Week 2 - Penn

Advertisers have always used product placement as a promotion technique since the beginning of time, or at least since it was ever so subtly exemplified with Pizza Hut, Pepsi, and Reebok on “Wayne’s World.” As mass media has expanded, grown, and evolved, advertisers continually use product placement through multiple mediums as a way to brand themselves. ABC’s “Modern Family” is no exception, but how it features products differs from the norm and proves to be effective.

Adage.com recently published Brian Steinberg’s article, “Many Brands Bid for Product Placement on ‘Modern Family,’ but So Few Make It,” illustrating how product placement continues to thrive.  Not only do advertisers want their products to appear in the show, they are fighting for a spot. “We get offers constantly. We do very few. We try to be extremely selective,” said Steven Levitan, one of the show’s creators and executive producers to Steinberg. Luckily, the producers can afford to be picky with so many options. A few lucky advertisers include Toyota, Audi, and Target, all featured throughout the season.

Traditionally, products appear somewhere in the show, but are seldom used in a manner similar to the way viewers would. Steinberg’s article says that ‘Modern Family,’ “puts name-brand goods in the hands of characters that incorporate them into their normal routine, in turn demonstrating exactly how most of the buying public might use them.” The relevance of a product to both the plot and characters dictates if it will be used. One character, Mitchell Pritchett, an environmental lawyer, drives the environmentally friendly Toyota Prius season one. Makes sense, huh? The producers’ idea seems to be, “If the “modern family” wouldn’t actually buy or use it, why market it?”

Producers of ‘Modern Family’ take product placement to a whole new level, perhaps because they use it to demonstrate reality. Characters aren’t shown using outlandishly expensive products, but rather products that develop and enhance their roles. In turn, viewers develop a better, more sincere connection to the characters, making the purpose of product placement that much more effective. Effective as it may be, cost is a big problem for advertisers.

The article says that “‘Modern Family’ is one of the 10 most-expensive shows for advertisers this season, and a 30-second spot runs $249,388, according to Ad Age's annual survey of prime-time ad costs. Using back-of-the-envelope math, every second a product appears in the show could be worth slightly more than $8,300.” With rates like that, few advertisers have the option to place products on the show. And so another issue arises in the world of mass media… But at least ‘Modern Family’ now serves as an example of how to more effectively advertise through product placement.

Click here to read the entire article on AdAge.com!