• Associated Press/Houston Chronicle, Monday, July 10, 2006 12:30 PM

Wine marketers are discovering the benefits (and pitfalls) of product placement in TV programs and feature films. It's a new connection between Hollywood and wine (get it?) that takes a different tack than most other product categories. Unlike other industries, wineries seldom pay for product placement. Instead, they try to get attention by donating cases of their wine to show biz events and celebrity parties and hiring agents like Jenny Turnbull who look for opportunities by reading scripts and keeping in touch with studios. "Product placement is here and it's here to stay," says Los Angeles-based Turnbull, who spent 10 years with 20th Century Fox, most recently doing product placement, before founding her own business, The Placement Agency. However, there is a downside and there are no guarantees. Weeks of negotiations can go for naught if a scene gets cut. On the other hand, a bottle intended to be in the background of a scene can shoot to "hero placement," if it ends up in an actor's hands. But critics point out that even when all goes well, it may be hard to identify wine bottles since they don't have the iconic recognition of, say, a Coca-Cola can.

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