• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, February 9, 2009

Don't worry about the dozens of consumer products finding their way into TV shows. In some cases, it's the other way around: program content may be finding its way inside TV commercials.

Many executives will tell you there are good reasons why the TV commercial is not dying: It's portable, has a standard size and shape that every TV programmer know what do with it, and viewers apparently still like them in part (see all those Super Bowl commercial polls).

An example of this is PepsiCo and NBC's "Saturday Night Live" "MacGruber/Pepsuber" commercial, a take-off of an "SNL" sketch, "MacGruber," which in itself is a spoof on "MacGyver".

More interesting was that Pepsi's agency Omnicom Group's TBWA/Chiat/Day, had little if any involvement in the commercials. It was produced by "SNL" executive producer Lorne Michaels.

We don't think TV networks are going to abandon now-traditional TV program product placement. We reckon the latest version of "The Apprentice," featuring the likes of Joan Rivers and Andrew Dice Clay, will have an array of marketers grabbing the better part of 44 minutes of air time in the show. Reality TV still depends on it.

Of course, old-timers will say the Pepsi/SNL spot is nothing new. TV programmers have been doing so-called vignettes for years, where short commercials surround a short bit of content at the beginning and at the end.

In the Pepsi/SNL spot, there were plenty of mentions of Pepsi. Still, it didn't feel like a commercial selling a soft drink; it looked more like a promo for a TV show.

And if viewers were a bit confused, that was OK. It forced them to wonder what they just saw. They're  waiting for more, and, at that time, we can say repetition is the sincerest form of flattery.

However, soon after that, we'll whine that familiarity breeds contempt, and we'll fast-forward through them, as we do with any other commercial .