I have been thinking about this post for months, waiting for the situation to calm down to write something much more objective. Let’s start from the facts: product placement has been growing a lot all around where the most important cinema and TV districts are present (Hollywood, Bollywood, Hong Kong and Cinecittà). The same has happened for the web investments (in some of my last posts I wrote names and turnovers). All these resources, the 40% about of the whole ads investment of different international spenders, have been damaging something else. This something else are the traditional channels. In Italy Beppe Severgnini has recently spoken about this while in the USA for a year the big editors have started to take countermeasures. A few days ago for example, Playboy closed its prestigious and famous seat on the 5^th Avenue in New York to move to a less prestigious area though much more restrained in terms of costs. The most important daily newspaper of Boston, instead, has decided for the first time in its life to sell some spaces on its first page to put advertisement.

Others have supported their clients’ tastes by realising some promotions through their news portal web, the newspaper and the ads claims of their advertisers. All around the world, everybody is more or less looking for a solution. Even in Italy… though in an Italian way. For some time, an important national media has been throwing mud at product placement with subliminal advertising. Probably this editor considers product placement, brand integration and creative utilization as his main enemies. That’s to say, if I cannot defeat you I will kill you somehow. These news have appeared obviously even on the national press, maybe the one belonging to the same editor, thus sparkling around among its readers false beliefs. After the facts, a few questions: if product placement is so unlawful why societies like mine have been employing, planning and realising it since 1992 with growing profits? Why even in Italy every year many Companies invest their budget on this channel though it’s so illegal and risky ?

A few ordinary considerations now: product placement is exactly the contrary of hidden advertisement. In fact, the more evident and visible the product placement is, the bigger is its result in terms of image and money. Each viewer has the chance to value deeply how much apt, uninfluential, useful or not this mean is. In the meantime, in the USA, they are thinking about a new channel, not a pay one, that transmits films and shows without any ads interruption. The economical support would derive from the introduction, with full knowledge, of product placement, brand integration or creative utilization in shows and movie serials or films where it would be profitable for the advertisers to use them.

I would like to suggest to our Italian friends with no creativity and problem solving to do the same so to get victorious and more credible with the approval of the boldest admen.