• by David Kaplan , March 25, 2005

Consumers may hate commercials--no study needed to tell you that--but they seem perfectly comfortable when it comes to product placement on TV shows. Eighty percent of Americans have a positive view toward this powerful new form of advertising, a MindShare study released Thursday said.

Marketers appear to be equally enthralled with the idea of product placement, according to a separate study conducted by Association of National Advertisers, which was unveiled at the organization's 2005 Television Advertising Forum at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City on Wednesday.

In the ANA's survey of 118 marketers, 63 percent said their company has participated in branded entertainment initiatives in the past year. About 42 percent of the marketers who conducted a branded entertainment promotion said that they did so in order to make a stronger emotional connection with consumers--an amount that outranked other stated benefits by nearly double, an ANA spokeswoman said. And while 60 percent said that they had done a branded entertainment deal in the past, 80 percent said they certainly will do one in the future.

Still, as MindShare found, there is a catch.

As perhaps with any form of advertising, consumers told MindShare that, in terms of product placement, "It depends on how it's done." That was the view of 46 percent of consumers, while 37 percent said "it's generally okay with me."

And while it's not a bad thing that only 12 percent said "I do not like it at all," referring to product placement, the number of consumers who said they do not like product placement at all doubled from a year ago, when only 6 percent said they don't like product placement.

In MindShare's analysis--which was conducted by fellow WPP company Lightspeed--the positive attitudes still outweigh the negatives by such a large margin that the medium continues to show promise, and the doubling of negative attitudes merely reflects the familiarity with this burgeoning marketing tactic.

For example, MindShare found that about two-thirds of Americans polled said they notice more product placement in TV shows and movies than they used to, with one-third admitting to being responsive to product placement by trying a product after seeing it in a TV show or movie. Over 70 percent of Americans ages 18-49 were more likely to respond to product placement by trying a product or visiting a store, versus 28 percent of those over 50. There was no significant difference in effectiveness of product placement based on gender or household income, MindShare's report said.

Not surprisingly, those respondents who said they dislike product placement on television were more likely to feel that there are too many ads on television and in movie theaters.

Therefore, as the ANA found out, it's a good thing that most marketers appear to be focusing most of their efforts in this area on TV. The ANA survey reported that 85 percent of the marketers who participated in branded entertainment utilize commercial TV programming. Furthermore, 34 percent said they use magazines, 31 percent use movies, and 24 percent use video games for branded entertainment projects.