Last Thursday the big Clear Channel Radio officially opened a new platform of advertising strategy, able to broadcast the spots in the best way. The idea is not completely new, they admitted to have copied it from Google, that has been using the method for years. In fact when you put a word to look for, on your right a few ads appear, connected to the word itself for sense or logic (for ex. if you write “house”, there appear some real estate agencies). Google, on its hand, had copied the idea from the “right key” by Microsoft that helps you to get other possible functions in that moment. The logic of the process is winning and it’s the same employed by product placement. When planning projects within movies or TV serials (as well as Videogames or music Videos), it is necessary to trace a profile of the best testimonial, comparing its affinities to the available productions and only after this it is possible to decide if the placement is worthwhile or not. At least this should be the right way…and this is what Clear Channel has done, clearly in competition with the product placement. Happily this is possible only for the radio that until now has not been object of product placement for different reasons, both technical as well legal. The project that has been studied and tested for a year , has been applied by Clear Channel to the new album by AC/DC. On the 91 stations when some rock songs were played, at the end or after 30 seconds maximum, the spot about their CD was broadcasted. The results of such a strategy were incredible: only in the first week 784.000 copies of the CD have been sold. It is the second best result of 2009 in the USA. This means that to approach a product to its ideal contest, even in a very reduced temporal place, is the winning idea. And this is exactly what product placement does every day.
New solutions, creative ideas and experimentations are daily on the agenda of the product placement planner. During the last few years, maybe coffee has been the most interesting product placement. In July 2008 during the KVVU Morning Show (the Las Vegas Fox partner network), the two anchormen, smiling and sit at a big desk, were seeping a big Ice Coffee by MacDonald. This happens between 7 and 9am, when most of the Americans drink the most appreciated beverage. Even if the experiment stopped there, the episode has to be underlined as the coffee cup on the desk has a famous precedent which is the David Letterman Show where, since 25 years, a black cup with the Show logo has been staying on the desk of the tremendous showman. The reason why the ads campaign has not gone seems to be due to the interests by MacDonald on other products than the coffee. Recently an intelligent operation of product placement can be heard on the Italian radio station, R101. The speaker, quite later in the afternoon (another perfect moment to take a coffee), admits to relax during the ads break “with a good cup of Hag coffee”. Perfect sense of timing, maximum credibility, relevant advice, great media. It’s right and proper to affirm that the “Radio Placement” has been duly announced as promo so it has to be considered perfectly correct towards its public. It will not be repeated very often however it can be considered a good solution that can give great rendering.
