• by Ken Liebeskind , May 24, 2002

When people talk about product-placement advertising, they usually mean placing products in TV shows and movies, the obvious venues. Now there’s an online twist, developed by iHappen Interactive: The company will place products in original online events that participants design themselves.

Visitors to Snowball.com, for example, are offered the opportunity to create their own movies, which could then have product ads placed in them. The clothes the actors wear, the cars they drive, and even their hair accessories could be advertised brand-name products. “It integrates personal experience with advertising,” says iHappen executive vice president Samantha Gumenick. “We’re trying to find the best way to capitalize on the interactivity of the Internet.”

The placements include click icons that take users to sponsor websites, where they may buy the products. The events can incorporate a variety of interactive media, from Flash to streaming video.

iHappen provides the technology for the events and places the ads. Clients can include advertisers and the websites that run the events (the latter can also sell their own advertising). The programs become a multi-endorsement vehicle, Gumenick says, with sites able to sell to a variety of advertisers within the theme of the program. iHappen can also create programs for single advertisers that run on their own websites rather than on third-party sites.

Snowball, the company’s first client, is a teen-oriented site. But there are many other potential markets. Enten & Associates, a Bethesda, Md., ad agency, will use iHappen for the Hong Kong Tourism Board. Visitors to Discoverhongkong.com will be able to design their own dream vacation, which will contain ads from tour operators, who represent airlines, hotels and more.

The program is scheduled to start early this year. “It gives people an interactive experience, which Hong Kong is perfect for, because it’s the city of life,” says Paul Cohen, Enten’s vice president of travel and hospitality marketing. The Hong Kong Tourism Board will promote the event with an email newsletter.

Another client is a cell phone company Gumenick declined to name that will promote bonus minutes with an event tied into a fantasy football league. The event will be a fantasy phone call with a famous sports figure. It will be available on a microsite from the cell phone company.

A direct mail piece will lure prospects to the site, prompting Gumenick to emphasize that traditional marketing campaigns will be used to bring users to the online events. “The idea is to leverage the broad scope of traditional marketing campaigns with the one-to-one component of the Net,” she says. Magazine ads may also be used to promote the events.

Product placement advertising is a natural for TV and movies, where the products can be integrated into the live action. It remains to be seen how iHappen’s interactive product placement will work, but iHappen’s events may be a workable venue that could open doors to a new online advertising opportunity for traditional brand marketers.