If I were at Guzzi I would think about it.
There are not so many brands entered in our ordinary way of thinking and less in our ordinary way of life. Guzzi motorcycle has an incredible story of success and prizes and such an incredible attachment to the Company itself by the same bikers, that could rest on one’s laurels even after the most incredible 2012.

On the contrary the Guzzi Company looks to the future thinking to some incredible operations with its new creations. However there is a 30s verbal mention, born 10 years after the birth of the first Guzzi, that is so new, efficacious, elegant, prestigious and up-dated to be worth while a reflection.

I am talking about one of the greatest Italian novels of the 1900 and of the most elegant and gifted writer: “Adalgisa” and Carlo Emilio Gadda (I take my complete opinion responsibility). I want to attach a few sentences taken from the book to be more clear but before I have to make an introduction. “Adalgisa” is a special novel that can be read from two different point of view, independent but connected. The first level is the simple narration, the second are the notes at the bottom of the pages, that are full part of the novel itself, often very long but written with great style. Here under the first paragraph is connected to the story, the second is the note n.5:

 “Il semovente cocchio, con attaccato un cotal ciondolaccio, vittoriose motociclette lo sopravvenivano e gli percorrevano male odoranti pendendo in una perfida giostra, buttatesi tutte in una volta e in un fiato a quella ribalda gimcana…. Nel piroettante cosmo della Viscosa e delle moto Guzzi, col pericolo di vedersi ribaltato a ogni giro lui e il cocchio e il cocchiere e la padrona, e dama, ……

  “Moto Guzzi: motociclette di fabbricazione Guzzi. Officine Guzzi a Mandello del Lario, ramo che volge a mezzogiorno, o quasi, riva orientale, dopo un po’ di golfi e di seni da Lecco. Sparso, il borgo, sull’ampio ventaglio della deiezione. Guzzi! Nome vivo e dirò palpitante nella sistole-diastole d’ogni italico centauro.”

 No difficult starsystem here under

Despite Lollapaloosa being the oldest and most popular rock festival in the world, for sure it is the most dynamic. A few days ago the news about an agreement with GOTV for the distribution of the event even through its syindicate. Go Tv is an intelligent producer of media contents dedicated to electronics (mobiles, iPad, etc), and despite being the most qualified in its sector, for me it represents the future of the entertainment. However the agreement with Lollapaloosa comprehends three options. The first, called “Branded Video Content”, allows the sponsorship of 15 videos by Lollapaloosa in which it is possible to integrate the istitutional video of the brand sponsor. The second option is the “Sponsored Channel Takeover” where it is possible to create a channel dedicated to the sponsor through which distribute 35 videos of the event. The third chance is “Silver Package”, it allows a great visibility “on stage” and more then 50 videos distributed with the brand integration of the sponsor.

If you allow, I would suggest you to take your time to study the website and the GO TV proposal. I speak withou any personal interest (unfortunately!)

Each director will have two main actors (even not German), thus one of the claims is “Ten Directors, Twenty Stars”. Except the curious fact that people have already begun to talk about nominations during a few festivals (maybe just a trustworthy gesture), the main fact is the presence of the sponsors of the project. Brand leaders such as BMW, Hugo Boss, Universal Pictures, Air Berlin, the review Bild and many others. It is obvious that some of them will be used even for product placement, besides being present in the website. However there are still chances to take part in the project. Even if the times are close, the visibility of this movie is promising and it seems to become a cult.

For those interested in keeping updated about the entertainment productions in Hollywood with relation to product placement, Opptrak is something not to lose. Realised by Mark, a friend and colleague from Vancouver, based ont the same reasons as those that have pushed us to realise the Observatory about Product Placement. For sure Opptrak is much more commercial, though in a positive sense; it’s a service to the Companies to help to estimate any new production. It is possible to select them on the base of different principles, buy the details and the addresses. At last any good manager could become manager of himself in relation to brand integration. Watching the video (in English) you well understand its functioning and great potentialities. The observatory instead takes care of European productions (at the beginning Italian) from a commercial, technical (as service to the Companies as well to the Studios) and scientific point of view.

Supervising the dynamics of product placement is in fact the main aim of the Observatory that quarterly produces and publishes investigations about. To open the Observatory an investigation about placement during the FIFA World Cup, we have already dedicated a post before with quite a good success from the national press. Mark with his Opptrak has started a few months before us and is quite proud of it. We are talking about a cooperation and believe we can agree upon as the affinity between the two project is really great.

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.

Lots of stories go around in the web about Alec Brownstein and many are untrue. But he is real. He has an interesting web site and his ideas, books and movies are really new. One of the best story about such a 30-year-old American copywriter relates about the way he obtained his first job in a big ads Company. With few money he bought a little space on google, pointing his messages on the first five most importat American creatives. Any time one of these wanted to know how it went his web site or if there was something new about him, at once a pop up with this writing appeared:

“Hi,.. (name and surname of the creative) questions google about oneself is really funny, isn’t it ? Well to employ me will be even much better”. With such a genial trick Alec obtained four interviews on five. From them two final job proposals. At last he was employed by the famous Young & Rubicam. It doesn’t matter if this story is true or not… for sure both the marketing and placement borders have lots to learn from such genial heads like Alec Browstein.

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

Outstanding Lead Actress
Sarah Brown as Claudia Zacchara on General Hospital
Crystal Chappell as Olivia Spencer on Guiding Light
Bobbie Eakes as Krystal Carey on All My Children
Michelle Stafford as Phyllis Newman on The Young and the Restless
Maura West as Carly Tenney on As the World Turns

Outstanding Supporting Actress
Beth Chamberlin, as Beth Raines Spaulding in Guiding Light
Julie Pinson as Janet Synder in As The World Turns
Carolyn Hennesy as Diane Miller in General Hospital
Arianne Zucker as Nicole Walker in Days Of Our Lives
Bree Williamson, as Jessica Brennan in One Life To Live

Outstanding Supporting Actor
Billy Miller, as Billy Abbott in The Young And The Restless
Bradford Anderson as Damien Spinelli in General Hospital
Jonathan Jackson as Lucky Spencer in General Hospital
Ricky Paull Goldin as Jake Martin in All My Children
Brian Kerwin as Charlie Banks in One Life To Live

Outstanding Younger Actress
Christel Khalil as Lily Winters in The Young And The Restless
Marnie Schulenburg as Alison Stewart in As The World Turns
Molly Burnett as Melanie Layton in Days Of Our Lives
Shelley Hennig as Stephanie Johnson in Days Of Our Lives
Julie Berman as Lulu Spencer in General Hospital

Outstanding Younger Actor
Drew Tyler Bell as Thomas Forrester in The Bold And The Beautiful
Drew Garrett as Michael Corinthos, Jr. in General Hospital
Dylan Patton as Will Horton in Days Of Our Lives
Scott Clifton as Schuyler Joplin in One Life To Live
Zack Conroy as James Spaulding in Guiding Light

Outstanding Talk Show: Entertainment
The Ellen Degeneres Show
Rachel Ray
Live with Regis and Kelly

Outstanding Talk Show Host
Bonnie Hunt on The Bonnie Hunt Show
Regis Philbin and Kelly Ripa on Live with Regis and Kelly
Rachel Ray on Rachel Ray
Dr. Mehmet Oz on The Dr. Oz Show
Whoopi Goldberg, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, Joy Behar, Sherri Shepherd, and Barbara Walters on The View

Outstanding Children’s Animated Program
Wordgirl (PBS)
The Backyardigans (Nickelodeon)
Curious George (PBS)
Sid The Science Kid (PBS)

Outstanding Children’s Series
Fetch! With Ruff Ruffman (PBS)
Design Squad (PBS)
The Electric Company (PBS)

Outstanding Game/Audience Participation Show
Wheel Of Fortune
Jeopardy!
Cash Cab
The Price Is Right
Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?

Outstanding Legal/Courtroom Program
The People’s Court
Judge Judy
Cristina’s Court
Judge Pirro
Caso Cerrado

Outstanding Lifestyle Program
This Old House (PBS)
Clean House (The Style Network)
How Do I Look? (The Style Network)
Make: (PBS)
The Martha Stewart Show (Syndicated)

Outstanding Morning Program

Good Morning America (ABC)
Today Show (NBC)
CNN/American Morning (CNN)

Outstanding Talk Show / Informative
Dr. Phil
The Doctors
The Dr. Oz Show

Outstanding Game Show Host
Pat Sajak, Wheel Of Fortune
Alex Trebek, Jeopardy!
Ben Bailey, Cash Cab
Wayne Brady, Let’s Make A Deal
Carnie Wilson, The Newlywed Game

Outstanding Culinary Program
America’s Test Kitchen (PBS)
Gourmet’s Adventures With Ruth (PBS)
Giada At Home (Food)
Tyler’s Ultimate (Food)

Outstanding Lifestyle/Culinary Host
Bobby Flay, Grill It! With Bobby Flay
Ina Garten, Barefoot Contessa: Back To Basics
Paula Deen, Paula’s Best Dishes
Martha Stewart, The Martha Stewart Show
Giada De Laurentiis, Giada at Home

From August the 6^th to August the 8^th it will be great fun at the Grant Park of Chicago. It’s the turn of Lollapalooza !!! The most beautiful, different and intelligent rock Festival… Beautiful as it is organised at the Grant Park … adn Chicago is really fond of its parks!! Beautiful even for its “line-up”: Green Day, Soundgarden, Lady Gaga, The Strokes, Phoenix, Jimmy Cliff and one hundred more of singers famous and not.

Beautiful as it is a festival full of young people but even, during the day, of families, friends who make barbecues, old 50s and 60s rockers and never a problem in all these years.

Different as it’s normal that after a famous band it’s the turn of a geek trio arrived with the parents… and it’s normal that at the end the two groups play together. Different as it is a festival organised with the aim to finance the maintenance of the town parks. Usually, the great and important festivals are a business, or sometimes a help for any human emergency. But since the beginning this festival has always appealed the most famous, innovative, shocking and well-known singers and all agree with pleasure to play for the town parks….. Isn’t it fantastic? Lollapalloza is even intelligent as it exploits the cause of the parks to talk about something else: for ex. the environment education, art contests, children entertainements..

Then the business that is however inteligent; Honda for example gives as gift for the winner of the “Rock & Recycled” competition, an Insight, an hybrid model.

This fomula works so well that Toyota has decided to become main sponsor. And many other brands such as Adidas, Sony, Budweiser etc. The same could be done by Italian brands interested in proposing themselves and become part of product placement projects connected with music, young people and the environment.

The web serials are ready for a high jump. The producers (the real ones) and lots of actors (the true ones) are working upon even if without any great results. A few projects with a good concept and worthy cast have started though ending quite soon. Like “Gotham” that relates the story of “those with a second chance” with primary actors such as Martha Byrne, winner of an Emmy and Michael Park, that got a nomination at the Emmys too.

Well, for the first episode with 22.000 visitors, for the second 13.000 and now at the 13^th episode there are just 200 visitors. This serial has been visited in total from just 74.000 subscribers.

A little better for Streamboat , a mocking version of the show world with good actors as Michael O’ Leary and Beth Chamberin (both seen in the soap “Sentieri”). The first episode got 15.000 visitors and now is between 2.000 – 3.000 visits. Very few to interest the placement market. Different the case of the wonderful “Imaginary Bitches” (nominated for an Emmy in 2009) with 400.000 and 600.000 visits each episode and a total of about 7 millions. The story is a mix of funny and charming, something between “Friends” and “Sex and the City” with a cast of young, nice and really inspired actors. This project is connecting the independent, almost experimental and with low budgets productions with the serious Show Biz. The first project of those who really know how to produce a serial is a remake of Dynasty. Among the cast: Lilly Melgar (General Hospital), Tristan Rogers (General Hospital, Love Boat), Sandra Ferguson – Robinson (Anotherl World, Baywatch, General Hospital), John Callahan (Desperate Housewife, General Hospital, Falcon Crest, Santa Barbara), Taylor Stanley (Another World, Spin City), Derrel Witt (The Indruders) and lots more. The producers told me they are having lots of fun and have been able to create a wonderful mood. This serial is really good for luxury products (jewels, clothes and accessories), for the house (design and furniture) and the free time (auto, motorcycle, sport, gardening, etc.). To underline that Dynasty is the only serial by Aaron Spelling that has not got any remaking until now. Thanks to the peculiarity of the web, the news and the improvements of this project will be worldwide and point of reference for all that follows.

In a few weeks the shootings of “Cheaters” will begin; it’s the new comedy by Ron Howard, called until lately as “Your Cheating Heart”. Then the production has thought that “Cheaters” gave better the idea of the plot and so it has been changed. In the cast there are Winona Ryder, Vince Vaughn, Kevin James e Jennifer Garner.

Famous people for a great screenplay by Allan Loeb, recently at work even on “Wall Street 2” and “The Baster”. The plot is about a man that gets to know that his best-friend’s wife is unfaithful but he does not know how to manage such a situation. Vince Vaughn will be the man “who knows”, while Winona Ryder will be the unfaithful wife. The movie will be placed in Chicago for Image Entertainment and there are good chances of placement for the following products: clothing and accessories, design and furniture objects, cars and jewels.

An interesting datum that maybe is known only throughout the specialized market is that in the United States there is a huge market called “Italian Sounding” where lots of products coming from everywhere are presented as “Italian”. This fraud costs about 50 billions of euros. An example: last year while I was in New York I wanted to eat “pasta with pesto”; I went to buy some “Italian pesto” in a very famous gastronomy to realise reading the back label that it came from Chile.

Now, to regain this money there are a few solutions. One is to promote the wine and food products through TV productions dedicated to high level cuisine. Few times ago we talked about Martha Stewart, but we have to quote even “The Rocco Show”, of which I want to talk more in a future post….and the “America’s Next Great Restaurant”. A mix between a serial and a reality in which a group of future chefs get in competition to obtain the funding to realise their dream. The shootings will begin in a month and the anchorman will be chef Bobby Flay. In each episode there will be different locations to place the products, that will be managed not only in a professional contest but from a professional point of view. One month is enough to plan….

An interesting news that is going around these days is worth our attention. Even if the interested people do not know or pretend not to know anything about, it is almost sure that Microsoft and Peter Chernin (ex Chairman of News Corp, founded and managed by Rupert Murdoch) are thinking about a new TV channel for the Xbox owners. At the beginning the cost of the subscription will be almost nothing , one or two dollars maximum and it will allow to the subscribers to download updating videogames, or shows and entertainment programmes for which Fox and Twentieth Century have been reaching an agreement.

Such a novelty is interesting from a mediatic and technological point of view, as well as to fight the wild downloading through the very low cost of the subscription. Important subjects I want to talk about in the future. But this blog is connected to product placement and this is what I want to speak about. It’s well-known that a good market of the placement belongs to videogames; the banners along the cars and motorcicles circuit are with fees, as well the verbal mention and the hands on the famous people, not to speak about the brand integration operations.

At the beginning the planners and the marketing managers claimed that the audience of these products was young or very young. Maybe once but not nowadays: the first generations have grown up employing the products and with them lots of young and less young people. To think this are even Microsoft and Chernin that otherwise would have never substained such a huge investment as the creation of a new channel.

Even the agreement with Fox is an important signal of great ambitions. This background will for sure influence the price list of placement. The videogames will get a greater public and distribution, without mentioning the Tv spin-off (now that there is a dedicated channel) and other possible co-marketing operations. In terms of placement, the videogame has becoming a more consolidated channel, improving its nature.

It’s almost impossible to catalogue all the placements done by the little Mattel doll in her life (about 51 years long) and difficult to make a list of all the ways employed: recently she is appeared in some musical videos, PC, cars (Barbie Fiat 500) and in the last movie by Muccino in January (without underlining her appearance in 4 cartoon movies of which she is the main character).

Between February and March, on the buses of New Yourk (and we can rightly suppose in other American cities) there was her nice face to promote a competition. Her aim was to make the public vote about the profession of the next Barbie. However to leave such a freedom to the public can take a different direction from the expected one. The marketing managers of Mattel were sure about the Barbie “anchorwoman” … but a group of “Geek” sick of social networking have decided to subvert the result. Some voices here and there in the right places and in a few weeks Barbie has become a “Computer Engineer” with great surprise of Mattel direction that a few days ago made public the results of the competition. The idea of the competittion, the ads and all around is a genial idea but not really a product placement. All this story however has been discovered and related to the public by Ann Zimmeran on the Wall Street Journal and this is really a “Coup de Teatre”!