Everyone knows about product placement--or brand integration, as some marketers like to call it. It's when a product is subtly placed into a scene in a movie or TV show, like a can of Coke on a
kitchen table or a box of Kellogg's Corn Flakes that's visible when a character opens a cabinet. But now the process has gone verbal. Product mentions are being placed in the dialogue spoken by
characters in scripted shows, says
The Washington Post. The actors' lines essentially become commercials that can't be zapped through when using a digital video recorder. "Whereas they used to
place product in a fairly innocuous way, they are actually giving actors dialogue extolling the virtues of these products," says Alan Rosenberg, president of the Screen Actors Guild. SAG, in
solidarity with the Writers Guild of America, says its members are finding their dialogue can be usurped by the jingles of the ad world. Both groups want to discuss these issues with the advertising
industry, the networks, studios, and producers.
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