Product Placement May Now Be Restricted, But Still Breaks Television’s Crucial Spell

After the black and white, the shades of grey: the government’s decision to allow product placement on UK television was modified yesterday to restrict “alcoholic drinks, HFSS [high in fat, sugar or salt] food, gambling, smoking accessories, over-the-counter medicines and baby food” getting placement time (cigarettes and other medicines are already banned). While the more Faustian figures at ITV et al will be cursing this loss of potential revenue, it’s good to see Ben Bradshaw, culture secretary, at least using a moral compass when selecting who to whore our programming out to.

Restricting product placement in this way is the kind of nanny-statism that’s completely defensible, and also preserves one of the most acute pleasures in British drama – watching someone go into the Queen Vic/Rover’s Return and ask for a pint of non-specifically branded lager. At least now they won’t be able to add: “And a packet of KP’s delicious new chilli-roasted nuts”. But how much further might the government end up modifying these rules? Will you be able to show someone eating a non-branded burger? Or perhaps only allow the most depraved villain to eat them, thus putting you off? What about showing real-life plastic surgery clinics, strip clubs, or any other area of potential moral ambiguity? If something that even a small portion of the British public find offensive is seen to be making financial gain during “our” shows, then the Ofcom switchboard should probably batten down the hatches.

But as well as the pact dooming broadcasters to a case-by-case assessment on what’s appropriate, product placement will inevitably damage our enjoyment of culture. The ideal is of persuasive placement that merely adds realism to a show, and functions on an unconscious level, but given the frequent lapses in sophistication in even the biggest Hollywood movies, we can’t expect the production crew of Emmerdale to position brands in an unobtrustive yet advertiser-friendly manner. Given the recent outcry from the gaming community about ingame advertising that Peter Walsh examined on these pages recently, we can expect a similar resistance to bullshit from TV viewers. Assuming that audiences with be blithe to product placement badly underestimates them.

The world of augmented reality, the process of adding interactive richness to existing environments like mobile phone interfaces, will also impact harshly upon TV programming via product placement. Claire Beal, writing in the Independent last week, considered the possibilities: “Imagine watching, say, an episode of Mad Men on your iPad, touching the screen when you see a jacket you like, and immediately being able to order it via an online store. At a stroke product placement becomes a measurable, transactionable and immensely more interesting proposition for advertisers and content creators alike.” And creates a sea change in the way we perceive and consume drama.

There’s something to be said for Beal’s vision – imagine the number of times you’ve lusted after a character’s wardrobe, or wanted to know the name of a song playing on the soundtrack – but would this choice inhibit the deep enjoyment we can get from drama? It becomes less a story and more a coathanger for a series of retail opportunities. And that’s without looking at the potential compromises in objectivity for documentaries, fashion shows, food programming and more.

The problem brings to light the curious trade we make when we watch television. The experience is the very definition of mediated – it comes via a television screen – and so to create the crucial feeling of immersion we have to get rid of anything that might remind us that it’s a construct. Advertisers would obviously argue here that brands strengthen the realism; but for the “realness” of a piece of TV to be created, you have to paradoxically create an unreality, portraying not the real world but “TV world” where real world commerce is banned. In a TV show, there is nothing for sale except itself, and that is a rare pleasure in the modern world, and we put up with, nay need, the awkward ordering of non-specific lager to keep it going. Adverts break the spell, but reanimate it a couple of minutes later; product placement disintegrates it throughout the show.

In the end, the only truly brilliant way to combine commerce and television is the unashamedly honest celebration of consumption that is the infomercial. We need less Pepsi cans lying conspicuously around a Hollyoaks set, and more of Mr. T saying things like: “My tastebuds is going wild… I love it when a plan comes together!”

Posted by Ben Beaumont-Thomas in Creative Economy | February 4, 2010 2:25PM |