Recently I flew to New Mexico. While waiting at the airport I sat on my laptop, typing out some papers for grad school. What I noticed wasn’t just that there are separate stations for TV broadcasts from airports, but also that there was an ad permanently affixed to the screen that said: “Where you book matters. Expedia.” It looked just like the closed captioning that is available on regular broadcast television, but it was an ad.
What I find somewhat surprising and interesting is the amount of product placement that we are sued to and will accept in today’s society. When watching movies from the 1980s like Back to the Future, the product placement of items like Pepsi seems remarkably obvious. And yet, when we watch tV today, there is significantly more product placement that goes by undetected The placements happen in both dialogue and in the actual items we see on the screen and on the Internet.
They are sometimes fleeting images, sometimes a billboards in the background of a scene on the screen. Almost always, they are paid for and seem to fit exatly with what is happening on the screen.
It takes time to think about the fact that there is an advertisement on the screen. Just as often, we watch the news and realize that some of the stories on the news are an extension of the advertisements between segments of the program. Not only does this happen when events are brought to you by Tosittos, but also when the morning show talks about the cultural impact of a new sitcom.
It’s enough to make you wonder what exactly will happen next in the world of product placement and advertising.
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