Product placement is annoying. You can’t TiVo through it, it’s distracting, and you can’t get rid of it. Neilsen has compiled a list of the top 10 shows with the most product placement advertising as well as the top 10 offending advertisers. Quite unsurprisingly, FOX’s American Idol comes in at the top spot with 4,086 occurrences of product placement. Yuck.
Read the lists inside.
Top 10 Programs: Product Placement
2006
Program Network Total # Occurrences
American Idol FOX 4,086
Amazing Race CBS 2,790
Extreme Makeover Home Edition ABC 2,787
The Biggest Loser NBC 2,478
America's Next Top Model UPN/CW 2,309
King of Queens CBS 1,954
Hells Kitchen FOX 1,909
The Apprentice NBC 1,831
Rock Star Supernova CBS 1,609
Big Brother 7 CBS 1,591
Total 23,344
Top 10 Brands: Product Placement
2006
Brand Total # Occurrences
Coca-Cola Soft Drinks 3,355
Chef Revival Apparel 1,592
Nike Apparel 1,307
24 Hour Fitness CTRS-CLUBS 894
Chicago Bears FTBL TM 604
Dell Computers SYS 556
Cingular Wireless TEL SRVCS 533
Nike SPRT FTWR 497
Starter Apparel 496
SLS Electronic Equip Speakers 489
Total 10,323
Source: Place*Views, Nielsen Product Placement Service
The Chicago Bears? What? According to Nielsen product placements fell in 2006, probably due to the airing of more dramas. Apparently, it’s more difficult to shoehorn Coca-Cola into CSI than King of Queens.—MEGHANN MARCO
U.S. Advertising Spending Rose 4.6% in 2006, Nielsen Monitor-Plus Reports (Press Release) [PR Newswire]
I’m amazed that no one has mentioned what I consider the best example of product placement around: 24. There’s more Dell and Cisco in that show than any IT environment in real life.
The thing I like about 24 is the placed products do things that they could actually do in real life. Considering television’s record *ahem* csi *ahem* of creating magical computer systems that seem to have the investigative power of Holmes on crack, that’s pretty impressive. Even if it does mean we have to hear Chloe blather on about how “Cisco’s network self-defended!”
Maybe I just noticed because I sell I.T.?
@kerry: The lead character in Medium has a cellphone that rings with a polyphonic version of the Nokia tune. It caught my eye because it was a flip phone before Nokia made flip phones. If that was product placement, doesn’t it kind of defeat the purpose by drawing the viewer’s attention to something that doesn’t even exist?
Damn those “reality’shows forcing the masses to view real products…..it’s that insidious Hansa Corp. that has me worried.
I’m not surprised that King of Queens is up there. Doug, the fat guy, is a total junk food and beer addict. They can easily write whole scripts around Doug lusting for Twinkies or Dorritos and it seems like perfectly normal behavior for him.
@Marcus: You’re right, the Dell and Cisco presence in 24, is kind of ridiculous. But realistic product portrayal in 24? Evidently, you don’t remember Jack Bauer’s magical Treo from the earlier episodes.
“Chloe, I need you to upload a program to my Treo to diffuse this bomb/hack this keypad/do my laundry.”
It seems like they’ve toned that kind of thing down recently, but it used to hilarious sometimes.
As if “reality tv shows” weren’t bad enough already, it turns out these shows are also trying to stuff soft drinks, gym membership, chef apparel, and the Chicago Bears down our throat. I can’t wait until the reality tv phase blows over and is nothing but a bad memory.
I just keep thinking about how every other sentence contained “Kenmore Kitchen” in Top Chef and how much I still won’t buy it. Well, that and Ilan/Marcel beating out Sam/Elia to the finals.
konstantConsumer says:
“really, as long as the product placement is done well, i don’t mind. if it saves me a couple of commercials, then i’ll take it.”
That’s the thing, though, Dude. It DOESN’T save you any commercials. It’s ON TOP of the increasing number of commercials.
In the past couple of years, the number of commercial minutes (NOT counting the product placement) has risen to nearly one-third of the total show time.
@acceptablerisk:
The magical Treo made an appearance last night. It had a Palm Apps screen with the word “Blazer” at the top (without the Blazer Icons) and then it loaded… Sprint Picture Mail.
It was just like seeing my own Treo (with Sprint Picture mail) on TV.
you could just stop watching tv….
I find the banner ads they have covering up the the show I’m watching much worse than most product placement. I think the only product placements as bad as large, noisy banner ads are the American Idol Ford ads and the contact lens product placement in Smallville (which they’ve stopped doing).
I don’t get the musical numbers for the Ford ads. Most national car ads are actually good. Why have a cheesy musical number instead of a decent car commercial?
As a loyal Tivo user who almost never watches live tv or a commercial anymore, I have to say that for me it’s the cost of having a huge supply of nearly free entertainment at my fingertips.
Different if you don’t have a DVR, but if you do I think you need to suck it up.
8/9 of the shows that I recognize are reality shows, which everybody knows are just vehicles for product placement. Where’s the news here?
That’s neat about nuvaring in the medical shows. I think it’s kinda like an easter egg in a program, finding out what hidden messages they’ve put in the show, even if it is just “Buy my product”.
I prefer product placement to commercials. It is much less intrusive to watch a character in one of your favorite shows drink a Coke than it is to have that same show interrupted by a Coke commercial. You know it has gotten particularly bad when you can cut nearly twenty minutes off of an hour long show just by fast-forwarding through the commercials.
@Rectilinear Propagation: A couple weeks ago my boyfriend poked his head in the room where I watch TV while Lost was on, and saw the little Dancing with the Stars dancers twirl across the bottom of the screen. The best part was that at first it looked like it was some David Lynchian turn on the show, not an ad. When they showed a closeup of the dead Russian later on he said “wouldn’t it be great if they lifted the eye patch and the little dancers came out?”
Seeing equipment or vehicles doing something they really can’t drives me nuts. My wife refuses to watch any Military themed fiction shows becuase I constantly point out things that are BS…I guess I am just a cranky vet.
It’s interesting how there is a forum to complain about product placement? The article states the American Idol is the BIGGEST OFFENDER, which it probably is. However, It is also the most popular show in America.
As a television producer I assure you, without the product placement, there would be NO SHOW!
So what is it America, can you deal with the advertising, or do you want American Idol on On Demand, and you can pay for it every time you wanna see it??????
REALLY!
Its expensive to make TV!!! Someone’s got ot pay for it!