Product Placement Arrangements

Published Date: 23 Mar 2015

Product Placement Arrangements

The origins of product placement can be found in the 1930’s, when US tobacco companies paid movie stars and sporting heroes to endorse their brands. From then until the 1970’s, some product placement arrangements took place, in which goods were supplied on the basis that they would be featured in movies (Balasubramanian et al., 2006). However, the nature of these arrangements changed in the mid-1980’s with the establishment of specialist product placement agencies, which were in charge of negotiating agreements between suppliers and moviemakers. The main purpose of product placement was to help companies benefiting from brand exposure, while the movie producer would gain financial support, and increase its movie authenticity. Ever since, the placement of products in movies has become an important element of consumer marketing programmes and started to offer an alternative to more traditional forms of marketing communication, which are proving to be more costly and less effective in reaching target audiences (Balasubramanian et al., 2006; Morton and Friedman, 2002).

This proposed literature review will refine and redefine the research questions raised by these gaps in the literature by embedding those interrogations in larger robust empirical traditions. This review comprises academic journal articles which propose relevant research results on spectators’ attitude towards product placement and their potential effects on brand performance, supplemented with valuable knowledge issued from other research studies. The significance of the literature findings has been determined by whether the scope comprised product placement information and consumers’ perception, understanding and use of it. This focused examination of these selected articles is reviewed in regards to the theoretical framework used, the methods employed and the knowledge obtained.

1. Product Placement and its environment

1.1.) How could product placement be defined?

1.1.1) Several definition of product placement

In spite of a significant increase in the research and practice of product placement, an aspect not formally recognised in these studies is the respondents’ understanding of the product placement concept (Lees et al., 2008). As a matter of fact, several definitions co-exist within the academic literature (see Appendix 1): Balasubramanian (1994) defined it as “the planned entries of products into movies or television shows that may influence viewers’ product beliefs and/or behaviours favourably” whereas product placement in movies, according to Gupta and Gould (1997, p. 37), "involves incorporating brands in movies in return for money or for some promotional or other consideration." The respondents’ answers from this two studies, cited above, may differ in so far as they were instructed to consider product placement differently: compared with Balasubramanian viewpoint (1994), Gupta and Gould’s definition (1997) starts introducing clearly the notion that product placement serve promotional purposes. Therefore, respondents may more perceive, in this case, the ethical issues raised by hiding commercial messages within the entertainment they use to enjoy because of the absence of such traditional advertising slogans. That’s why, in this research, product placement will be defined as “the paid inclusion of branded products or brand identifiers, through audio and/or visual means, in a movie or in a television program for promotional purposes” (Karrh, 1998; d'Astous and Chartier, 2000). Furthermore, although the terms “brand placement” and “product placement” are often used synonymously, in reality, “brand placement” includes only branded products whereas “product placement” has a larger signification since it comprises brands, organizations, place, generic products... (Morton and Friedman, 2002). Even if some researchers may find that “brand placement” represent a more accurate description because brands are placed rather than specific products (Babin and Carder, 1996), this proposed research will keep using the term “product placement”.

Definitions of product placement, like its practice, have changed over the recent past years. One key change in these definitions is the acknowledgment that product placement occurs in media other than film or television. However, more significantly, since d'Astous and Ségun (1999) attempted to classify different types of product placement, scholars have used the word 'integration' in their definitions. Thus, Russell and Belch (2005) have enlarged the product placement definition as “the purposeful incorporation of a brand into entertainment vehicle”. This perspective reflects the understanding of product placement as “branded entertainment”, as it is presented by Hudson and Hudson (2006), where the boundary between advertising and entertainment does not exist anymore (see Apendix 2). For the purposes of this article, branded entertainment will be defined as “the integration of advertising into entertainment content, whereby brands are embedded into storylines of a film, television program, or other entertainment medium” (Hudson and Hudson, 2006).

1.1.2) Product placement as an “hybrid” communication tool

Balasubramanian (1994) conceptualised product placement as a “hybrid” marketing technique because it ‘projects a non-commercial character’ and characterizes the blurring of the lines between advertising and entertainment. Consequently, if product placement cannot be classified within the traditional communication mix tools, where does product placement fit into the broader integrated marketing communication (IMC) context? (Vand der Waldt, 2005). Marketing communication is defined by Burnett and Moriarty (1998) as “the process of effectively communicating product information or ideas to target audiences”. According to Du Plessis et al., (2003) there are eight promotional elements in marketing communication from which marketers can select to increase the awareness and sales of their products and brands, namely advertising, personal selling, sales promotion, publicity, public relations, sponsorships, direct marketing and new media marketing. Similarly, the main objective of product placement is to increase consumer awareness, build positive consumers’ preferences and finally, influence consumers’ purchasing decisions (Fill, 1995; D’Astous and Chartier, 2000). As a result, Fill (2002) claimed that product placement was a valuable asset for programme sponsorships category because it allows the sponsor’s product to be seen with the sponsor’s name in plenty of different places and media. Though, Kitchen and De Pelsmacker (2004) contextualised more precisely product placement as a communication vehicle within the IMC domain under the promotional element of “broadcast sponsorships” (see Appendix 3). In other words, a general understanding of sponsorships may help marketers and practitioners to make an informed choice in selecting product placement as a communication vehicle.

It results from the above contextualisation of product placement in the IMC domain a more orderly structure of product placement protagonists namely companies, placement agents and program producers (Karrh et al., 2003) (see Appendix 4). Agents function as middlemen between marketers and producers, typically working on a retainer basis (Pardun and McKee, 2000). Studios send scripts to clients whose permissions are legally required to use these brands in their scenes, either directly or through the intermediary of product placement agencies. While the movie directors and producers have artistic objectives for using placements, companies seek to enhance their brand image and influence positively consumers’ brand attitude (Karrh et al., 2003).  Moreover, given the substantial growth of product placement, agent intermediaries have become much more important since they facilitate the accomplishment of product placement deals. However, Russel and Belch (2005) pointed out that, because placement agents are not trained as brand managers, their criteria for deciding whether one of their clients' brands is appropriate for a movie is primarily based on the opportunity for the product category. In brief, the product placement industry has evolved from a simple means for studios to cut costs and marketers to expose their products to a more sophisticated industry in which product placement agencies are increasingly assuming the role of traditional advertising agencies (Lehu, 2007). As this practice gains acceptance and interest among practitioners, product placement is being treated less as a “hybrid” marketing technique and starts being increasingly integrated with other communications mix components.

1.1.3) Typologies and modalities of product placement

Russell’s Tripartite Typology of Product Placement, which was the first established categorization of this marketing technique, recognizes three dimensions: visual, auditory, and plot connection (Russell, 1998) (see Appendix 5). First, the visual dimension refers to “the appearance of the brand on the screen”, as well referred as “screen” placements. However, Brennan, Dubas, and Babin (1999) differentiated two levels of visual placements which are respectively “on-set” placements (those that are clearly displayed) and “creative” placements (those appearing in the background). The opportunity for spectators to process visually those placements captures the extent to which circumstances at brand exposure are favourable to brand processing (MacInnis and Jaworski, 1989; MacInnis, Moorman, and Jaworski, 1991). This is influenced by a placement’s prominence, which take into account the size of the product or logo, centrality in the screen, integration into the plot, centrality to the plot, number of mentions, duration on screen, strength of the placement and/or modality (Auty and Lewis, 2004; Babin and Carder, 1996; Gupta and Lord, 1998; Law and Braun, 2000; Russell, 2002). Gupta and Lord (1998) found that prominent placements, that is to say, a brand shown by itself in the foreground, with longer exposure time, generated higher brand recall than more subtle placements. Furthermore, exposure duration positively influenced brand recognition, but only for prominent/on-set placements (Balasubramanian et al., 2006). Secondly, the auditory or verbal dimension refers to “the brand being mentioned in a dialogue” during the movie. Such "script" placements also have varying degrees, depending on the context in which the brand is mentioned, the frequency with which it is mentioned, and the emphasis placed on the brand name (Russell, 1998; 2002). Finally, the plot connection dimension refers to “the degree to which the brand is integrated in the plot of the story” (Russell 1998). Whereas lower plot placements do not contribute much to the story, higher plot placements take a major place in the storyline such as James Bond with his Aston Martin or The Transporter with his Audi A8.

From an information processing perspective, script, screen, and plot placements differ in the types of processing they require. In his study, Paivio (1971) was the first researcher who distinguished these different visual and verbal coding processes and identified within the recognition memory imagery as a "parallel processing system" whereas verbal processes tended to be associated with "serial processing". That’s why visual images and verbal units involve different memory codes. This theory is enclosed within the “coding redundancy hypothesis”, which states that "memory increases directly with the number of alternative memory codes available for an item" (Paivio 1971, p. 181). If visual and audio dimensions activate different processing codes, the consequences for screen and script product placements become obvious (Russell, 1998). On the other hand, a plot placement that relies generally on placing the brand both on the screen and in the conversation provides an opportunity for both verbal and visual encoding, while the other situations would likely activate only one form of encoding. Steortz (1987), using Paivio’s coding redundancy hypothesis, found that the average recall was significantly higher when movie placements involved both visual and verbal product identification. “Increased availability of both codes increases the probability of item recall because the response can be retrieved from either code” (Paivio 1979). There is evidence that dual-mode placements have more impact upon viewers' memory for the brand than do placements executed through one mode alone. In research specific to placement, unaided recall of a combined visual plus verbal placement was significantly higher than that of visual alone (Sabherwal, Pokrywczynski, and Griffin, 1994). However, despite the findings of Paivio's research (1971; 1983; 1986) which tend to support the superiority of visual over verbal mediators, when they are not simultaneously available, other academic researchers’ results do not converge to the conclusion that screen placement is more valuable in terms of its mnemonic ability and decoding accuracy. Indeed, Gupta and Lord (1998) found that an audio mention of the brand without a visual depiction produced a higher recall rate than did a visual placement without audio reinforcement. To reach this conclusion, their framework relies more on the social learning paradigm which states that "most of the cognitive processes that regulate behaviour are primarily verbal rather than visual" (Bandura, 1971, p. 18). The findings of these studies may suggest a hierarchy of memory effects according to placement modality of a visual-verbal combination, followed by verbal only and then visual-only placements. These significant differences suggest that product placement effectiveness may well be a function of individual processing styles (Russell, 1998).

Nonetheless, previous research cited above on product placement modality has focused primarily on encoding differences between visual and auditory information. Often modality is treated as a perceptual variable and related to particular encoding mechanisms and their associated memory retrieval processes (Unnava, Agarwal, and Haugtvedt, 1996). Only have few researchers, like Tavassoli (1998) expanded Russell’s and Paivio’s analysis of modality effects beyond perceptual levels. The audiovisual context of product placement provides the opportunity to investigate a previously unexplored difference between auditory and visually presented information: their expected level of meaningfulness. This perspective offers the possibility to identify that the visual and auditory channels differ in the amount of meaning that they carry. As a matter of fact, the visual channel serves to create the context in which the story takes place (Solomon and Englis, 1994; Solomon and Greenberg, 1993) whereas the auditory channel carries only the script of characters of a movie. Accordingly, because individuals can process auditory information in a movie without watching it, the auditory modality serves as a “conveyor of semantic information through speech” (Rolandelli et al., 1991). In fact, as compared with visual stimulation, auditory information is often characterized by its greater intrusiveness and intrinsic alerting properties (Posner, Nissen and Klein, 1976). These modality characteristics become essential as meaningful stimuli are integrated in a person's cognitive structure (Lehnert, 1981), are processed more deeply, and thus generate greater recall (Craik and Lockhart, 1972) and elaboration efforts. The third dimension of the product placement framework, plot connection, also characterizes a dimension of meaning since higher levels of plot connection characterize instances when the brand makes a significant contribution to the story and will thus facilitate memory (Russell, 2002). To sum up, this Tripartite Typology of Product Placement allows this dual focus by determining not only how a placement is cognitively processed and thus whether it will be recalled but also how it affects individual consumers’ attitudes.

1.2) Why marketers decide to use product placement strategy?

1.2.1) Advantages of product placement

There seem to be three main reasons why marketers judge product placement in movies as an attractive communication strategy (Brée, 1996; D’Atsous and Chartier, 2000). First, watching a movie is considered as a high attention and involving activity (minimal distraction possibilities, significant efforts to choose a movie, money spent for tickets...) which leads to high level of consumers’ attention, as opposed to just listening to television programs, as well as a high involvement with the characters and the story during the movie. Second, Belch and Belch (2001) and Fill (2002) have highlighted the possibility of high exposure to the product and the brand since the levels of impact can be high because, on the one hand, successful movies can attract millions of people and, on the other hand, because the lifetime of a film is estimated at three to five years when this is combined with DVD releases and television broadcasting of the feature film (Karrh, 1998; Lehu, 2007, Van der Waldt, 2005). Therefore, from a strict cost per viewer point of view, the cost of placing products in feature films, more precisely, the cost per minute can be very low in comparison to other media, due to the high volume of exposure it generates. Finally, product placement represents natural, non aggressive and non-persuasive way of promoting a branded product (D’Atsous and Chartier, 2000). Indeed, unlike traditional advertising messages, product placement provides a venue where products can be portrayed realistically in the context of a movie scene (Curtis, 1999). Thus, it may symbolize a way of combating growing consumer resistance to advertising and new technologies that allow people to avoid watching commercials (Russell and Belch, 2005).

In brief, De Lorme and Reid (1999) have summarized these numerous key advantages for marketers when using product placements: “the potential to reach captive and fragmented audiences, to provide relatively greater reach than traditional advertising, to demonstrate brand usage in naturalistic settings, to add realism to film (Johnstone and Dodd, 2000), to offer a relatively cost-efficient communication tool and an alternative to traditional advertising media options”. In addition, product placements could also be a support for other traditional media if the brand placed in the feature film is supported by additional promotional efforts. Source association represent another advantage of product placements, even if it has not been mentioned by De Lorme and Reid (1999). As a matter of fact, from a movie viewers’ perspective, the product’s association with a celebrity actor can enhance the inherent persuasiveness of the placement message (Morton and Friedman, 2002). Despite the growing body of research establishing the positive benefits of product placement, several other studies have put the emphasis on the fact that, for the advertiser, product placement must not only lead to increase awareness and a more positive attitude towards the product or brand placed, but have to ultimately, as in the case of Reese's Pieces in the film E.T, lead to a purchase (Karrh, 1995). So far, the average recall of products that were placed in feature films showed approximately only 38% the next day (Gupta & Lord, 1998, in Belch & Belch, 2001; Lehu, 2007). Research conducted to measure product placement effects has generated mixed conclusions about the reliability of its investment return (Steortz, 1987; Morton and Friedman, 2002).

1.2.2) Disadvantages of product placement

Although product placements bring several benefits to marketers, there are still strong criticisms against this practice. Belch and Belch (2001) have underlined some key disadvantages. At first sight, product placement seems to involve fewer costs than traditional advertising media such as a 30-second television spot. But, while the cost per minute may be low, the absolute cost of placing a product may be high, from a few thousand dollars to several million of dollars, especially when product placement are supported by additional advertising campaigns (e.g. Sony products in the James Bond movies) (Lehu, 2007). Furthermore, even the time of exposure may be high because of the long lifespan of movies, it does not guarantee that viewers will notice and recall the branded product after having watched a movie (Gupta and Lord, 1998). If the product is not featured prominently, the advertiser runs the risk of not being seen by the viewers. In this context, the appeals remain limited to source association with actors’ endorsement and enjoyment atmosphere created by the movie itself (Van der Waldt, 2005). Besides, advertisers have little control over when and how often the product will be shown in the movie (Fill 2002; Russell and Belch, 2005). If product placements are too intrusive or produce a negative image of the brand, film attendees may develop negative attitudes towards the brand. Or some products may appear in film that are disliked by the audience or create a less than favourable mood as it was the case in the film Transporter 3 in which the Audi A8 car become the principal enemy of the main character (Lehu, 2007). Regardless of the above criticism against the use of product placements as a viable communication vehicle, the considerable advantages cited in the previous section still explain why marketers may prefer product placement to traditional advertising or incorporate product placement in their global communication strategy.

2. Consumers’ attitudes towards product placement in cinema movies

2.1) Spectators’ attitudes towards product placement

2.1.1) The Concept of attitude

“Attitudes are predispositions towards action made up of emotional reactions (affective), thoughts and beliefs (cognitive), and actions (behavioural) components about or towards people and things used to evaluative of people, objects and ideas” (Schmoll et al., 2006, p. 35). The study of the different components of attitude, included in the Hierarchy of Effects Model, that is to say, the cognitive, affective and conative phases, follows the mental stages that consumers must pass through before to decide to make any purchase, (Belch and Belch, 2004) (see Appendix 6). Studying the effects from product placement corresponding to the three broad classes of the Hierarchy of Effects Model permits to predict the possible outcomes on movie viewers’ attitudes (Balasubramanian et al., 2006). Uncles et al. (2003) study suggests there is a rich literature supporting the continuum attitude-drives-behaviour. Indeed, the researchers focusing on attitude effects declare to boost sales by enhancing customers’ beliefs about the brand and strengthening their emotional commitment attached to their brand value. Conversely, “advocates on the behavioural side suggest that most consumers have split-loyalty portfolios of habitually-bought brands and marketing communication acts more as publicity that sustains awareness and offers reinforcement, rather than as highly persuasive information that fundamentally changes their attitudes and/or levels of commitment” (Ehrenberg et al. 1998, in Uncles, Dowling, Hammond 2003, p. 297).

Having noted that advertising is widely recognized as a form of persuasion, defined as “symbol manipulation designed to produce action in others” (Brown 1958, p. 299, in Schmoll et al., 2006), once extended to product placement, advertisers desire that their products be placed positively within the storyline of the movie in order to associate positive attitudes to their brands and, ultimately, carry forward these positive attitudes to product purchases (Morton and Friedman 2002). However, research on consumers’ attitudes towards product placement also suggests there is no straightforward relationship between product placements and self-reported purchase behaviour (Tiwsakul, Hackley and Szmigin, 2005). For instance, Lehu and Bressoud (2007) found that only 34% of their respondents recalled the day after at least one brand placed in the movie they just watched. In addition, they recall only brands that sound familiar to them or they already had a positive experience with, whether this recall effect came from the visual or/and verbal placement modality (Karrh 1994; Brennan et al., 1999). It cannot be ignored that plenty of academic researchers have demonstrated that attitude does generally influence branded product recognition, and to a certain extent, have an impact on customers’ purchase intentions in so far as the product or the brand familiarity is established (Babin and Thompson-Carder, 1996; Karrh, Firth and Callison, 2001; Gibson and Maurer, 2000; Gould, Gupta and Grabner-Krauter, 2000; Gupta and Lord, 1998; Baker and Crawford, 1995).

2.1.2) General viewers’ attitude towards product placement

Product placement may be now established in practitioners’ minds, but the literature relating to product placement is still in its infancy. Although several researchers have indicated the importance of product placement as an additional element of the promotional mix (Friedman, 1986; Hulin-Salkin, 1989; Rosen, 1990; Elliot, 1992), the first study on audience attitude towards product placement in movies appeared only with Nebenzahl and Secunda’s study (1993). They found that their respondents expressed a positive attitude to product placements and revealed that it may become an “advanced dimension of cinema advertising” (Argan et al., 2007, p. 162). Then, several studies followed focusing on particular aspects of product placement such as types of product used in placements (Sapolsky and Kinney, 1994), the effects of placement type and exposure time on brand recognition (Babin and Carder, 1996; Brennan et al., 1999), the effect of product placement on consumer behaviour (Ong & Meri, 1994; Babin and Carder 1996; Gupta and Lord, 1998), and the semantics employed by viewers (d’Astous & Chartier, 2000).  On the contrary, other researchers examined product placement in terms of its ethical acceptability (Gupta & Gould 1997; Gould et al. 2000; Karrh et al., 2001) and noticed that few of their participants articulated negative opinions due to the ethically questionable “subliminal” nature of product placement and the presence of ethically-charged product placements such as alcohol drinks or cigarettes. The Appendix 7 summarises the findings of recent investigations of viewers’ perceptions of product placement in movies.

Generally, most of these studies reveal that respondents have a positive attitude towards product placement, although a few researchers still indicate the contrary, such as low recall rate or no increased purchase intention. For instance, Gupta and Gould (1997), by examining general ethical concerns about product placements as well as concerns about specific products such as alcohol, guns and tobacco, found that a minority of the American college respondents expressed negative attitudes towards such ethically-charged products. Their findings that product category and individual consumer differences have an impact on product placement acceptability were subsequently corroborated by Gould et al. (2000). However, the impact of different type of product placement strategies on consumers’ attitudes and particularly on their memory, do not always exhibit positive effects. Indeed, D’Atsous and Chartier (2000) showed evidence of both positive and negative effects of product placement in consumers’ eyes. On the positive side, when the placement is positively evaluated because of the presence of the principal actor, viewers’ memory is enhanced, especially if the product is prominently placed and well integrated in the movie storyline. On the negative side, when a placement is assessed as “unacceptable” (e.g. cigarettes) and prominently integrated in the movie, viewers’ memory tend to reject such product placements. Therefore, the ambivalent effects created by prominent product placements show that the prominence of placements, on the one hand, enhances recognition memory, but, on the other hand, decrease the possibility to be recalled if the nature of the product category is ethically questionable (D’Atsous and Chartier, 2000).

While the studies discussed above display interesting results, they are beginning to date and may not reflect today’s consumers’ attitudes towards product placement. Because of the constant evolving emergence of new advertising techniques that marketers use to reach their target market, product placement may not appear in consumers’ minds as “innovative” and “unobtrusive” as it was the case ten years ago. That’s why the following research question seems important to answer:

Research question 1: How do consumers generally react today upon product placements?

2.1.3)Cross-cultural studies on consumers’ attitudes towards product placement

The studies cited above gave a clearer view of college-aged audience consumers’ attitudes towards the practice of product placement, but they were conducted mainly in America, and thus, missing the opportunity to obtain profitable insight into the attitudes of audiences outside America, particularly in those nations that exhibit different cultural traditions such as European and Asian countries. With the exception of Karrh et al. (2001), Richmond (2000), Gould et al. (2000), and Baker and Crawford (1995), most of the studies were conducted in North America. It has been shown that European movie watchers object more than North Americans to brand placement (Hall, 2004), but McKechnie and Zhou (2003) and Karrh et al. (2001) justified the potential of fruitful findings that could be examined in the fast-growing areas of Asia where the diffusion of American movies is growing. Indeed, the group of nations termed “Cultural China”, that is to say, the Republic of China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore (Frith, 1996), share a set of common cultural values that includes collectivism, moderation, authoritarianism and relative non competitiveness (Martin, 1996). On the contrary, Europeans and Americans promote “materialism” and “hedonism” values as well as a great emphasis on the rights and interests of the individual (Karrh et al., 2001; McKechnie and Zhou, 2003). In spite of a general acceptance of product placement in Asia-Pacific area, compared to their American counterparts, Singaporean and Chinese respondents were less likely to report self-monitoring activity, but had greater concern about the ethical dimension suggested by product placement, and were more supportive of government restrictions on placement activities (Karrh et al., 2001; McKechnie and Zhou, 2003). Therefore, since the Asian population do not seek primarily to achieve self-representational goals, the potential persuasive power of symbolic consumption hidden behind brand placed in movies may not influence their brand attitude (Karrh, 1998).

While it is not very likely that a movie could have multiple international versions based on different versions of product placement, a marketer may include in his marketing decision the cultural factor in order to assess how a globally marketed product would be accepted in all the countries where the movie might be distributed (Gould et al., 2000). This thinking is in line with Wang’s (1996) tripartite approach which suggests that three variables should be taken into account when formulating a global strategy: country, product and consumer segment (individual differences). Still, as Karrh (1998) raised it out, cross-cultural differences with respect to attitudes toward product placement do exist. However, neither marketers nor movie producers can implement local product placement strategy when a movie is globally diffused (Brennan et al., 2004). As a result, although many American movies are widely exported worldwide, their product placements usually are not culturally adapted. Consequently, the result is generally either standardization or nothing. Yet, recent advances in digital technologies opened the door to flexible execution settings for brand placements and permit to develop the practice of virtual placements (e.g., branded products digitally added in a movie scene like inDemolition Man in which the food outlet of the future were set in either a Taco Bell or Pizza Hut), and thereby generate culturally adapted opportunities and outcomes that become more effective than traditional placements (Balasubramanian et al., 2006). Such new digital technologies give two powerful advantages: the ability to customize messages and decrease the risk of poor box-office performance of the movie in foreign countries (Balasubramanian, 1994). But, since product placement tend to be still standardised rather than culturally adapted (Gould et al., 2000), it solicits the following research question:

Research question 2:  Does the cultural background of cinema audiences affect their attitudes towards product placement?

2.2) Explaining variables of consumers’ attitudes towards product placement

2.2.1) Individual variables

“Individual differences based on criteria other than national culture may also play a role in consumer response to product placement” (Gould et al., 2000, p. 42). So far, published research on product placements put the emphasis on execution characteristics ignoring the importance of considering other individual audience characteristics which do influence their final attitude towards the products and brands placed. Many studies include only demographic variables (e.g. age, gender) like DeLorme and Reid’s study (1999) which found that younger audiences not only accept the practice of product placement, but are more aware of it than the older generation of audiences. Thus, product placement appears to be more familiar to younger viewers in so far as they have grown up in a society where brands in movies are a regular practice (Balasubramanian et al., 2006; Friestad and Wright, 1994). However, most of the researchers were not able to establish clearly that gender differences significantly influence spectators’ attitude towards neutral (not ethically-charged) product placements (Gupta and Gould, 1997; Gupta et al., 2000). That’s why it remains imperative to examine additional individual variables that may explain consumers’ attitude towards product placement.

Academic research have found that acceptability refers to “the general satisfaction of the audience with the contents of the film, which includes the practice of placing products during the film for exposure” (Brennan et al., 2004, p.2; citing DeLorme and Reid, 1999; Gupta & Gould, 1997; Nebenzhal & Secunda, 1993; Pardun and McKee, 1996). Regarding the individual level of acceptability, Nebenzahl and Secunda (1993) found that generally such placement was acceptable to a certain extent. As a matter of fact, some of their respondents expressed negative opinions for ethical reasons criticizing its “subconscious” nature because seen as "hidden but paid" commercial messages (Balasubramanian, 1994). Ethical issues that arise from product placement are mainly oriented towards their potentially excessive, influential or even ‘subconscious’ nature. On the contrary, Gupta and Gould’s (1997) and Russell’s (2002) studies have exhibited positive attitude changes for product placements that subjects did not consciously recognise and stated product placements as “less intrusive than other forms of advertising”.

The degree of familiarity with the placed brand has a significant impact on consumers’ decisions since it facilitates their capacity to recognize the product placements during the movie. A well-established phenomenon called the Von Restorff effect (Wallace, 1965) may influence the recall of product placements (Balasubramanian, 1994). The key argument of this phenomenon lies in the fact that “since unfamiliar stimuli are contrasting with prior expectations, they attract greater attention and produce superior cognitive outcomes than familiar stimuli” (Russell, 2002) contrary to familiar brands which are easily recognized and remembered by movie viewers. This conclusion is corroborated by the psychological phenomenon known as the Mere Exposure Effect, also called the familiarity principle which basically states that the more people are exposed to a product or a brand, the more they become familiar with and appreciate it (Zajonc, 1968; 1980). In other words, placements involving familiar brands and their attached symbolic complex meanings are more quickly processed. The review of these theoretical theories helps illustrating the role of familiarity in facilitating effective communications with audiences.

Besides, Russell’s pioneering work (1998) in consumer behaviour has identified differences in processing styles as a determining factor of the effectiveness of screen and script placements through Paivio’s coding redundancy hypothesis (1971). Though, Childers et al.'s Style of Processing scale aimed at assessing an individual's "preference and propensity to engage in a verbal and/or visual modality of processing" (1985, p.l30), explicitly, it determines consumers’ allocation of attention to visual or verbal cues. For instance, a visual style of processing will lead an individual to assign more attention to the visual cues, and therefore, be more aware of screen placement whereas script placement may receive more attention from viewers who have adopted a more verbal style of processing. Consequently, when assessing the effect of product placement types on cognitive consumers’ attitudes, it is necessary to account for individual differences in processing style.

2.2.2) Influence of movie genre

Genre theory is the branch of literacy criticism which is used in the study of films in order to facilitate the categorization of films for spectators (Fowler, 1982). Indeed, the “identification of a movie as part of a genre enables potential viewers to decide whether it is likely to appeal to them” (Chandler, 1997). Genre can depend on various factors such as story line, who the director is or what are the audience expectations. By using genre theory, movie viewers create a short cut in how to choose which films they intend to watch. Such type of classification and hierarchical taxonomy of genres is not “a neutral and objective procedure” (Chandler, 1997). Furthermore, there is often considerable theoretical disagreement about the definition of specific genres, that’s why a genre has been ultimately defined as “an abstract conception rather than something that exists empirically in the world” (Feuer, 1992, p. 144). Despite acknowledging the limitations of movie taxonomies by reducing the meaning-potential of a given movie (O'Sullivan et al. 1994), Chandler (1997) offered a useful movie genre taxonomy using vocabulary from viewers’ perspective (see Appendix 8).

The growing presence of product placements in movies may help audiences defining element of their lifestyle, thanks to branded products serving as significant objects in the elaboration of scenarios that determine the genre (Russell and Stern, 2006). Previous research (Hirschman, Scott, and Wells, 1998; Solomon and Greenberg, 1993) on character-product relationships confirmed that brands serve as "psychocultural" cues to the audience's construction of meanings (Sherry, 1995). Since the movie genre depends on a carefully drawn sociocultural scenario reflecting the prominence of today’s consumption patterns such as clothing, makeup, home furnishings, food, and beverages, the characters interacting with those products tend to increase this psychographic dimension (Cornwell and Keillor, 1996). In addition, the higher is movie watching frequency, the higher audiences will be accustomed to the inherent consumption patterns routinely depicted in movie scenario (Gupta end Gould, 1997). In consequence, genre theory conveyed additional significant information on character-product relationships due to the movie scenarios which, by respecting the genre they define, contain stereotypical elements in familiar settings, filled with everyday products.

2.2.3) “Skepticism” toward advertising

Nowadays, the high frequency of commercial messages present in nearly every media (e.g. television, radio, magazines, Internet...) negatively impact consumers’ attitude by encouraging questions about the marketers’ persuasive tactics, and thereby increase their resistance and counterargumentation towards the traditional advertising strategies. This so-called phenomenon, “skepticism”, a “defense mechanism triggered when a message recipient is presented with information that strains credibility”, involves the temporary suspension of belief about the product efficiency (Balasubramanian et al., 2006). According to the Persuasion Knowledge Model (Friestad and Wright, 1994), skepticism toward advertising increases when audiences acquire more advanced knowledge of advertisers’ tactics and persuasive intent about how, why, and when a message is intended to influence them (Boush, Friestad, and Rose, 1994) (see Appendix 9). Extended to product placement research, Gupta, Balasubramanian, and Klassen (2000) discovered a strong connection between attitudes toward advertising and attitudes toward product placements, the more their respondents expressed positive feelings toward advertising, the more they held considerably positive attitudes toward product placements.

After having reviewed the main explaining individual-level variables that influence consumers’ cognitive and affective attitudes towards product placements as well as the different theories embedded in this process, it remains unexplored to what extent these individual variables monitor their conative behaviour, in other words, their final purchasing goals and as a result, solicits the following research question:

Research question 3: How does the appearance of product placements in movies influence final consumers’ purchasing decisions?

3. Factors influencing product placement effectiveness

3.1) Effect of non conscious nature of the product placement process

3.1.1) Impact on the non-conscious part of the consumer

Due to the “subconscious” nature of product placement, the low-high consciousness continuum is highly implicated in the explanation of a possible shift in brand attitude after exposure to a product placement, accompanied with important implications for the explicit versus implicit memory dichotomy (Auty and Lewis, 2004; Law and Braun 2000; Law and Braun-LaTour 2004). Indeed, on the one hand, explicit memory represents an intentional effort from consumers to retrieve relevant information acquired from a previous stimulus exposure (Krishnan and Chakravarti, 1999; Shapiro and Krishnan, 2001). On the other hand, implicit memory involves unconscious automatic memory retrieval (Duke and Carlson, 1993; Krishnan and Chakravarti, 1999).  Thus, it is suggested that the ability of placements to enhance recall and choice performance is mediated by distinct mechanisms (Balasubramanian et al., 2006). For example, exposure to a product placement may increase implicit memory for a brand without necessarily improving explicit memory because of the mere exposure effect (Zajonc 1968; 1980). Thus, the consumer will not explicitly remember seeing the brand as a placement, but will report a more positive brand attitude as a result of the repeated exposure (Law and Braun, 2000).

While the prominence of product placements has consistently been associated with higher memory performance (Babin and Carder, 1996; Gupta and Lord, 1998; Law and Braun, 2000), “an improvement in memory does not necessarily guarantee an improvement in brand attitude” (Cowley and Barron, 2008, p. 90). Actually, the consumer’s lack of awareness that the products placed within the movie is an effort “in disguise” to influence their brand attitude is fundamental to the success of the placement (Lehu, 2007). If, for instance, movie viewers realize that a brand has been “placed” too prominently, pushed from the background to the foreground, they may disengage from the “reality” created by the movie. Therefore, in this case, the increased inclusion of prominent placements may change negatively movie viewers’ opinions about this initially “unobtrusive” marketing technique by interrupting the viewers’ “suspension of disbelief.” (Cowley and Barron, 2008, p. 90; Campbell, 1995; Friestad and Wright 1994; Wright, 1974; Aaker and Bruzzone, 1985). The underlying assumptions of the Persuasion Knowledge Model are at the origin of these findings (Friestad and Wright, 1994). But exposure characteristics to product placements are sensibly different in so far as the consumer is viewing a movie as a form of entertainment and not part of a commercial advertising campaign (Hudson and Hudson, 2006). Hence, since product placements exposures are limited to the number of cinema movies watched, there is no reason that the viewers’ persuasion knowledge happen to be activated. In other words, “marketing practitioners perceive product placements as vehicles by which brand promotion should occur under consumers’ radar” (Cowley and Barron, 2008, p. 90).

3.1.2) Congruent versus incongruent placements on brand memory

When considering the different combinations of modality and plot connection, it is clear that there can either be a match or a mismatch between modality and plot connection. Russell (2002) investigated the impact of perceived congruence, of product placements, or on the contrary, the apparent incongruence between modality (visual or auditory) and plot connection (high or low) on viewers’ memory. These congruent and incongruent modality/plot combinations are presented in Appendix 10. The congruency/ incongruency literature seeks to check if the memory always affects attitude associated with each type of placement. In fact, it seems that incongruent placements which do not fit with the movie storyline tend to generate greater cognitive elaboration because of the unexpectedness feelings created whereas when information is congruent viewers are not tempted to process actively the reasons of its presence (Mandler, 1982; Heckler and Childers 1992; Russell, 2002). Nevertheless, empirical evidence sustains that extreme incongruency may have an unfavourable effect on product placement evaluations by encouraging questions about the brand’s appearance in the movie (Lee and Mason 1999; Meyers-Levy and Tybout, 1989). Consequently, this “brand-relevant thinking” is in line with mental mechanisms associated to the Persuasion Knowledge Model such as prompt resistance towards the “hidden but paid” commercial messages behind product placements (Balasubramanian, 1994; Friestad and Wright, 1994). To sum up, Russell (2002) study brought evidence of a nonlinear attitude-memory relationship: while incongruency between modality and plot connection improves memory, congruency enhances persuasion.

Whether the product placement is judged as congruent or incongruent, marketing professionals continue to believe that “the appearance of a branded product will be successful as much as it melts into the story and the moment of the movie” (Brée, 1996, p.70 citing the president Jean Patrick Flandé of Film Média Consultant, a French product placement agency). In parallel, D’Atsous and Chartier (2000) have demonstrated that consumers do prefer well-integrated placements in spite of the undeniable lower capacity associated to remember the products placed. The continuum, depicted in Appendix 11, with, at one end, passive product placement with no brand integration, and at the other end, product fully integrated into the storyline of the film, along with the key influences on product placement effectiveness, supports the idea that how the products placed are woven into the movie storyline matters more to consumers during their purchasing decision-making (Friedman, 2003; Hudson and Hudson, 2006).  As long as audiences perceive that product placements reinforce the integrity of the film’s world (DeLorme and Reid, 1999), they become more absorbed by the movie storyline and thereby are more likely to be in the right mood to recall and purchase the brands placed.

All empirical studies cited in this section attempt to measure the effectiveness of product placements in terms of how well they are remembered relying on brand recall and recognition measures. However, the absence of correlations between memory and attitude measures often found in the congruency/incongruency literature challenges the assumption that the memory-attitude relationship is not necessarily linear. This is "the infuriating paradox of product placement is that if you notice it, it is bad. But if you don't notice it, it is worthless. It is such a narrow line that either the viewer or the advertiser feels betrayed" (Ephron 2003, p. 20). As a consequence of this constant contradiction entrenched within the product placement process, the following research question become indispensable to answer:

Research question 4: To what extent can product placement be considered as an effective communication tool?

3.2) The choice to integrate or not product placement within the IMC strategy

3.2.1) Stand-alone versus integrated placements

Practitioners and the product placement literature have recognized some of product placement's obvious advantages such as the low cost relative to other media, the potential for high exposure in non-commercial contexts, and the ability to capitalize on source associations (Karrh, McKee, and Pardun, 2003, DeLorme and Reid, 1999). Even so, Russell and Belch‘s research (2005) suggested to take into account the different role and integration levels of product placement in the marketing mix. On the one hand, “when product placements occur as stand-alone, strategic goal setting rarely drives decisions, leaving instead a more shotgun-oriented approach” (Russell and Belch, 2005, p. 82). In such instances, medium-size companies generally aim at using only product placements to get significant exposure with a relatively low budget. On the other hand, fast-moving-consumer-goods companies such as Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble or Nike Inc. decide to engage in product placement strategy by fully integrating them within promotional campaign and thus, supplementing public relations efforts, both internally and externally, as well as supporting possible new-product introductions or sales promotions (Hudson and Hudson, 2006; Pardun and Mckee, 2000; Russell and Belch, 2005). As an element of the IMC’s broadcast sponsorship, like it has been demonstrated in the first section, product placement should be carefully integrated and co-ordinated in the company strategy (Van Riel, 1995). To ensure the best impact, product placement have to be treated as a communication which balance the other seven promotional elements present in the marketing communication mix in order to increase the viewers’ awareness regarding the brands placed (Van der Waldt, 2005)

3.2.2) The effects of priming product placement

Another interesting research area lies in the potential effect of informing consumers about the presence of specific product placements through mass-media advertising campaign before the movie is released. Usually it would not be in the interest of companies to deliberately enhance viewers’ expectancy by referencing their product placements in traditional adverts (Balasubramanian et al., 2006). This type of targeted movie-related advertising, also called “ties-in campaign”, serves as a prime for brand placements activating viewer’s memory of past consumption experiences (Lehu, 2007; DeLorme and Reid, 1999). For instance, BMW reportedly invested $20 million in a film tie-in campaign for the worldwide launch of its Z3 roadster by, not only including prominent placements in the James Bond film GoldenEye, but also by complementing them with television ads (Fournier and Dolan, 1997). However, as the Persuasion Knowledge Model predicts it, the direct consequences of triggering heavily consumers’ recognition of the presence of product placement before the movie release are the irremediable activation of their persuasion knowledge (Friestad and Wright, 1994). Cowley and Barron (2008) have investigated the effect of priming product placement and discovered that it eliminates the positive effects of the sole movie exposure, particularly for low frequent movie watchers.

The arguments developed above sustain that both stand-alone and integrated product placement present significant advantage (see Appendix 12). But, on the other hand, increasing consumers’ awareness of product placements in feature films when supplemented with additional promotional efforts in traditional media may lead to negative shift in the brand attitude since it activates their persuasion knowledge (Russell and Belch, 2005; Friestad and Wright, 1994; Cowley and Barron, 2008). Therefore, it solicits the following research question:

Research question 5: Which types of product placement strategy have a higher positive impact on consumers’ brand attitudes?

3.3) Relationship between the movie, the product placed and the spectator

3.3.1) Product placement as a “transformational” experience

Russell (1998) was the first researcher who proposed the ‘transformational’ concept for explaining the power of product placement in terms of the affective involvement of consumers with their movies and favourite actors (Hackley and Tiwsakul, 2006). As its name suggests it, it supports that product placement could transform the experience of consuming a branded product in order to match that shown in a film. This transformational proposition is determined along with four different dimensions: the personal relevance, experiential/empathy, informational and execution aspects (Russell, 1998) (see Appendix 13). First, the personal relevance defines “the degree to which a viewer connects himself with a film” (Russell, 1998, p. 359). For example, the explicit (through verbal endorsement) or implicit (when a product is used) pairing of branded products with movie celebrities can illustrate a powerful endorsement since a celebrity gives his character traits to the product placed (Avery and Ferraro, 2000). Second, the experiential/empathy aspect is presented as “an audience’s vicarious emotional identification with films” (Puto and Wells, 1984, p.639 in Russell, 1998). Placing real branded products in films intensifies both their authenticity and salience and in so doing tend to increase viewers’ empathy when entering into world that depict their daily experiences through dramatic entertainment (Russell, 1998). Third, the informational aspect refers to the ability of product placement for providing consumers with relevant information about branded products (Russell, 1998). Unlike traditional advertising, product placements are exhibited in realistic settings and, to a certain extent, inform consumers about the symbolic meanings hidden behind in a given a social context. Finally, the execution aspect denotes the importance of the likeability and memorability of the corresponding experience, that is to say, it refers to the effects of the congruence of the placement with the plot and characters on consumers’ brand memory and recall (Russell, 1998; 2002).

However, Hackley and Tiwsakul (2006) feel that Russell’s (1998) helpful conceptualization of the transformational engagement between product placement exposure and consumer remains speculative and would require further empirical investigation since it is intuitively plausible that brands social values embedded within movies transform consumer experience. That’s why including concrete findings issued from human sciences such as the existential phenomenology can open the door to some insightful concepts for understanding the experience of consumers in terms of their engagement with the movie content (Hackley and Tiwsakul, 2006). As long as brands are perceived as social symbols by consumers (Elliott and Wattanasuwan, 1998), the portrayal of brand consumption, an apparently consumers’ daily activity, may help to solve what has been characterized as “the ‘post-modern’ dilemma of fragmented identity” (Hackley and Tiwsakul, 2006; Gergen, 1991; Elliott, 1997). Indeed, the self-concept is central to the experiential consumption since it reflects individuals’ willingness to bridge the gap between their actual and ideal selves (Solomon et al., 2006), which is activated by their subjective beliefs about their own identity acquired from experiential reality. In brief, product placement is an ideal vehicle for suggesting new associations between self-concept and consumption practices. Because Bulmer and Oliver (2004) have raised out that consumers do not only buy products, but rather buy the lifestyles, stories, experiences and emotions associated to them, it appears important to examine in the next section the literature on the role of product placement in the nature of the link between viewers and movies characters.

3.3.2) Product placement process as a three-dimensional approach

The product placement mechanisms are entrenched in a tripartite influence process in which, on the one hand, the products placed interact with the movie viewer, and on the other hand, the consumer develop a particular relationship with the movie characters resulting itself from the interaction between internal and external influences in the consumer-product attitude (Russell and Stern, 2006) (see Appendix 14). The conceptual paradigm underpinned in the relation between products placed and the observation of product usage by actors is the classical conditioning theory supporting that a desired consumer response may occur when a product (conditional stimulus) is repeatedly associated with a highly regarded principal actor (unconditional stimulus) (Russell, 1998; Solomon et al., 2006). Alternatively, the behavioural modelling paradigm from the social learning theory, maintains that individuals learn by observing others. Accordingly, movie viewers identified themselves with the principal actor and “model” their behaviour in order to obtain the same satisfaction the principal actor received from using the product in the film (Russell, 1998; Gupta et al., 2000). “This process of imitative behaviour combines watching, thinking and trying” (Van der Waldt, 2005, p.6). Russell’s model adapted from McCracken’s meaning transfer model (1988) summarizes these both paradigm effects when product meanings associated with a movie and its actors are ultimately transferred to the spectator (see Appendix 15). In addition, Balasubramanian (1994) underlined the use of the attribution theory to explain why the actors appear credible and trustworthy in consumers’ eyes. In the traditional advertising context, the assumptions of this theory predict that the persuasiveness of a celebrity endorser depends on customers’ perceptions of his motivations (e.g. money paid to endorse the product) (White et al., 2009). But in the case of product placement, actors are employed by film producers and not by the companies of the product being placed in the film. Therefore, since they apparently have nothing to gain financially by using the product in the film, consumers consider the actors as a credible and trustworthy source (Morton and Friedman, 2002).

According to Heider’s balance theory (1946) behind the tripartite approach depicted above, consumers align their attitudes toward products with the characters' attitudes to products, and this alignment process is facilitated by the consumers' parasocial attachment to those characters (Russell and Stern, 2005). However, this conceptual model focuses mainly on the positive effects of product placement on consumer-character relationship, ignoring when characters' attitudes toward products placed are negative and influence negatively viewers’ attitude towards the movie as well as to brands placed. Because of the absence so far of research exploring this aspect, the following research question may shed light on the actual effects of product placement on spectator-movie relationship:

Research question 6: Do product placements change positively or negatively the nature of the relationship between the spectators and the movie?