integration with the “big spenders” of the market. After Procter&Gamble, it’s the turn of Kohl’s, a sort of general store with more than 1.000 shops in the U.S.A., to which an entire programme will be dedicated with the title of “Your OWN Show”. It would be probably the first important entertainment TV channel on the base of product placement, brand integration, contingency placement, verbal mention and more. The branches interested are so many that it would be easier to underline those unsuitable. The “made in Italy” products are for sure interesting for this project. The strenght of Oprah, her far-sightedness and her incredible capability for business have converted her in a sort of King Mida of the last 20 years. And now for lots of brands which want to emerge and consolidate their image on the American market this is really a great chance.

On June the 27^th in Las Vegas it will be the “Daytime Emmy Award”, that will give a prize to the best main characters of the daily TV (that is morning and afternoon programs), different from the “Emmy Award” that give prizes to the best actors and anchormen at prime time. Late in August there will be even the “Late Emmy Award” dedicated to the best characters of the night programs.

All these prizes are always assigned by the “National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences” from New York and Los Angeles.

The night in Las Vegas is a nice and rich kermesse organised with great attention and programmed alldaylong with interviews, backstages, the red carpets and the final ceremony. The event will be broadcasted on the national channel CBS that last year obtained more than 8 millions of viewers with a 11% of share. To such a result it should be added the many web videos, about different millions.

A few days ago the nominees were announced, and here they are. We have had the chance to talk about many of them and with pleasure we are following their success.

 2010 Daytime Emmy Award Nominees

 Outstanding Drama Series
All My Children (ABC)
The Bold and The Beautiful (CBS)
General Hospital (ABC)
The Young and the Restless (CBS)

Outstanding Lead Actor
Peter Bergman as Jack Abbott on The Young and the Restless
Doug Davidson as Paul Williams on The Young and the Restless
Jon Lindstrom as Craig Montgomery on As the World Turns
Michael Park as Jack Snyder on As the World Turns
James Scott as E.J. DiMera on Days of Our Lives Continue Reading

The product placement should grow up at the same time with the “Placement Planner”: the professional figure (adviser or agency) that studies any possible occasion for product placement, analyses, evalues and proposes them to his/her clients on the base of their profile, budget and aim. Well the bad news is that in Italy this does not happen as the Placement Planner does not exist. Really the chances to plan placements within shows, serials, movies, clips and videogames both in Italy as well abroad are concrete…it is only managed in quite an uncoordinated way, sometimes just supported by a PR activity or a few more. No structure is able to gather all the placement possibilities to propose them in a well-integrated planning of product placement that can use more productions as well more means. The other evening I was watching the Olympic Games and above all the curling game between Swiss and Danemark. Continue Reading

 At first we must say that S.Moritz is the most famous and old skiing station. In 1864 the first holiday pioneers spent their time in this little Swiss jewel. Famous people got in love with her, such as Thomas Mann and Friedrich Nietzsche, or Alfred Hitchcock, Charlie Chaplin, Rita Hayworth, Brigitte Bardot, Gregory Peck and George Clooney, etc. Now in March the first “St.Moritz Award” will be assigned to and the winners are Kerry Kennedy and Sharon Stone. Two people so different between them with in common the love for this place, their great professional career and their hard but continuous social commitment. The award wants to underline exactly these three things. The winners are considered “Top of the World” as they have been able to exploit their professional success, their fame for the others. As to say, that the exclusive and a little snob skiing station wants to change its values. That’s good for all those Sponsors that would like to approach such famous people for an event so socially and humanly important.

As in other cases, the ways to be present with ones’ own brands are different. Considering the format of the event, the realities more interested can be those about products and brands of higher level that have the capacity and structure to develop supporting actions (before and after), with the aim to value at the best this operation beside real outsiders.

Nice place, nice event, nice products: the “rule of number three” has been respected.

 For years the new Realities have changed format and public. In Europe it is true that a few quite old titles still exist but the road towards the new generation of Shows has been opened somewhere else. Donald Trump, for example, after the great success (even in Europe) of “The apprentice” is realising a new project that will begin its shooting by the end of the month. The title is “ DONALD J. TRUMP’S FABULOUS WORLD OF GOLF” and it is about an exclusive golf tournament where Hollywood actors, singers and musicians, politicians, top managers and businessmen, several VIPs are taking part. With the typical American mentality, these characters should try to win and at the same time do two other things: Business & Charity. Business: it is quite known that on a golf field it is possible to make more affairs than during a board of directors.You can swear that Donald Trump will try his best to promote partnerships between movie producers and musicians for example, or between athletes and sponsors and so on, thus stimolating a sort of “brain storming” between one putt and the other (everything on line and under the eyes of millions of people). Then there is the other aspect, socially worthier and technically more innovative, charity. The cachet of the players and the final prize is fact will be given on charity. This is not the “Intelligent” TV but by sure the “interesting” one. And interesting it could be for that fashion Italian Company that will wear the coolest VIPs of the planet with its clothes, jewels or accessories. From now on this can be possible.

 There is one way really sure to test product placement and its efficacy: the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl, at the beginning of February, represents one of the most followed programmes not only in the USA but in all the world. A great occasion for lots of Celebrities (actors, musicians, trendsetters, Vips, journalists and buyers) to exploit this catwalk to consolidate their image in a frame that talks more about costumes and fashion than sports.

However all these ShowBiz Stars use to relax, before their public apperance, in a lounge room full of interesting objects, accessories, personal gifts, electronic gadgets, clothing, jewels, etc. All these products have to be worn during the SuperBowl, the TV reportages (E!, News Live, Extra Entertainment Tonight, Fox, etc.) and the press reports (US Weekly, Life& Style, Daily Variety, Enterteinment Weekly, LA Confidential, Hollywood Reporter etc). Both when the VIPs wear these obejcts only for fitting or really in public, it is allowed to take pictures and use them for ads or marketing strategies. It is really a unique occasion for all those brands that want to propose or re-propose themselves on the USA market. The lounge room tradition is really an old one and well appreciated by the Stars. In the last edition of the SuperBowl, there were important Vips such as Winona Rider, Samuel Jackson, Paris Hilton, Eva Longoria, Paula Abdul, Debra Messing, Jason Lee, Patrick Dempsey, Kate Walsh, Teri Hatcher and more.

 In “Sex and the City 2”, the new love of Samantha is Rikard, by Max Ryan, a charming 40 year-old actor that has already performed quite twenty movies (The League of Extraordinary gentlemen, Kiss of the Dragon, Death Race etc.), and in this period he is working on very important projects. He has just finished to perform “Dark Moon Rising”, “Fours Years Running”, “Blackline: The Beirut Contract” (all already in post-production) , while he is going to work in such execellent productions such as “Wall Street”, “The Rogue” and Double Fault”. He is engaged until 2012 under the lights of all the world, both for for the movies, on the set, on the red carpet, in a few talk-shows, in press conferences and vernissages to promote his work and productions. All this is quite interesting as the actor is available to valuate any proposal of Branding deal, product placement and celebrity seeding. Italian fashion and accessories Companies for Man should really consider this chance to have such a professional star, so charming and talented, for the next three years.

 Stephanie Savage, producer and screensaver of “Gossip Girl”, answering to a question by a Los Angeles Time’s journalist (Adam Tschorn) about the big problem of zapping, made an interesting comparison.

The big networks and the studios are trying to compensate the loss caused by the minor presence of the ads spots with product placement. Introducing the products directly within the show, you can avoid “flippering”, that provokes damages not only to the advertisers but even to the channel and the producers themselves thus lessening the fidelity of the public to the programme. It’s almost what’s happening in the music world. The selling out of records is diminishing, thus the managers of the groups and the singers have been thinking about a solution. Many have thought about product placement.

Gwen Stefani e Justin Timberlake for example, have a fashion collection on their own and wear it any time and this is an exceptional promotional way, maybe profitable as much as the records selling out. But Stephanie Savage tells something more and reveals a few techniques and interesting applications. A musician can sign a contract with a fashion Company in order to wear its own clothes and maybe exploit his/her image for ads (this is called Tie in), or can wear them only sometimes and be shooted by the press (Cameo) or once more make a fashion collection with his/her name (partnership).

All these examples should be divided into two big categories, “Inside the Show or Outside the Show”, that is during the concerts or the private life (that most of the time is public). The choices of the different kind of placement are planned by marketing strategies, depending on the budget, on the wish to monopolize more or less the same star or to the desire to be a little bit underground, something that the stylists still like.

 During the summer it was drunk on the set of “Sex and the City2” and it has become one of the most famous product placement of this production. One of the most required of this season to tell you the truth, as set in New York (Europe loves it so much), as it speaks about one of the most exclusive circles in the world and because, as happened in the past, it can help some brands to become really famous (Manolo for inst., of which we have already spoken about). But the examples of Bellini’s product placement are so known and well-spread that maybe the two stories can be just one. I suggest you to visit the web site of Canella, the wine Producer that has commercialised the delicate cocktail made by Cipriani. Click on “friends” and what appears will leave you speechless. About 60 seedings from the 50’s until nowadays that are unbelievable. Characters such as Ennio Morricone, Robert Altman, Gianni Morandi, Giuseppe Tornatore, Ferzan Ozpetec, Tinto Brass, Alessandro Bergonzoni, Massimo Cacciari, the King of Benin, Macario, Nicola Arigliano; all famous people very far from the ads considerations, that for some reasons have said yes. And exactly for this reason they have contributed to the credibility of this product that has entered the story as it has done the story.

“Soma” is a cool magazine California based, not distributed in Europe and even in the USA it is not so diffused. However it is a magazine that in the last 20 years has inspired all those that are able to realise huge numbers (www.somamagazine.com). “Soma” takes its name from the a market area in the South side of San Francisco, where in the 80s this project was born. The idea was of an editor, Ali Ghanbarian, in love with the bohemian community of artists, musicians, photographers and independent stylists, able and good in reinventing fashion than in following it. Who knows and follows this magazine has learnt that what it is proposed usually becomes “cool” one season later… maybe reinvented to make it more digestible to the great public.

If I were a European Fashion Company, interested in the USA market (or the Canadian, English and Japanese one), I would try to exploit this magazine without any doubt for two purposes: 

1. to offer my products for their shooting;

2. to consider a creative consultancy by their editors; 

The point 1. above all is common and it is called Celebrity Seeding and it has the purpose to offer the product to VIPs or important persons so that they use it in public to make famous and prestigious.

If the dynamic is correct and apt to somebody’s goal please write to paolo@placement-post.com