Jean-Marc Lehu is Associate Professor in Marketing and Director of Advanced Graduate Studies in Logistics at Panthon Sorbonne University, Paris

1. He lectures in marketing and communications at several other French management schools including HEC, ESCP-EAP and ESG. As an independent consultant in communications and marketing, Professor Lehu specializes in consumer behaviour and brand strategy. His most recent book is Branded Entertainment Product Placement and Brand Strategy in the Entertainment Business (Kogan Page, 2007). In this interview, Jean-Marc Lehu speaks about the development, risks and potential rewards of product placement as an advertising technique.

Guru Interview: Jean-Marc Lehu

In this interview, Jean-Marc Lehu discusses the development, risks and potential rewards of product placement as an advertising technique.
Interview by Sarah Powell

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What do you consider the respective merits of product placement compared with the 30-second advertising slot, and how do changing consumer habits challenge advertising effectiveness and media choices? Jean-Marc Lehu:

close relationship with the films story, or more generally with the environment in which it is to appear, that its presence will seem natural. What are the risks to both film and product of overkill, and are consumers showing any resistance to product placement? Jean-Marc Lehu:

We face a challenging paradox. On the one hand the sheer choice of TV channels, radio stations, books, magazines, newspapers and billions of Internet pages available brings unparalleled opportunities to discover, learn or be entertained. On the other, our lives are ever richer and busier, with an increasing range of activities and leisure pursuits diminishing the time available for any single pursuit. The result is a modern brand managers living nightmare: tremendous audience fragmentation and consequent dilution. The number of viewers of a prime-time, 30second commercial is declining day by day. Even more frustratingly, the profile of the audience is ever more difficult to predict. In early 2007 two leaders in the packaged goods business, Procter & Gamble and Unilever, declined to purchase airtime for their commercials during the February Superbowl in Florida the major media event on US TV. Will they regret it? Surely not. Were they right? Probably. Meanwhile everything is becoming entertainment even the saddest events of our lives can be broadcast on the news. Is this a good or bad thing? The answer really doesnt matter; it is simply the way of the world and brand managers must cope with it. Since marketing became a management discipline, managers have had constantly to adapt and this has led branded entertainment to be seen as an attractive strategy. Brand and product placement offer the opportunity to maintain contact with potential consumers, sometimes without them even being aware of the advertising aim. Product placement also compares favourably in cost terms with traditional mass media advertising which has remained expensive despite declining audiences. The time and quality of exposure in product placement are a huge asset. The brand manager has more control of the marketing goal and his brand may also benefit from multiple product views. A film, for example, may be seen in cinemas, on TV (including re-runs), on DVDs and videos including video-on-demand (VOD). If it were possible to compare Gross Rating Point (GRP) and Cost Per Mille or Thousand (CPM) with precision, the huge potential of product and brand placement would be only too evident. You write that the brand must be able to enjoy a genuine process of symbiotic integration: such a

The vast majority of academic studies indicate not only that consumers are not resistant to product placement and branded entertainment in general, but also that some viewers like it. However, your question raises an important issue because the branded entertainment world we have become used to in recent years appears to be changing. Many more brands are developing their own entertainment world. They are extending placement of brands and products into films, TV programmes and series, cartoons, the theatre, songs, novels, comics and so on. We need to ask how consumers will react when they perceive an advertising overload similar to that in traditional media the research company Yankelovich recently estimated that a citizen in a developed country is exposed daily to up to 5,000 advertisements. The symbiotic integration principle suggests that a brand can merge with its entertainment receptacle; the best case scenario is that the brand is seen without being noticed which is the most important criterion for success. However, if a film incorporates more than a few dozen brands, there is a strong likelihood that these will be neither strategically nor cleverly integrated which would constitute a new kind of advertising pollution. In Big Momma's House 2, a comedy by John Whitesell, General Mills Lucky Charms rubs shoulders with Kelloggs. Dodge, BMW, Mercedes, Porsche and Ford drive along the same road. HP shares the credit with Apple, LG, Panasonic, Dell, Philips, Samsung and Sony. . .this could be considered a small step for symbiotic integration and a giant leap for a new kind of extremely long commercial break! What are the issues relating to differing national advertising standards and legislation and how is this addressed in product placement in films or TV series released for global consumption? Jean-Marc Lehu: Film production offers what is perhaps the most blatant example of a loophole strategy. In many countries, advertising of alcohol and tobacco products is banned. In others it is authorized in certain, restricted media on condition that a warning message is included. Very few countries allow advertising of firearms. Advertising of prescription drugs is habitually banned in developed countries. However, there are ways around these restrictions. Bacardi rum featured in

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Miami Vice while J&B whisky appeared in The Break-Up. Brand placement of tobacco products has become rarer but Marlboro appeared in Four Brothers while Camel was smoked in Fun with Dick and Jane. In none of these cases was there any health warning. Meanwhile firearms placement has included Smith & Wesson in Night at the Museum and Beretta in Snakes on a Plane. Drug placement has seen Viagra feature in both The Pink Panther and The Dukes of Hazzard.

placement affected will simply disappear. The advertiser has no recourse to complaint. At best the advertiser will not pay, or any payment will be reimbursed. But the product placement work will have been a complete waste of time. Given these country-of-origin realities, there is a need for early and active collaboration between stakeholders. Even in a produceradvertiser relationship situation, all efforts must be made to meet not only the director but also the property manager, set designer and of course the actors, who are partners in the operation. All parties must understand the aim of the placement, not seeing it simply as a money-earner. Apart from any other considerations, only some 25 per cent of placement operations are based on payment. The vast majority are barter deals and/or promotion exchanges. Ultimately, the really important answer to your question is actually, not whether the advertiser, producer or director has the final say, but what is the outcome of the placement and this is determined by the viewer. If the placement is blatant, inconsistent or irrelevant, the product or brands reputation will suffer as will that of the director and actors for failing effectively to use and integrate the brand or product. How can advertisers measure the return on investment (ROI) of a placement compared with that of a 30-second advertising slot? Jean-Marc Lehu: Numerous methods of measuring return have been promoted, some of which focus on the ROI of product placement in films and video-games, but most on that in TV shows and series. There have also long been ROI assessment methods in traditional advertising. However, while such tools enable improved assessment, none can claim to identify the exact ROI. The way in which a product placement works is very different from that of a 30-second advertising slot. With the expansion and diversity of TV programmes, TV advertising offers the opportunity to select the supposed random break in a specific programme to enable it to reach a specific target. However, reaching does not necessarily mean being seen, memorized and appreciated to the extent that the product will subsequently be purchased. Product placement aims primarily to increase brand awareness and, if possible, depending on how it is integrated within the host entertainment, to improve the brands image. Numerous studies explore how a brand benefits from the placement using these criteria; however, identifying the ideal tool to reveal the exact impact of a product placement would necessitate

If the placement is blatant, inconsistent or irrelevant, the product or brands reputation will suffer as will that of the director and actors for failing effectively to use and integrate the brand or product.
Nothing prevents the country where such films are released in cinemas or broadcast on TV from editing out the product placement. But such editing only takes place in countries with limited freedom and democracy it is not countenanced in developed countries. This means that brands that are banned from advertising directly, proliferate in films. This loophole also allows the targeting and seduction of specific consumer groups such as children and teenagers. Who has the final say in product placement, and how are contractual issues relating to product placement addressed where there are directing or editing changes that reduce or delete product placement? Jean-Marc Lehu: This is a very interesting question. A film with international potential will have international advertisers who will want a say. However, final decisions can actually depend on where the film will be produced and shot. If the production part of the contract is US-based, the producers, given their responsibility for the finance, retain overall control. This arrangement benefits the advertiser because a detailed contract is likely to be honoured there have been very few cases where products have not appeared on screen as per contract, leading to court action. If we look at France, however, the situation is very different. There the director retains ultimate control. Whatever the terms of the product placement contract, if the director decides at any point in the filming or editing process that a scene or a shot must be cut, it will be, and any

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ignoring all the other variables which interact to affect the consumers attitude or behaviour, e.g. advertising, promotion, experience, nature of the market, product image and reputation, day-to-day behaviour of the brand and the company, and so on. . . Your question is particularly relevant because a large part of the reason why some brand managers are still reluctant to develop a branded entertainment strategy is because there are no strict quantitative arguments to persuade a finance director that such a strategy is not just the latest marketing fad and this leaves aside the fact that the very nature of creative entertainment means films, novels and videogames have an even more uncertain future than TV channels, radio stations or magazines. Your book names four distinct types of product placement: classic; institutional; evocative; and stealth. Can you offer a brief definition of each type and the arguments for and against them? Jean-Marc Lehu: Broadly speaking, a classic placement sees a product (whether branded or not) placed in front of the camera, e.g. the KitchenAid appliances in Susannah Grants Catch & Release. Classic placement is the earliest and easiest form to practise, but the benefit of re-runs will be lost if the product is later withdrawn from sale. Institutional placement focuses solely on the brand name. The product or service is never shown. A good example of this is the appearance of the MetLife building in Tim Storys Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, with no indication that the company is an insurance business. In this form of placement, while the brand is easy to place, benefiting all the companys branded products, there is a risk that it will not be noticed or recognized. In an evocative placement the product is shown but neither it nor its brand is cited. However, its packaging or shape is so well known that it should be easily recognized, e.g. a brief shot of green would, to many in the audience, have identified the film put in a camera in Billy Rays Breach as FujiFilm. Evocative placement can be risky but it can increase the involvement of the targeted audience in its identification. A stealth placement is the most discrete method. The brand is either not named at all or the mention is very brief and the product may not be identified as being a specific brand, e.g. the computer a Gateway in Michael Lehmanns Because I Said So. This may be the best way to integrate the product in the script but postscreening identification via end-title credits or a

tie-in advertising campaign is required if the placement is to benefit the brand. There is also another type of placement that merits mention: the fictional placement. As its name suggests, the focus is on a fictional name. The National Inquiry newspaper which appeared in Martha Coolidges Material Girls is a good example of this. What do you consider to be the rules of effective product placement? Jean-Marc Lehu: Product placement is not a new advertising technique. Onegin drives to the boulevard, and there goes strolling unconfined till vigilant Brguet to him chimes dinner, wrote Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin in Eugene Onegin in the early nineteenth century. The timepiece was no ordinary watch it was a Brguet! Likewise, a hundred years ago, the characters in Warner Brothers movies mainly drove General Motors cars because of a product placement deal between the manufacturer and Jack Warner.

There is a huge difference between an ordinary placement, which has many potential pitfalls, and a savvy integration into the plot which can ensure that a positive trace is left in a viewers memory.
What has really changed since the early years is the professionalism of the product placement technique. While it is still impossible to conceive, produce and display an advertisement in the certainty that it will be effective, there are certain keys to potential success. While placement is most effective in an entertainment environment specifically designed for it, there are also occasions when a particular product or specific brand is required for use in a specific context rather than simply to plug the brand. Clifford Irving, the character played by actor Richard Gere in Lasse Hallstroms The Hoax, drives a Mercedes convertible, which is consistent with the character he is playing. In Robert Shayes The Last Mimzy a can of Sprite soda is integral to the script. It is not just placed on the corner of a table. It has a role (albeit small) to play with actor Chris ONeil. What are the major pitfalls to avoid (e.g. in terms of potential damage to brand image if, say, a

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product is associated with an unpleasant character or disaster scene)? Jean-Marc Lehu: As you suggest, a product or brand can suffer very negative repercussions where there is a failure to control produce placement, for example, if in a film there is a clearly identifiable car driven by a sadistic killer, or in a novel a horrible character frequently eats a particular branded ice-cream. . . Simply because this is branded entertainment does not mean that brand management can be neglected. Strategic thinking, detailed contracts and close monitoring of execution to completion by the brand manager or assigned agent are essential. There is a huge difference between an ordinary placement, which has many potential pitfalls, and a savvy integration into the plot which can ensure that a positive trace is left in a viewers memory. In Shooter, an action drama film by Antoine Fuqua released in 2007, Anheuser-Busch could have opted for a classic plug, paying to place a billboard in the background of a scene in the hope that the films viewers would notice the ad. Instead, the script included an adorable dog which managed to open a refrigerator door to remove a bottle of Budweiser (an AnheuserBusch brand) which it carefully transported to its master, the main character, who is then seen to enjoy it. What legislative controls govern product placement and how do they differ between countries? Jean-Marc Lehu: While product placement has been largely forbidden in TV shows and series produced by domestic TV channels in EU countries, it nevertheless appears in US series that are broadcast on the same channels in these countries. This is very unfair to European advertisers. The 2006 revision of the Television Without Frontiers directive promises some harmonization of legislation within the European Union which may help shift the balance of power, but the new European legislation is more restrictive than US regulations and market globalization means practice will still vary from country to country. Legislators face two distinct problems. The first relates to an author/creators rights. In a country in which tobacco advertising and smoking in public places is strictly forbidden, should a novelist be prevented from writing that a character is lighting a cigarette perhaps specifically a Marlboro? Surely not and not because this restricts advertisers but for reasons of basic freedom of speech.

In a totally interconnected world, global regulations are difficult to establish and apply. In the USA, in November 1998, following pressure from consumers associations, the major tobacco manufacturers and the film industry signed the Master Settlement Agreement (MSA), banning cigarettes from films, video-games, TV shows and so on. However, research since then confirms that cigarettes still appear, notably in films, even though the MSA has reduced the incidence. Legislation is also complicated by technology. Even if legislators resolve to ban certain placements for public health reasons, for instance drugs, alcohol, tobacco or guns, it can be very difficult to ensure the regulation is uniformly respected because technology is developing so fast. Recent developments include podcasts and dedicated download websites such as MySpace, YouTube and DailyMotion which receive a huge volume of new content every single day. It is difficult to see how all this can be controlled. Can you cite some brands that have had an outstandingly successful strategy of product placement? Jean-Marc Lehu: Most brands that use product placement would assess their strategy as being very successful in one way or another. Coca-Cola, for example, is so iconic that it is sometimes placed without the company even being informed of this or charged for it. At the time when The Hire, with Clive Owen as the driver, was showing in cinemas, BMW attracted more than 50 million people on to its website to watch mini-films devoted to its cars. . . There are many other such examples and success has many faces depending on the brands strategic goal. If I had to choose one outstanding case, contrary to many critics Id choose that of Cast Away. This adventure movie by Robert Zemeckis told the story of a FedEx employee marooned for years on a desert island following a plane crash. The incorporation of a known express delivery company made the film much more believable. Some critics accused FedEx of taking over the film, but FedExs involvement was a real collaboration. The FedEx CEO played himself in the film while FedEx even mocked itself in a commercial following the movie release. FedEx is a leading player in its own market, but it did not lead the film. The film, though, gave the company the opportunity to be seen and recognized worldwide. FedExs market is global, hence the company was fulfilling its promotional remit for the benefit of its stakeholders.

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But citing such examples reveals a general weakness. Product placement and, more generally, branded entertainment are still considered by many brand managers to be complementary techniques rather than serious strategies. Nevertheless, as classic mass media advertising loses prominence, brand managers will doubtless come to think differently. What are the current and, in your view, major future vehicles for and trends in advertising given changing consumer habits, preferences and aspirations? Jean-Marc Lehu: Crystal ball gazing is always tempting and fun, but it can be hazardous in such a fast-changing world. The major transition in our consumer society started some 40 years ago and it is not yet over. While branded entertainment is increasingly seen as a strategic opportunity to advertise in a different and more appropriate way, I do not believe that advertising in its classical form has been necessarily sentenced to death. There is clearly a need to adapt to changing circumstances, but cleverly conceived classic advertising can still deliver. In terms of product placement, I am confident that professionalism will increase as the media become more diverse and sophisticated, the competition tougher and consumers less naive. In my view interactive games of all sorts will be the next new frontier. There are two reasons for this. First they offer a better way to control brand integration and, if necessary, evolution in terms of space, place, form, appearance, target placement, renewal. Second, the interactive immersion aspect creates a potentially more intense link with the player/potential consumer. Multi-channel communication will also exert an impact on branded entertainment. Brand or product placements are more likely to be designed for several media rather than a unique medium, contributing to the development or maintenance of brand awareness. Unfortunately many brand managers still fail to see branded entertainment as a strategic approach to capitalizing on integrated marketing communications. It is interesting to note that, although Ford and Toyota were strong partners in 24, the Fox TV series, none of their cars can be driven in 24: The Game, the video-game sequel produced by 2K Games, in which Chrysler was the major investor. It is possible, of course, that the potential for capitalizing on the previous series placement was not a relevant strategic choice. Brand managers may have to accept that good integration opportunities are rare, and will remain so. However, this being the case, assuring and/or developing a specific entertainment content for the brand could provide a solution. LOral, for

example, has signed a partnership contract with Weinstein Studios ensuring the cosmetic giant is the first contact for the studios next film project. The fact that Unilever, M&Ms, Renault, CocaCola, Budweiser, Mini, Kool-Aid, MTV and Amazon, to name just a few, offer exclusive collections of mini-films, interactive contests, online games, downloads and diverse goodies via their websites, and/or post messages and films on blogs and on YouTube, indicates that the branded entertainment world has many potential extensions in the virtual one. A brands website has multiple opportunities to become the first point of contact with the consumer. An entertaining interactive connection may soon be vital for staying in touch with the consumer. You can order Branded Entertainment Product Placement and Brand Strategy in the Entertainment Business from amazon.com Republished from Emerald Now, March 2007.

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