• by Lydia Loizides , Op-Ed Contributor, July 10, 2008

It begins with a piece that I believe is important that everyone read -- an op-ed in the New York Times called, "Would You Buy a New Car From Eva Longoria?"  

No, I don't really care if you would or wouldn't -- but I want to bring your attention to the reference to new legislation proposed by the Federal Communications Commission. As the notice released by the FCC on June 26 states, the commission is seeking "comment on current trends in embedded advertising and potential changes to the current sponsorship identification
regulations with regard to embedded advertising," since the advent of "recent technological changes that allow consumers to more readily bypass commercial content [means that] content providers may be turning to more subtle and sophisticated means of incorporating commercial messages into traditional programming. As these techniques become increasingly prevalent, it is important that the sponsorship identification rules protect the public's right to know who is paying to air commercials or other program matter on broadcast television and radio and cable." The FCC defines embedded advertising as "situations where sponsored brands are included in entertainment programming."  Embedded advertising is used to generally describe both product integration and product placement, where product placement is defined as "the practice of inserting branded products into programming in exchange for fees or other consideration." (you can download the complete notice here )

I won't bother with the rest of the details on the document (but do take the time to read it) -- suffice to say that one of the most interesting tidbits of data presented in the document was that product placement on broadcast TV during the first quarter of 2008 was up almost 40% from the previous year -- and that "American Idol" alone had 3, 291 product placements.  Now, I am not here to judge -- but 3,291?

As the television industry continues to evolve, to react to a landscape littered with things like game consoles, DVRs, the Internet, cell phones, and the like, we should probably stop and think about what the long-term impact of an ever-increasing reliance on product and brand integration is on the production and monetization of television programming.  I shudder to think what will happen when legislators will turn their sights on short/long -form online content.

Thoughts?

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