• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, July 6, 2007

Fox's underrated and under-watched comedy "The Loop" offers arguably the most refreshing take on product placement of any prime-time series. It's far from a reality show that can beat a viewer over the head with, say, a 5-minute scene with a mini-tube of Kraft mayo never out of camera-shot. And it isn't a drama with a detective driving a Pontiac G6 Coupe to a crime scene that's followed by a billboard at a commercial break essentially saying, "If you didn't realize we were trying to sell you the car via product placement in the show, we want to make sure you know now because the show is 'BROUGHT TO YOU BY PONTIAC, MAKER OF THE NEW SUPER-TREMENDOUS G6 COUPE!'"

Instead, "The Loop" takes a delightfully tongue-in-cheek, we-know-viewers-aren't-that-into-product-placement-so-we're-going-to-do-it-but-admit-we-are-and-hope-to-win-your-affections-by-being-straightforward-about-it approach. The show then will integrate a product in such an over-the-top, campy manner - no subterfuge, no subliminal messages, no legerdemain -- that it likely wins points with viewers and delivers a message successfully anyway. It's overkill that actually works.

Arguably, the show wants it both ways: it wants to impugn the whole concept of product placement - to convey a certain hip, anti-establishment image -- yet in doing so earn some extra revenue.

It started a year ago in a "Loop" episode with a cute female star getting ready for a date and admiring herself in the mirror. "God, I look great in this Old Navy skirt," she beams. Then, in the show's style of communicating with the audience when characters essentially step out of the scene and offer a quick aside to the camera replete with sound effects and on-screen messages, the young woman makes like a spokesmodel and says, "Thanks Old Navy." "Product placement" mockingly appears written on the screen and a cash register is heard ringing.

A similar, even funnier, version of the maneuver took place on the June 24 "Loop" episode (one of the to product placements of the week, according to measurement firm iTVX).

Essentially, the episode revolves around, well, product placement itself. More broadly, the comedy series focuses on the hilarious triumphs and tribulations - usually triumphs by the end of a 30-minute episode - of the young 20-something genius "Sam" working for a wacky, wonderfully absurd Chicago-based airline, TransAlliance Airways.

On the June 24 show, the airline decides it needs to find a way to up its revenues. The solution: Product placement. After the airline has received requests from dozens of companies interested in placing their brand on tray tables and pilots' uniforms and the like, real-life gum Stride -- introduced about a year ago by Cadbury Adams with a $50 million push and billed as "The Ridiculously Long Lasting Gum"-- is chosen.

Sam essentially is put in charge of negotiating the deal and laying out the parameters of where Stride can place its logo. He does so with an attractive woman his age, "Leeza," and falls for her in the process.

"Leeza" then takes advantage of "Sam's" affections and quickly turns the airline just about into "Stride TransAlliance Airways." She blankets its gates with Stride billboards and other green and blue signage, renames its premium seating Stride First Class, puts Stride wallpaper on the plane's interior and covers the inside of its windows, and even re-names the in-flight film "Stride-rman 2." Pilots are told to weave Stride into all their commentaries to passengers (until one revolts).

So, Stride benefits from all the exposure in a comical manner that fits what Cadbury refers to as the gum's "irreverence."

But its unique selling proposition is its long-lasting ability. And that's hammered home in the tactic similar to the I-look-great-in-my-Old-Navy-skirt scene a year ago.

Before Sam gives Leeza the go-ahead to turn TransAtlantic into a blank canvas for Stride and she capitalizes on his crush on her, the two are seen kissing deep into the night - hours after Sam began chewing a piece of Stride.

"Oh, my gum is still fresh," he muses as they unlock lips. "Stride is 'The Ridiculously Long Lasting Gum.'"

Leeza nicely responds: "You know Sam, I don't give you money every time you say that."

Sam then turns to the camera for one of those tongue-in-cheek suspended-animation scenes as the action pauses. "I know ... Stride does," he says jauntily. The figure "$85,000" flashes on screen.

It's product placement at its best, fitting with the tone and tenor of the show. Cadbury says Stride's print ads "rely on humorous exaggeration." The same can be said for "The Loop."