Product Placement Scores Marketing Coup

Sept. 18, 2004 -- In an age when consumers are practiced in the art of tuning out advertising, General Motors came up with a $7 million idea this week for breaking through the clutter.

The company gave away 276 new Pontiac G6s to audience members on the season premiere of The Oprah Winfrey Show. The giveaway show generated a buzz, experts say, that $7 million worth of traditional commercials could never buy.

"It's trying to reach consumers in a new and different way because traditional advertising simply isn't working as well as it once did," said marketing consultant Jonathan Asher.

Product placement is nothing new. But it's taken on a new urgency as personal video recorders like TiVo make it easy for viewers to watch television shows while skipping commercials completely.

TV Brand Integration

Companies like Levi Strauss, Delta, Visa, Volkswagen and Mattel have all paid to have their brands integrated into the weekly contests on NBC's hit reality show The Apprentice.

Revlon's sponsorship of the ABC soap opera All My Children included a plot line for the cosmetic giant.

While some companies pay millions to have their brands woven into programs, others, like TiVo, tried giving away their product to TV actors and actresses to generate buzz.

When that strategy didn't prove to be successful, they gave them to television writers and producers.

Neither TiVo nor HBO will say whether that had anything to do with the subsequent TiVo devotion of Miranda, a character on HBO's Sex in the City.

With television product placement, there is a fine line between authentic detail and hard sell.

ABC News' Betsy Stark filed this report on World News Tonight.