• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, August 16, 2007

Looking for an example of product placement gone overboard? A late July episode of TNT's hit "The Closer" provides a ringing example.

Viewers of recent episodes of the crime drama have come to learn that lead character, the steely yet flawed detective Brenda Johnson (played excellently by Kyra Sedgwick), is a devoted T-Mobile customer. She's got one of their phones and BlackBerries.

Fair enough--a crime fighter on call 24 hours a day needs as many communications devices as possible. And of course, that provides a prime opportunity for brand integration--take the call on the Razr, get an e-mail on a handset, use the megapixel camera.

T-Mobile and TNT try to capitalize on those openings. On July 30, Johnson receives three calls and gets an urgent photo sent to her BlackBerry showing perpetrators in action (top product placements of the week, according to measurement firm iTVX).

As she looks at the photo, the camera zooms in for an extended close-up of the device, where the T-Mobile insignia is clearly visible. Since the photo is indigenous to the story line--it helps Johnson as she begins an interrogation--it's pretty standard stuff as product placement goes these days.

What's far less organic and thus likely to offend viewers is what transpires when Johnson receives those three calls. It's the unmistakable T-Mobile ring, the one that conjures up memories of Catherine Zeta Jones and her plea to sign up and "Get More."

In this day of bounteous ringtones and user-friendly ways to alter the ring on one's phone, how likely is it that someone would keep the ring that's teed up when the phone comes out of the box--even someone like Johnson who's relentlessly focused on her work? While that focus arguably makes her less tech-savvy, she certainly seems to know her way around a BlackBerry rather well. Even so, it seems likely her doting boyfriend would help her avoid the embarrassment of the standard-issue ring.

Certainly T-Mobile is taking the tack that it has no interest in ponying up for a product placement that no one notices, even at the risk of turning viewers off with overkill.

On the one hand, the company's ring creates such a Pavlovian response that viewers no doubt are taking notice. However, at least one, a blogger and devoted fan (closertv.blogspot.com), finds it a turnoff and "in your face"--perhaps a product placer's nightmare.

And instead of weighing in on the merits of the wireless brand, the blogger offers up theories about T-Mobile's budget. "I wonder how much T-Mobile paid to ... have their ringtone heard not once, not twice, but three times during the show. The first one was just one minute into the show!" (Actually, about a minute and 14 seconds.)

Then, apparently happy with some relief from that high-pitched sound, after an ensuing episode came this: "Wow, this episode was a good one. And there were only two T-Mobile rings, and they were late in the show."

If other viewers harbor similar thoughts, as T-Mobile evaluates its strategy, it might want to change its tune.