EFFECTIVENESS OF PRODUCT PLACEMENT ...

i

EFFECTIVENESS OF PRODUCT PLACEMENT

APPLICATIONS ON TURKISH TV MEDIA

A dissertation submitted in partial fullfilment of the requirements for the

degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

in

Management

by

Vildan KARIŞIK

Supervisor

Prof. Dr. Mustafa DİLBER

ii

APPROVAL

Student : Vildan KARIŞIK

Institute : The Institute of Social Sciences

Department : Management

Dissertation Subject : Effectivenessof Product

Placement Applications on Turkish

Television Media

Dissertation Date : June, 2014

I certify that this dissertation satisfies all the requirements as a dissertation for

the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

Assoc. Prof. Nizamettin BAYYURT

Head of Program

This is to certify that I have read this dissertation and that in my opinion it is fully

adequate, in scope and quality, as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

Prof. Dr. Mustafa DİLBER

Supervisor

Examining Committee Members

Prof. Dr. Mustafa DİLBER …………….……………

Assoc. Prof. Nizamettin BAYYURT …………….……………

Prof. Dr.Zehra Vildan SERİN …………….……………

Prof. Dr. Selim ZAİM …………….……………

Assist. Prof. Dr. Hilal ASİL …………….……………

It is approved that this dissertation has been written in compliance with the

formatting rules laid down by the Graduate Institute of Social Sciences.

Assoc. Prof. Mehmet KARAKUYU

Director

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to thank my Edim, Damir, mother and rest of myfamily, as well

as, my supervisor Prof. Dr. Mustafa Dilber for their consistent and full support while

working on this thesis study.

Vildan Karışık

June, 2014

iv

ABSTRACT

Vildan KARIŞIK June, 2014

EFFECTIVENESS OF PRODUCT PLACEMENT APPLICATIONS ON

TURKISH TELEVISION MEDIA

The popularity of product placement on television (TV) media as a viable alternative

to traditional commercials has been increasing rapidly. Latest PQ Media report

(2012) noted that global spending of product placements on TV medium has already

reached $5.37 billion. However, despite its popularity, extant academic research

investigating evidences of product placement effectiveness yielded inconclusive

results as yet. In addition, with regard to its practice in Turkey, product placements

on Turkish TV media, which is allowed as of April 2011, can be said to be on its

infancy period. Therefore, the aim of this thesis study is to take an initiative to shed a

light on the effectiveness of product placements, in particular for those on Turkish

TV media, by employing a research methodology involving both experimental and

traditional research methods: neuromarketing and questionnaires. 91 study

participants were subjected to neuromarketing measurement process while viewing

video clips from different Turkish TV series that involved various product

placements. In addition, they were required to complete questionnaires prior to, as

well as, after the neuromarketing measurement process. Based on the data obtained

from both methods, effectiveness of product placements was explored bilaterally.

First, main outputs of neuromarketing measurement process, namely Emotional

Attachment (EA), Attention (AT) and Stress (STRS) neuroscores, were tested in

relation to respective neuromarketing effectiveness benchmark scores. Second,

assessing effectiveness in relation to product placement execution related factors was

performed. Results revealed that executing traditional ad of the placed product prior

to the placement boosts its effectiveness, in particular in terms of attention attraction.

Additionally, virtual product placementwas evidenced to be an ineffective placement

strategy.

Keywords: Product Placement, Neuromarketing, TV Product Placements, Turkey

v

ÖZ

Vildan KARIŞIK Haziran, 2014

TÜRK TELEVİZYON MEDYASINDA ÜRÜN YERLEŞTİRME

UYGULAMALARININ ETKİLİLİĞİ Televizyon medyasında (TV) ürün yerleştirmelerin popülaritesi reklamlara geçerli

bir alternatif olarak her geçen gün artmaktadır. PQ medya raporuna göre (2012) TV

medyasında küresel ürün yerleştirme harcamaları 5.37 milyar dolara ulaşmış

bulunmaktadır. Ancak, popülaritesine rağmen, ürün yerleştirme etkililiğini araştıran

kapsamlı akademik çalışmaların sonuçları henüz bu bağlamda kesin bulgular

sunamamıştır. Bununla birlikte, ürün yerleştirmelerinin Türkiye’deki uygulamasına

bakılacak olunursa, Türk TV medyasındaki söz konusu uygulama Nisan 2011’den

itibaren serbest bırakılmıştır, diğer bir deyişle Türk TV medyasında ürün yerleştirme

uygulamalarının henüz emekleme evresinde olduğu söylenebilir. Buna bağlı olarak,

bu tez çalışmasının amacı ürün yerleştirme etkililiği, özellikle Türk TV

medyasındaki ürün yerleştirme uygulamalarının etkililiği, konusunu kapsamlıca

araştırıp incelemektir. Bu çalışmada, bir deneysel araştırma metodu olan,

nöromarketing, ile birlikte geleneksel araştırma metodu olan anket 91 katılımcıya

uygulanmıştır. Katılımcıların farklı Türk TV dizilerinden elde edilmiş değişik ürün

yerleştirmelerinin bulunduğu video klipleri izlerken nöromarketing ölçüm sürecine

tabi tutulmuşlardır. Ayrıca, katılımcılardan nöromarketing ölçüm öncesi ve

sonrasındaanket tamamlamaları istenmiştir. Her iki metoddan elde edilen bulgular ile

ürün yerleştirmenin etkililiği çift yönlü bir şekilde keşfedilmiştir. İlk olarak, ürün

yerleştirmelerinin etkililikleri Duygusal Bağlılık (EA), Dikkat (AT) ve Stres (STRS)

nöroskorları nöromarketing referans (benchmark) etkililik skorlarına nispeten test

edilmiştir. İkinci olarak, ürün yerleştirme etkililiği ürün yerleştirme uygulaması ile

ilgili olan faktörlere nispeten değerlendirilmiştir. Sonuçlar ürün yerleştirmeden önce

uygulanan reklamın yerleştirmenin etkililiğinin, özellikle dikkat çekme bağlamında,

anlamlı olarak arttırdığını göstermiştir. Ayrıca, sanal ürün yerleştirmelerin aslında

etkililiği olmayan bir yerleştirme stratejisi olduğu ortaya çıkmıştır.

Anahtar kelimeler: Ürün Yerleştirme, Nöromarketing, TV Ürün Yerleştirmeleri

vi

LIST OF CONTENTS

Title Page i

Approval ii

Acknowledgement iii

Abstract iv

Öz v

List of Contents vi

List of Tables viii

List of Figures x

List of Abbreviations xii

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 4

2.1. Product Placement Defined 4

2.2. History of Product Placement 9

2.2.1. Product Placement in Cinema Films 9

2.2.2. Product Placement on Television 16

2.2.3. Product Placement in Video Games 19

2.3. Product Placement Strategies 23

2.3.1. Movie and Television Product Placement Strategies 24

2.3.2. Video Game Product Placement Strategies 28

2.3.3. Miscellaneous Product Placement Strategies 29

2.4. Resarch on Movie, Television and Video Game Product Placement 32

2.4.1. Resarch on Movie Product Placements 33

2.4.1.1. Movie Placement Effectiveness 33

2.4.1.2. Ethics, acceptability of Product Placement

and their cross-national comparison 36

2.4.1.3. Practitioners’ views 39

2.4.2. Research on Television Product Placements 40

2.4.2.1. Television Product Placement Effectiveness 41

2.4.2.2. Prevalence, nature and characteristics of

Television Product Placements 43

2.4.3. Research on Video Game Product Placements 46

2.4.3.1. Effectiveness of Video Game Product Placements 47

2.5. Overview of Research on Product Placement Effectiveness on Cinema,

Television and Video Game Media 49

2.6. Product Placement Practice and Research in Turkey 53

3. Hypotheses Development and the Research Model 61

3.1. Hypotheses for Testing Effectivenes of Product Placements in relation to

Neuromarketing Effectiveness Benchmark Scores 61

3.2. Hypotheses for Testing Effectivenes of Product Placements in relation to

Effectiveness Factors that were revealed in the Literature Review 63

3.2.1. Prominence 63

3.2.2. Priming 64

3.2.3. Tone/Type of the TV Programme 65

3.2.4. Strategy/Type of the Product Placement 66

vii

3.3. The Research Model 68

4. Research Design, Sampling, Measurement Process and

Preparation of Data for Analyses 69

4.1. Experimental Research Design: Neuromarketing 69

4.2. Sampling and the Research Measurement Process 73

4.2.1. Step 1: Pre-Test 74

4.2.2. Step 2: Viewing of TV Excerpts 74

4.2.2.1. Group A Videos 76

4.2.2.2. Group B Videos 79

4.2.2.3. Group C Videos 81

4.2.3. Step 3: Post-Test 82

4.3. Preparation of Data for Analyses 83

4.4. Validity and Reliability 85

4.5. Descriptives 88

5. Hypotheses Testing 90

5.1. Testing Effectivenes of Product Placements in relation to

Neuromarketing Effectiveness Benchmark Scores 90

5.2. Testing Effectivenes of Product Placements in relation to

Effectiveness Factors that were revealed in the Literature Review 93

5.2.1. Prominence 93

5.2.2. Priming 94

5.2.3. Tone/Type of the TV Programme 95

5.2.4. Strategy/Type of the Product Placement 96

6. Discussion of Results 99

7. Conclusion, Implications and Limitations 106

7.1. Conclusion 106

7.2. Managerial Implications 107

7.3. Limitations and Future Research 108

References 110

Appendices 118

viii

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1. Product Placement definitions from previous literature 6

Table 2. Operationalisations of prominence in previous literature 25

Table 3. Factors Influencing Effectiveness of Movie Product Placements 50

Table 4: Factors Influencing Effectiveness of TV Product Placements 51

Table 5: Factors Influencing Effectiveness of Video Game Product Placements 52

Table 6: Details for the Group A videos 76

Table 7: Details for the Group B videos 80

Table 8. Details for the Group C videos 81

Table 9: Participants whose data were not evaluated as valid 86

Table 10: Excerpt from independent samples t-test output for reliability 87

Table 11: Excerpt from independent samples t-test output for reliability 87

Table 12: Descriptives for Groups of the Study 88

Table 13: Descriptives for Gender of Study Participants 88

Table 14: Descriptives for Marital Status of Study Participants 88

Table 15: Descriptives for Age of Study Participants 89

Table 16: Extract from one sample t-test for testing Emotional Attachment

neuroscores in relation to respective effectiveness benchmark neuroscore 90

Table 17: Extract from one sample t-test for testing Attention neuroscores in

relation to respective effectiveness benchmark neuroscores 91

Table 18: Extract from one sample t-test for testing Stress neuroscores in

relation to respective effectiveness benchmark neuroscores 92

Table 19: Extract from independent samples t-test for testing influence

of prominence on product placement effectiveness 93

Table 20: Extract from independent samples t-test for testing influence

of priming on product placement effectiveness 95

Table 21: Extract from independent samples t-test for testing influence

of tone/type of the TV programme on product placement effectiveness 96

Table 22: Extract from independent samples t-test for testing influence

of placement strategy on product placement effectiveness 97

ix

Table 23: Extract from paired samples t-test for testing effectiveness of

virtual product placement 98

Table 24: Results for Test Product Placements in relation to Benchmark Scores 100

Table 25: Results of the study 103

x

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1. A scene from movie E.T.: Reese’s Pieces in E.T. (1982) 9

Figure 2. A Poster of movie E.T. with Reese’s Pieces candies (1982) 13

Figure 3. Tom Cruise wearing Ray Ban Wayfarer sunglasses in film

Risky Business (1983) 14

Figure 4. A scene from Italian Job (2003), starring Mark Wahlberg and

Charlize Theron in front of a Mini Cooper 15

Figure 5. Coke's prominent placement in front of the judges

in popular "American Idol" television program 16

Figure 6. Umbro socks and Adidas crampons in the latest release of

PES game (2013) 21

Figure 7. Diesel placement, example of a billboarding, in the game

“Need for Speed” (2013) 29

Figure 8. Example of a Virtual Product Placement 31

Figure 9. Example of a Virtual Product Placement of Oreo cookies

in the Friends named serie 31

Figure 10. A shot from G.O.R.A. (2003), in which J&B branded

whiskey placed on the table 54

Figure 11. A scene from Vizontele Tuba (2000), in which Philips

branded TV is placed prominently 54

Figure 12. A scene from “Yalan Dünya”, in which DenizBank, Turkcell

and KFC brands as store signboards are placed 57

Figure 13. A shot from “Med Cezir”, in which one of the main characters

is shown with hands-on use Samsung mobile phone 57

Figure 14: The Research Model 68

Figure 15. Group A Product Placements from the TV serie named Med Cezir 77

Figure 16. Group A Product Placement from the TV serie named İntikam 77

Figure 17. Group A Product Placements form the TV serie named

Umutsuz Ev Kadınları 78

Figure 18. Group A Product Placements form the TV serie named

xi

Umutsuz Ev Kadınları 78

Figure 19. Group B Casper Laptop Scenario Product Placement from

the TV serie named Yalan Dünya 80

Figure 20. Group C Casper Laptop Scenario Product Placement from

the TV serie named Kayıp 82

Figure 21 : A snap shot from Eye Tracking results of Respondent 3

from Group A for Samsung placement 84

Figure 22: A snap shot from Eye Tracking results of Respondent 1

from Group A for Omo placement 84

Figure 23: Eye Tracking result (Respondent 1) of Group B for Casper placement102

Figure 24: Eye Tracking result (Respondent 3) of Group C for Casper placement 102

xii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

EA: Average Emotional Attachment neuroscoreduring the test product placement

AT: Average Attention neuroscoreduring the test product placement

STRS: Average Stress neuroscoreduring the test product placement

EAbenchmark:Benchmark effectiveness neuroscore for Emotional Attachment

ATbenchmark:Benchmark effectiveness neuroscore for Attention

STRSbenchmark:Benchmark effectiveness neuroscore for Stress

EAbefore: Average Emotional Attachment neuroscore from beginning of the video

cilp till the test product placement

ATbefore: Average Attention neuroscore from beginning of the video cilp till the test

product placement

STRSbefore: Average Stress neuroscore from beginning of the video cilp till the test

product placement

EAafter: Average Emotional Attachment neuroscore after test product placement till

the end of the video clip

ATafter: Average Attention neuroscore after test product placement till the end of the

video clip

STRSafter: Average Stress neuroscore after test product placement till the end of the

video clip

EA_CAS, AT_CAS, STRS_CAS: Average neuroscores for Casper placement

EA_FIAT, AT_FIAT, STRS_FIAT: Average neuroscores for Fiat placement

EA_SAM, AT_SAM, STRS_SAM: Average neuroscores for Samsung placement

EA_OMO, AT_OMO, STRS_OMO: Average neuroscores for Omo placement

EA_CIF, AT_CIF, STRS_CIF: Average neuroscores for Cif placement

EA_WOUTCIF, AT_WOUTCIF, STRS_WOUTCIF: Average neuroscores for

video clips without Cif placement

EA_WOUTOMO, AT_WOUTOMO, STRS_WOUTOMO: Average neuroscores

for video clips without Omo placement

TV:Television

xiii

PKM: Persuasion Knowledge Model

DVR: Digital Video Recorder

DVD: Digital Versatile Disc

PR:Public Relations

HPL:High Programme Liking

LPL:Low Programme Liking

RTUK: Radio and Television Supreme Council

fMRI:Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging

EEG: Electroencephalography

GSR: Galvanic skin response

POPP:Plain Old Product Placement

1

1. INTRODUCTION

Product placement can be defined briefly as the inclusion of brand and/or brand

identifying items within mass media programing such as cinema and TV (Karrh,

1998). The practice was first seen in the mid-1890s1. Product placement became a

subject of interest for academia during the 1980s following the release of Spielberg‘s

blockbuster film E.T. (1982). It was suggested that Hershey experienced a 66%

increase in sales of their Reese‘s Pieces candy as a result of product placement in the

film (Gupta and Lord, 1998;Gupta and Gould, 1997). Practitioner and scholarly

interest in product placement has skyrocketed since then and product placement on

the silver screen has spread to other mass media vehicles, particularly, TV.

Product placement on TV was rapidly adopted. The introduction of the digital

video recorders, DVRs2, which are blamed for decreasing the effectiveness of

traditional commercials, have encouraged advertisers to constantly search for viable

alternatives. Product placement offers an alternative with several advantages over the

venerable 30-second commercial.

First, product placement ensures that the advertiser‘s message is integrated

within the program content. Thus, the TV audience, who mostly opt to zap to other

channels when commercials begin (AltaĢ and Öztunç, 2013), cannot easily avoid

product placements. Second, product placement is less intrusive. Placed products are

perceived as more natural and credible by the audience, generating favorable

consumer associations and goodwill. Traditional commercials are liable to activate

the Persuasion Knowledge Model3(PKM) that is referenced in the marketing

literature (Reijmersdal et al., 2007; d‘Astous and Chartier, 1998). Third, placements

1The first practice of product placement and its history is explained in section 2.2 History of Product

Placement 2DVRs, also known as time-shifting devices, include a hard drive that enables the audience to record

their favorite programs for playback at any time. The devices can also fast forward through traditional

commercials. 3According to this widely cited model by Friested and Wright (1995), if consumers perceive that

advertising messages have the intent to affect their judgement, then they may generate negative

attitudes towards those commercials.

2

are often more economical than traditional commercials. A season-length placement

within a prime-time TV program costs, on average, $200,000 in the United States;

whereas a single 30-second commercial within the same type of prime-time

programing costs approximately $475,000 (Wells, 1996, in Law and Braun, 2000).

On the other hand, the practice of product placement on Turkish TV media was

not allowed until recently. The practice was allowed and its execution was regulated

with Law on Foundation and Broadcasting Services of Radio and Television

Institutions numbered 6112that was enacted in April, 2011. Since then product

placements have begun appearing on Turkish TV programmes at an increasing rate,

but, their effectiveness has remained as a question mark for both practitioner and

scholars interested in the field.

This thesis study aims at exploring effectiveness of product placements on

Turkish TV media. As its research method, the neuromarketing research method, that

is the application of neuroscience techniques to marketing stimuli and exploring

consumers‘ minds through the use of brain imaging technology, combined with

survey was employed. Just as its subject, the research method of this thesis study is

also a novel one for Turkish marketing literature. Although the brain‘s response to a

marketing stimuli has been explored since 1969 throughout the world, in Turkish

marketing literature there is not a single study investigating this subject through use

of this research method.

Among various neuromarketing research techniques, Eye tracking with

Electroencephalography (EEG) wasadministered for fulfilling purposes of this thesis

study. While EEG involves recordingelectrical activities of the brain synapses, the

brainwaves, the Eye tracking tracks eye movements of consumers while they are

subjected to a marketing stimulusto produce quantitative results.

EEG and Eye tracking techniques were administered to 91 participants aged 18

to 35 while they were viewing video clips from several different Turkish TV series

that involved various product placements, the test product placements, whose

effectiveness were to be assessed. After each EEG analysis, an Attention score (AT),

3

an Emotional Arousal score (EA) and a Stress score (STRS) for each decisecondwere

generated for each participant and for each video clip they had viewed. Also, the Eye

tracking analysis of each participant provided where he/she had been looking at

throughout the entire video clips.

On the other hand, questionnaires applied to each participant before and after

their viewing experience aimed primarily at gaining more insights on his/hermemory

of placed products.

The neuroscores were subjected to statistical analyses to assess effectiveness of

test product placements initially in relation to neuromarketing effectiveness

benchmark scores that were developed through years of experience and expertise of

the neuromarketing research company, Thinkneuro. Next, the testproduct placements

were assessed in relation to execution related effectiveness factors that were revealed

during the literature review process of this thesis study.

The thesis study is further organized in six main sections. The next section

presents the exhaustive review of product placement literature, while the third one

presents the hypotheses being developedand the proposed research model of the

study. The fourth section provides information regarding the research design,

sampling and measurement process of the study, as well as, the preparation of raw

data for the statistical analyses. The fifth sction involves testing of the hypotheses,

while the sixth discusses the results. Finally, in the seventh section ,the conclusion,

implications, as well as, limitation of the study along with suggestions for future

research are provided.

4

2. LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1. Product Placement Defined

―the exact definition of a product placement is still uncertain today, however,

and continues to evolve…”

(Lehu, 2007, p.5)

Although its first practice dates back to mid 1890s, the term “product

placement” was not coined until 1980s (Newell et al., 2006). The first definition of

product placement in the literature was put forth by Steortz (1987). He defined the

practice as the inclusion of branded product/signage in a motion picture. This

premier, therefore, rather primitive definition although highlights its important

characteristics, restricts the domain of product placement to visual placements only.

A subsequent definiton was suggested by Nebenzahl and Secunda (1993), who

added a feature that was neglected by Steortz (1987). They asserted that the

placement of the product should be executed in return of a fee or a reciprocal

promotional support.

Balasubramanian (1994), on the other hand, rather classified the practice as

being one type of an emerging marketing genre called “hybrid messages” that

involve combination of two marketing communication devices, advertising and

publicity. Product placement, as a type of hybrid messages, was defined as ―a paid

product message aimed at influencing movie (or television) audiences through

planned but discreet inclusion of a branded product into a movie (or television

programme)” (Balasubramanian, 1994, p.31).

Nevertheless the definition proposed by Karrh (1998), which was the first to

broaden its domain to mass media programming, is the one that is most widely cited

in product placement literature (see Schmoll et al, 2006; Lee and Faber, 2007;

5

Brennan and Babin, 2004 ;d‘astous and Chartier, 2000; van Reijmersdal, 2009). His

definition is as in the following:

“Product placement is the paid inclusion of branded products or brand

identifiers, through audio and/or visual means, within mass media programming”

(Karrh, 1998, p. 33)

Moreover, Karrh (1998) along with a few number of scholars prefer to name

the practice as brand placement instead of product placement in his studies. Since

Karrh argues that it is most of the time the brand -not the product type- that is

inserted to mass media programmes and thus the term brand placement reflects the

nature of the practice better. But in the literature product placement and brand

placement terms are used interchangeably most of the time. And on the contrary

Karrh‘s (1998) stance there is a prevailing tendency towards the use of product

placement term among majority of scholars (see Balasubramanian, 1994; Kureshi

and Sood, 2010; Chan 2012; Russell, 2005, 2002, 1998; Newell et al., 2006; Law and

Braun, 2000; Lehu and Bressoud, 2009; Lehu, 2007; Gupta and Gould, 1997;

D‘astous and Chartier, 2000). In this study although both terms are used

interchangeably the term product placement is more commonplace just as it is in the

literature.

Furthermore, Table 1 presents various product placement definitions that was

put forth by several different scholars. It can be noted that while some scholars

highligted its subtlety dimension (see Balasubramanian, 1994; Ferraro and Avery,

2000; Cowley and Barron, 2008), some of them emphasized its reciprocity

dimension (see Gupta and Gould, 1997; Homer, 2009) when defining the product

placement. Nevertheless majority of early definitions either omitted to reflect some

of its features (see Steortz, 1987; Balasubramanian, 1994) or restricted its domain

(see d‘Astous and Seguin, 1999; d‘Astous and Chartier, 2000; Gupta and Gould,

1997; Bressoud and Lehu, 2007) to movie and television industry most often.

However, as the popularity of product placement increased rapidly and spurged

to other industries in the last decade, some scholars acknowledged this evolution in

6

their updated definitions. Majority of recent product placement definitions widens its

scope to media other than movie and TV, such as video games (see Winkler and

Buckner, 2006; Glass, 2007; Wise et al., 2008), songs, even books4 (Nelson, 2004).

Table 1: Product Placement definitions from previous literature

Author Definitions

Steortz (1987) inclusion of branded product/signage in a motion picture

Balasubramanian

(1994,p.31)

paid product message aimed at influencing movie (or tv) audiences via

planned and unobtrusive entry of a branded product into a movie (or

television program).

Gupta&Gould

(1997,p.37)

incorporating brands in movies in return for money or for some

promotional or other consideration.

Homer (2009, p.21)

the practice in which firms pay to place branded products (e.g., brand

name/logo, package, signage, other trademarks) in the content of mass

media programming,

Karrh (1998,p.33) paid inclusion of branded products or brand identifiers, through audio

and/or visual means, with mass media programming.

d‘Astous&Seguin

(2000,p.31)

placement of a brand or a firm in a movie or in a television program by

different means and for promotional purposes.

d‘Astous and Chartier

(2000,p.31)

the inclusion of a product, a brand name or the name of a firm in a movie

or in a television program for promotional purposes.

Russell (2002, p.306) the practice of placing branded products in the content of mass media

programming.

Hackley and Tiwsakul

(2006, p. 63) the placement of brand references within mainstream entertainment

Russell and Belch

(2005, p.74) the purposeful incorporation of a brand into an entertainment vehicle

van Reijmersdal,

Neijens and Smit

(2009, p.761)

the commercially inspired inclusion of products and/or brands in

editorial content

Cowley and Barron

(2008, p.89)

a combination of advertising and publicity designed to influence the

audience by unobtrusively inserting branded products in entertainment

programs such that the viewer is unlikely be aware of the persuasive

intent.

d‘Astous&Seguin

(1998,p.897)

the inclusion of consumer products or services in motion pictures for

promotional purposes

Lehu and Bressoud

(2009, p.8)

the presence in a movie of a brand name or a product easily identified as

belonging to a given brand.

4 British writer Fay Weldon accepted financing from Italian Jewellery company, Bulgari, in return to

prominantly mention the firm and its products in his novel. Weldon, rather than merely mentioning,

integrated Bulgari not only to the plot but also to the title of her 2001 book ―The Bulgari Connection‖.

This novel is acknowledged as the first novel containing paid product placement.

7

Bressoud and Lehu

(2007, p.2)

consists in putting a product and/or a brand into a movie scene where it

can be seen and/or its name heard

McKehnie and Zhou

(2003, p.349)

the planned entries of products into movies or television shows that may

influence viewers‘ product beliefs and/or behaviours favourably

Jin and Villegas

(2007, p. 244)

the promotional tactic used by marketers and advertisers in which real

commercial products appear in a fictional play, film or television show

Ferraro and Avery

(2000, p.1)

more subtle and intrusive way of displaying products through the

inclusion of brands in movies and television scripts

DeLorme and Reid

(1999, p.72) the practice of using branded props in movies

Gregorio and Sung

(2010, p. 83)

the practice of placing branded products within films for commercial

purposes

Nelson and McLeod

(2005, p. 515)

are brands placed in media content to add realism to the media

environment, provide brand exposure and persuade the consumer

In addition, even new terms were coined to describe the evolution in

contemporary use of product placements (see Hudson and Hudson, 2006; Hackley

and Tiwsakul, 2006; Lehu, 2007; Kretchmer, 2008). To illustrate, Hudson and

Hudson (2006), as well as, Lehu (2007) made use of the term “branded

entertainment” to describe contemporary use of product placement. Lehu (2007) in

his book named as ―Branded Entertainment‖ defines the term as being the ―banner‖

for the group of product placement in the entertainment world including film, TV

series or other cultural vehicles, such as songs or novels.

On the other hand, while Hackley and Tiwsakul (2006) name the practice as

“entertainment marketing” and define it as any means of inserting brands and brand

references into entertainment vehicles, Kretchmer (2008) rather opts to use the term

“advertainment”. Advertainment connates the convergence as well as the

intersection of advertising and entertainment industries to describe the contemporary

practice of product placement. Unlike basic product placement, the advertainment

involves creation of an entertainment content, that is solely for promotion of (a)

specific advertiser(s).

In a recent study, Newell et al. (2006), in addition to their definition,

exemplifies the so far misidentified product placement applications in the movie

industry. They define product placement as “the insertion of branded products or

8

services into mass media content with the intent of influencing consumer attitude or

behavior”. Then, they assert that based on this definition, two tests must be

administered for the appearance of an item to be credited as product placement. First,

visual appearance or audio mention and second the intent of influencing consumer.

Although the said two qualification tests seemed straightforward, authors

revealed that even the most widely cited placement examples in the product

placement literature were actually misidentified product placement instances.

First was the identification of Jack Daniels whiskey in the Hollywood film

Mildred Pierce (1945), which is widely cited in the literature as being one of the

earliest product placement example and even as being one of the classics of cinema

product placements (see Galician and Bourdeau, 2004; Brennan and Babin, 2004;

Delorme and Reid, 1999; Wenner, 2008). However, Newell et al. (2006) assert based

on a later inspection of the Mildred Pierce VHS (Video Home System) tape released

in 1990 and the DVD (Digital Versatile Disc) released in 2003 that the film did not

have any placement of the Jack Daniels whiskey; only rather generic prop bottles

were displayed. Lehu (2007) is also among those rare scholars identifiying this case

and mentioning of it as being a typical case of ―unsubstantiated information‖.

Second, spacemen drinking Coca Cola and wearing Lee overalls in the movie

Destination Moon is another example that is widely reported in product placement

journal articles and theses (see DeLorme and Reid, 1999). However, in a similar

manner, the inspection of DVD of the said film revealed that the spacemen were not

drinking Coca Cola but coffee and they were wearing overalls but their brand was

never mentioned or displayed.

So, going along with Lehu‘s stance (2007, p. 5) regarding product placement

definition, it can be said that …

‖the exact definition of a product placement is still uncertain today, however,

and continues to evolve. In its least elaborate form, it merely allows for the

appearance of a brand or product onscreen. In its most effective form, it is so

integrated into the storyline that its presence seems logical, even indispensable”.

9

2.2. History of Product Placement

2.2.1. Product Placements in Cinema Films

“…the father of modern product placement was a wrinkled alien… tempted out

of hiding with a pack of little-known american sweets called Reese‟s Pieces. The

confictionery brand‟s sales skyrocketed by an alleged %66 after the release of the

picture”

(Mortimer, 2002, p.22 in Schmoll et al., 2006)

Indeed it is widely acknowledged in the product placement literature that it was

this skyrocketed sales figure of Reese‟s Pieces, candies of US confectionery brand

Hershey‘s, following its successful placement in Spielberg‘s blockbuster film ―E.T.

Extra Terrestrial‖ in 1982, what made this practice come into prominence (Galician

and Bourdeau, 2004; Karrh, 1998; Cholinski, 2012; Newell et al., 2006; Karrh,

Mckee and Pardun, 2003; Balasubramanian, Karrh and Patwardhan, 2006; Wolfe,

2010; Chan, 2012; Segrave, 2004; Schmoll et al, 2006; Hudson and Hudson, 2006;

Dens et. al, 2013; Gregorio and Sung, 2010; Eisend, 2009; Glass, 2007).

Figure 1: A scene from movie E.T.: Reese‟s Pieces in E.T. (1982)

Since then product placement started to attract heightened interest not only by

scholars but also by practitioners and thus today evolved into a multi million dolar

business with its estimated $8.25 billion expenditure worldwide in 2012 (PQ Media,

10

2012). However, the practice of integrating products into motion pictures began long

before E.T.. Actually, it can be said that the first practice of product placement in

motion pictures is as old as the birth of the motion picture itself since both events

were generated by the Lumière brothers consecutively during mid 1890s (Karrh,

1998; Newell et al., 2006; Galician and Bourdeau, 2004; Balasubramanian et. al,

2006; Avery and Ferraro, 2000; Hudson and Hudson, 2006; Dens et al, 2013).

Initially, Lumiere brothers exhibited their first projected motion pictures to the first

paying audience ever in the basement lounge of the Grand Café in Paris on

December 28, 1895. This event is credited as the world's first public film

screening and at the same time as the birth of film industry (Pearson, 1996).

Then, just a few months later in the spring of 1896, Lumière brothers

conducted an arrangement with the Swiss representative, Francois Henri Lavanchy-

Clarke, of U.K. soap producer Lever Brothers (today‘s giant multinational company

Unilever) that would found the first protoype of product placement practice. This

arrangement involved displaying Lever Brothers‘ leading product, ―sunlight soap‖, in

films by Lumière brothers. On the other hand, the Swiss businessman Lavanchy-

Clarke was held liable for exhibition of Lumière brothers‘ films in Switzerland as

well as production of Swiss-located motion pictures for distribution in Europe and

the United States. It was this arrangement between Lever Brothers and the Lumières

that introduced the first practice of product placement to the silver screen. Lumière

brothers ended up with decreased production costs for their films, whereas, Lever

Brothers had the oppurtunity to promote their products on the silver screen. Soon

both the film industry and manufacturers understood these advantages and began

associating products with films (Newell et al., 2006; Lehu, 2007).

To illustrate, starting from the beginnings of the 1910s, Model T Fords, which

were recently invented at that time, were often present in Mack Sennett comedies

(Lehu, 2007). Also in 1916, the Universal studio produced a silent film named ―She

Wanted a Ford‖ and recieved a Ford as a prop thanks to this explicit film title (L-KO

Company, 1916). On the other hand, Alfred Hitchcock in his film named Blackmail

(1929) opted for a rather subtle use of a product, displaying only a sign of Gordon‘s

11

gin. Nevertheless, the practice actually began to intensify on the silver screen during

1930s. Signs of Squibb, Coca-Cola, Chevrolet were clearly indentifiable in scenes

from the film Manhattan Melodrama by Van Dyke (1934). Similarly, in Week-End

in Havana (Walter Lang, 1941), it was explicitly stated that the film character Nan

Spencer worked at Macy‘s, a chain of department stores in USA. Moreover in The

Big Sleep (Howard Hawks, 1946), the car brands Packard and Plymouth were both

explicitly displayed and integrated into the film plot (Lehu, 2007).

However, the film industry at that time used other terms such as exploitation,

tie-ups, tie-ins to name these premier examples of the practice on the silver screen

(Newell et al., 2006). Since the term product placement, which does not restrict the

application to the cinema screen alone, was coined only after the practice began

evolving and surging rapidly into other media (such as TV, video games) during

1980s (Marich, 2009; Newell et al., 2006).

In the first years of filmmaking, exploitation referred to any type of promotion

that might generate audience for films and encompassed the use of products by

characters within the film being denoted by several different terms such as ―publicity

by motion picture‖, ―moving picture advertising‖, ―co-operative advertising‖,

―plugs‖, ―tie-in advertising‖, and ―trade outs‖ or simply ―exploitation‖ (Newell et al.,

2006). The exploitation agreements were conducted mainly on a barter basis in

which the aim for the film producer was lowering film production costs and adding

realism to movie scenes thanks to products provided by the sponsor

(manufacturer/owner of the product being placed), whereas, for the sponsor the aim

was having promoted his products on the cinema screen (Karrh, 1998; Brennan and

Babin, 2004).

Later on, during 1920s film producers realized that besides film production

costs product placement agreements can actually reduce promotional costs of their

films as well. So, another term, tie-ups or more widely known as tie-ins (both are

used interchangeably in the literature), which denoted the product placement practice

from 1920s onward through the 1970s, in the industry emerged (Newell et al., 2006).

Tie-ins were cooperative promotional agreements in which the sponsor, who had the

12

oppurtunity to display his products in the cinema film, had to undertake a role in

meeting advertising and promotion expenses of the movie together with the film

producer. Thus with this arrangement, the film producer ends up with decreasing

both his production and promotion costs. In addition, the promotional efforts, which

were financed by the product manufacturers, resulted in increased ticket sales and

thus amplified revenue for movie producers.

Therefore, the practice of tie-ins, which were started to be acknowledged as a

source of revenue then, became a regular component of motion pictures by the 1950s

and 1960s. However, it could not still be noted as a promising marketing effort up

until to the hit movie E.T. that made a star of product placement in 1982.

The scenario of the said movie initially involved E.T., the little alien, to follow

a trail of the M&M candies of Mars Company, which was the leader of US

confectionery industry. However, Mars refused this offer (Newell et al., 2006). In

addition, although not cited anywhere in the literature, Marich (2009) reveals in his

book that this offer was actually turned down by one more confectionery brand, the

Milk Duds, as well. The marketer of Milk Duds when refusing the offer stated that he

thought that the scene in which E. T. character gets sick could be attributed to their

candies (Marich, 2009).

Then Hershey, another US confectionery company, was contacted for the use

of its ―Reese‘s Pieces‖ candy in the above described scene. This time, the marketing

executive of Hershey, Jack Dowd, accepted the offer and in return agreed to spend 1

million dollars for promoting both Reese‘s Pieces and the film. (Segrave, 2004)

Consequently, when the film was released in 1982 the sales of ―Reese‘s

Pieces‖, which were introduced to the market just three months earlier, increased by

66% (Gupta and Lord, 1998; Gupta and Gould, 1997). The marketing executive

Dowd stated this success as,

―we got immediate recognition for our product, the kind of recognition we

would normally have to pay 15 or 20 million bucks for it” (Brenner, 1999 in Newell

et al., 2006).

13

Consequently, when the film was released in 1982 the sales of ―Reese‘s

Pieces‖, which were introduced to the market just three months earlier, increased by

66% (Gupta and Lord, 1998; Gupta and Gould, 1997). The marketing executive

Dowd stated this success as ―we got immediate recognition for our product, the kind

of recognition we would normally have to pay 15 or 20 million bucks for‖ (Brenner,

1999 in Newell et al., 2006).

Figure 2: A poster of movie E.T. (1982) with Reese‟s Pieces candies

After the success attributed to the film E.T., the popularity of product

placement was inevitable. Since then, the number of movie product placements,

which was assumed to raise the sales of placed products, proliferated rapidly. To

illustrate, Ray-Ban claimed to have experienced a surge in its Wayfarer model after

being worn by Tom Cruise in Risky Business (Paul Brickman, 1983). Also Omega

declared to having experienced a 40 % increase in its watch sales after having

appeared on Pierce Brosnan‘s wrist in a James Bond film, named Golden Eye

(Martin Campbell, 1995).

At the same time, the industry began to be regulated and professionalized

rapidly (Karrh, McKee, & Pardun, 2003; Avery and Ferraro, 2000). Product

14

placement agencies, which operate as intermediaries between marketers of products

and film producers, were established. These agencies examine film scripts and search

for the most appropriate movie scenes where their clients‘ products can be placed

and then make suggestions to the film producers. (Gupta and Lord, 1998; Avery and

Ferraro, 2000; Gupta, Balasubramanian & Klassen, 2000). While Lehu (2007) notes

that the worth of these contracts between the agencies and product sponsors varies

between €30,000–100,000, the agreement contracts between the product sponsor and

the movie producer most often have been a cash free one since its earliest dates.

Figure 3: Tom Cruise wearing Ray Ban Wayfarer sunglasses in the film Risky

Business (1983)

.

To illustrate, in 2004 Mini cars in US were out of stock after the starring role,

which was described as ―an absolute triumph of product placement‖ (Donaton,

2004), within the remake of 1960‘s classic film ―Italian Job‖ (F. Gary Gray, 2003).

However, BMW, the producer of Minis, did not pay for this thriving placement, but

instead provided 32 custom-built cars for the film producer.

Nevertheless, recently there has been a shift towards conducting payment

based placement deals from barter based ones. Since although a recent data notes that

still 56% of the worldwide product placements are conducted in cash-free

15

arrangements (Chang et al., 2009), the same figure used to be 85% in 1998 (Karrh,

1998) and 75% in 2007 (Powell, 2007).

On the other hand, the global spending on product placement in 2012 was

reported to reach $8.25 billion (PQ Media, 2012). The US, whose spending accounts

for more than half of the global spending on product placements, is the world‘s

largest product placement market, with its $4.75 billion expenditure in 2012.

Figure 4: A scene from Italian Job (2003), starring Mark Wahlberg and Charlize

Theron in front of a Mini Cooper

Then, what was described as a ―turkish rug market‖ (Steortz, 1987, p.3) almost

three decades ago, today has evolved into a multi million worth, well organized

industry with being handled by professionals. In a similar way, its domain in film

industry expanded and spread out rapidly to other media such as television, video

games, computer games, even novels, driven by hopes of success, that is analogous

to Reese‘s Pieces‘ (Balasubramanian et al., 2006; Glass, 2007).

16

2.2.2. Product Placements on Television

“So each Wednesday I set my DVR to record NBC‟s White House drama The West

Wing, which begins at 9 p.m. After the kids are asleep, I begin watching the show off

the hard drive. By skipping commercials (why in the world wouldn‟t you?), I make

up most of the time and finish watching the programme just a few minutes later than

those people who have been watching it “live””.

(Donaton, 2004, p.53)

Product placements on TV screens have been welcomed more than on any

other medium vehicle even including those on the silver screen. Evidencing this, the

global spending of product placements on TV has reached to $ 5.37 billion more than

tripling those on movies, which was reported as $1.66 billion, and all other media

(PQ Media, 2012). Only in US, spending on TV placements was reported to increase

to $2.83 billion in 2011, when the reality talent show ―American Idol,‖ with 577

occurrences was recorded to be the TV programme with the greatest number of

product placement occurences.

In Figure 5, there is a shot from the reality talent show ―American Idol,‖,

where it‘s hard to miss product placements. The judges will sip from large cups

emblazoned with Coca-Cola logos, contestants will wait in the ―Coca-Cola‖ lounge,

viewers are encouraged to text/call from their AT&T wireless phones, and Ford

showcases weekly ―music videos‖ that feature contestants driving their vehicles.

Figure 5: Coca Cola‟s prominent placement in front of the judges (and cameras/and

audience) in popular "American Idol" TV programme

17

According to Variety magazine, product placement in the show has become

increasingly expensive over the years. The official sponsors, Coca-Cola, AT&T, and

Ford, currently pay up to $50 million to $60 million a year, compared with $25

million to $35 million that was spent in the show‘s earlier years.

There are several reasons justifying this prevailing preference for TV

programmes as product placement media. First, several scholars asserted that

product placements on TV programmes have higher commercial impact in relation to

those in movies (Avery and Ferraro, 2000; Karrh 1998; Russell, Norman and Heckler

2004; Cowley and Barron 2008; Russell, 1998). Since TV programmes have larger

audience and are less easily avoided than movies, which are rather selected by its

audience. In addition, TV watchers follow their favourite programs over extended

time periods and get involved more with the programmes, its characters, and

storylines (Karrh 1998; Russell, Norman, & Heckler 2004; Cowley and Barron

2008). On the other hand, in the case of movies the character‘s story ends with the

movie itself (Russell, 1998). Therefore, TV programmes are assumed to have more

persuasive impact on consumer lifestyles and that is one of the reasons why TV

placements attract the highest portion of product placement investments.

The decline of the effectiveness of traditional commercials is a second reason

for TV medium attracting the largest product placement investment. Technology

advancements in digital communications and media sectors have changed the rules of

the advertising industry. According to Donaton (2004), the advertising industry

which had been operating for more than a century on a ―push‖ based model evolved

into a ―pull‖ based model. Since in the past the consumer audience was rather

passive sitting in front of a TV, being exposed to commercials ―pushed‖ by

advertisers while watching one of the few programmes ―pushed‖ by one of the few

major TV networks on a predetermined time. However, the advanced technology

first provided audiences with hundreds of different TV programmes and channel

choices over cable, internet and satellite transmission. This extended channel offers

18

resulted in a widely dispersed audience and this in turn disrupted the traditional

segmentation and targeting processes (Lehu, 2007).

In addition, the advanced technology empowered consumer audience with

means to easily avoid or receive commercial messages whenever and wherever they

want. Especially, the invent of DVRs was blamed for being the most significant

factor decreasing the effectiveness of traditional commercials. DVRs, also known as

the time-shifting devices, include a hard drive that enables the audience not only to

record their favourite shows for playback at any time, but also to fast forward the

traditional commercials within most of the time.

Indeed both latest Nielsen (2012) and PQ reports (2012) evidence that

although TV remains as the most consumed medium worldwide, in 2012 compared

to a year ago fewer people watched traditional TV, while more people watched the

time-shifted TV, that is made possibly by DVRs. Those who watch time-shifted TV

were observed to skip commercials 72,3 % of the time, compared to 45 % who watch

conventional TV channels according to the results by CNW Marketing Research

(Donaton, 2004). In addition, certain categories, such as fast food, credit cards, and

TV network promotions, were found to be bypassed 90 % of the time by DVR users.

Thenas Bill Lamar Jr., head of U.S. marketing for McDonald‘s, during his

speech at American Association of Advertising Agencies conference in 2003,

asserted that “…the days of spending hundreds of millions of dollars on TV

advertising are over” (Donaton, 2004, p.58). Therefore, since the invent of DVRs

advertisers are in constant search of viable alternatives to traditional TV commercials

and it can be said that they found the remedy in product placements. Product

placements on TV programmes offer several advantages over traditional 30-second

spots. First, the advertiser‘s message is integrated within the programme content in

case of product placements and thus the TV audience cannot easily ignore and/or fast

forward them as they can in case of commercials. Additionally, placements are more

economical than traditional advertisements most of the time. To illustrate, on the

average 200,000$ is paid for a season length placements within a prime-time TV

19

programme, whereas it amounts up to approximately $475,000 for a single 30s

commercial within the same type of prime-time programming in US (Wells, 1996 in

Law and Braun, 2000).

Moreover, brands in placements are perceived as more natural and credible

such that they can even generate favorable consumer associations and goodwill

unlike traditional commercials, which rather activate what is known as the

persuasion knowledge model in the literature (van Reijmersdal et al., 2007; d‘Astous

and Chartier, 1998). According to this widely cited model put forth by Friested and

Wright (1995), if consumers perceive that admessages have the intent to affect their

judgements, then they may counter argue and generate negative attitudes towards

those commercials5.

Then, advertisers having realized the said advantages began to incorporate

product placements more heavily into their marketing communication plans and as it

was evidenced by results of survey conducted with Association of National

Advertisers (ANA) in US. The survey revealed that 63% of companies integrated

product placements within their communication plan. Moreover, 52% of budget that

was allocated for TV commercials was shifted to product placement expenditures

(Consoli, 2004).

2.2.3. Product Placements in Video Games

“I think the billboards don‟t intrude on the game in any way. I certainly notice them,

which is what they‟re going for, but I don‟t think they‟re bad as long as they stay in

the background of the game and don‟t impede on or control the entire level‟s look

and feel”

(posting on Slashdot.org 2004, from Nelson et al., 2004)

5However, Russel (2002) evidenced that the same scenario may occur for TV placements in cases

when the brand takes a major role in the story of a TV programme or its presence in the show looks

suspect. Then, audiences may realize that it was placed there to affect their judgements and they may

counter argue them just as they do traditional advertising messages.

20

A video game is defined as an electronic game in which players control

images through a game console system on a television screen (Merriam Webster,

2013). The same electronic game is called a computer game, when players control

images on a computer screen. On the other hand, a game is called an online one,

when players play the game over an internet connection and an online game becomes

a multiplayer one when it is played by many people simultaneously. Although both

video and computer games can possess the online and as well as multiplayer features,

video games played through three major game consoles, namely Sony Playstation,

Microsoft XBoX, Nintendo are prevailing ones, accounting for 80% of the industry

revenue (Taub, 2004 as cited in Kuhn et al., 2007).

Product placements within video games, so called in-game placements,

involve most of the time mere appearance of the product ad naturally within the

game environment and that is what Glass (2007) calls as billboarding. In addition,

often video game placements involve use of a branded product naturally by the game

character and that is what Glass (2007) names as utilization. Nevertheless the aim of

both in-game placement strategies is the same; to enhance realism and add

verisimilitude to the virtual game environments.

The premier example of product placement in video games appeared in 1987

in a Nintendo Entertainment game named ―Town and Country Surf Designs: Wood

and Water Rage‖ (Glass, 2007). The game, which shared its name with the famous

surfboard manufacturer, Town & Country Surf Designs, was based around the

company's mascot characters, known as "Da Boys", and involved gamers to shop

from the said surf store.However, this application, which was cited as the earliest in-

game placement example along with Avoid the Noid (1989) and Sneak King (2006)

that were produced to promote Dominos Pizza and Burger King, respectively, should

have been rather cited as examples of another branded entertainment form,

advergames. Advergame is also a video game, but it is designed exclusively for

promotion of a brand. In contrast to video game placements, where placements rather

take place as parts of the game, to enhance its realism, in advergaming the game is

21

part of the advergaming execution, presenting the brand message (Chen and Ringel

2001; Wise et al., 2008). Despite this, advergaming is regarded as a form of video

game placements, which was even named as monopolization by Glass (2007) and

several other scholars in the literature (Nelson, 2002; Glass, 2007; Winkler and

Buckner, 2006).

Nonetheless, later on, many video games with product placements such as

Dole bananas in Super Monkey Ball (2001), Sony Ericsson phones in Splinter Cell

(2002), Nike, Adidas, Umbro uniforms, crampons in Pro Evolution Soccer (PES) and

FIFA games (2008) were released.

Figure 6: Umbro socks and Adidas crampons in the latest release of PES game (2013)

Integrating brands within video games have several advantages over TV and

movie placements. First, video games, unlike TV programmes and movies, provide

active involvement of the player consumer with the game. This engagement enables

the player to feel and control not only the game but also brands and products placed

within (Nelson et al., 2004). To illustrate, players of Splinter Cell (2002) game use

Sony Ericsson phone for accomplishing their task of catching terrorists. In addition,

unlike TV programmes and movies, a video game offers different experiences for the

player each time he plays it. These differing experiences, in turn, lead to different

exposures of placed brands each time he plays it. Also a video game with its longer

22

shelf life (on average played for 30 hours) than TV programmes and movies provides

more visibility for placed products (Nelson et al., 2004; Nelson, 2002; Hudson and

Hudson, 2006). On the other hand, video games for product sponsors provide the

best opportunity to create the most accurate simulations of products together with

their surrounding (Sharma et al, 2007). For instance, the game Porsche Challenge

(Sony Computer Entertainment, 1997) was released at the same time with the

Porsche Boxster in 1997 in order to provide gamers to drive digital representations of

the car (Mackay et al., 2009) .

However, despite its advantages, in-game placements could not attract

significant interest among advertisers up until the first years of the new century. Its

real surge rather took place when the revenue generated through sale of video games

in USA ($10.5 billion) and world ($ 40 billion) exceeded the revenue of Box Office

revenues for USA ($8.9 billion) and global movie industry ($ 25.85 billion) in 2005

and 2006, respectively (Motion Picture Association of America, 20076; NPD group,

2006; 20077). Subsequently video games among young US citizens were reported to

become the most preferred entertainment source, outperforming TV programmes and

movies (Ho and Yang, 2008). Since then, practitioners noticed this great shift in

consumer preference for entertainment sources and started to make use of video

game placements more as means of reaching their target markets.

So, marketing departments of giant companies such as Coca Cola declared to

withdraw some of their advertising budget from TV commercials and allocate it to

video game placements (Grover et al., 2004 in Mackay et al., 2009). Moreover,

Chrysler, which was among car companies most heavily implementing video game

placements, attributed 14 % sales of Wrangler Rubicon model to the brand's online

game (Ferrazzi, Chen, and Li, 2003 in Chaney et al., 2004).

In addition, unlike in the past years, the profile of a gamer is not restricted to

young males at their 30s anymore. Games are now played by both genders and by

6http://www.mpaa.org/

7https://www.npd.com/wps/portal/npd/

23

any age group. In USA, %45 of females reported to play video games recently (ESA,

2012)8. Additionally, only in USA, the revenue of video game industry reached $21

billion, with more than half of US citizens declaring to play video games (%58) and

owning a video game console (%51). So, video games are fast growing and

promising media for integrating brands and products. Nonetheless, inspecting

effectiveness of product placements in video games as well as those on TV and

movie screen is fundamental for both scholars and practitioners interested in the

subject.

Therefore, in the following section, first a review of different scholarly

perspectives regarding product placement strategies will be provided and secondly

review of studies that attempted to shed light on product placements in the said

media, including their effectiveness, will be provided.

2.3.Product Placement Strategies

“…the best case scenario is that the brand is „seen‟ without being „noticed‟ –

which is the most important criterion for success.” (Lehu in an interview by Powell, 2007)

In the following pages, a review of the literature on various product placement

strategies that had been proposed so far will presented. It should be noted that since

movie and TV product placements, which are both based on presentation of the

placement, are extremely alike video games, which are rather mission oriented (Yang

and Wang, 2008). Therefore, product placement strategies for movie and TV

programme media were regarded as being common, whereas, strategies for video

game placements were handled seperately in the literature. Then, in accordance with

the literature, first product placement strategies for movies and TV programmes that

are regarded as common are presented. Then, strategies for video game placements

8http://www.theesa.com/

24

are reviewed seperately. Finally, studies proposing miscellaneous product placement

strategies are presented.

2.3.1. Movie and TV Product Placement Strategies

There is a discrepancy in the literature regarding the terminology of product

placement strategies. One stream of scholars prefers to use the term ―product

placement strategy‖ (see Gupta and Lord, 1998; Tiwsakul et al., 2005), while another

stream opts for using other terms such as ―product placement categories/classes‖ (see

Shapiro, 1993; Panda, 2004), ―product placement types‖ (see Russell, 1998; Oliver

1986 in Johnstone and Dodd, 2000; Lehu, 2007), ―product placement techniques‖

(see McDonnell and Drennan, 2010) , ―product placement modality‖ (see Bressoud

and Lehu, 2008). Yet although scholars have been using the above mentioned

various terms to distinguish among different placement strategies, their proposed

product placement strategies generally resembled each other most of the time. Most

of the proposed product placement categorizations were based either on the one

proposed by Russell (1998) or those by Gupta and Lord (1998), or ones by d‘Astous

and Seguin (1998).

First, Russell (1998), in his Tripartite Typology of Product Placement,

distinguishes placements among three dimensions; namely, visual, auditory, and plot

connection. Visual placement involves basically the appearance of the brand on the

screen and it is also known as ―screen‖ placement. This placement dimension can

have several different levels based on the number of appearances on the screen, the

style of camera shot for the product, and so forth. The second one, which involves

auditory or verbal stimuli, is known also as ―script‖ placements. Similarly, this

placement type can have different levels, depending on the context in which the

brand is mentioned, the frequency with which it is mentioned, and the emphasis

placed on the brand name, tone of the voice, place in the dialogue, character speaking

25

at the time, etc.. Finally, the plot placements refer to the degree to which the brand is

integrated into the plot of the story (Russell, 1998).

The second seminal study was conducted by Gupta and Lord (1998). They

rather put forth two dimensional approach for distinguishing product placement

types. The first dimension is the mode of presentation of the placement, whereas the

second is its prominence.

Table 2: Operationalisations of prominence in previous literature

Previous studies Definitions/operationalisations

Gupta & Lord

(1998, p. 49)

Prominent placements are those in which the product (or other brand

identifier) is made highly visible by virtue of size, position on the screen

or its centrality to the action in the scene.

Subtle placements are those in which the brand is not shown prominently

(e.g., small in size, a background prop outside of the main field of visual

focus, lost in an array of multiple products or objects, low time of

exposure).

Avery & Ferraro

(2000, p. 228)

Prominence being those that were highly visible by virtue of position on

the screen (foreground/close-up shot), central to the action in the scene

(essential to the scene/dialogue), displayed for a longer time (having

greater than two seconds of camera time or being mentioned more than

once in the dialogue), and endorsed by a character (a character interacted

with the branded product and portrayed it in a positive way).

Subtle placements were those in which the brand was not shown

prominently because it was in background shots, not essential to the

scene/dialogue, and given a short length of display (shown for less than

two seconds or mentioned only once), and no positive character

involvement.

d‘Astous & Chartier

(2000, p. 32)

It was judged on six dimensions: visibility of the product or brand in the

scene (placement in front/in background), mention of the brand by one or

more actors (yes/no), length (short = 1-3 seconds, medium =4-6 seconds,

long=7-10 seconds), placement subtlety (subtle/manifest), principal actor

uses the product (yes/no), and principal actor is present (yes/no).

Subtlety/manifestness was judged in a subjective manner and reflected the

extent to which it was clear that the brand was included in the movie

scene for promotion purpose.

Cowley & Barron

(2008, p. 92)

The prominent placements were chosen because they (1) were connected

to the plot, (2) were mentioned more than once or were on the screen for

more than five seconds, and (3) were either audio or audio-visual.

The subtle placements were props only. They were (1) visual, (2) not

related to the plot, and (3) seen only briefly.

26

Homer

(2009, p. 23)

The subtle placements include only visual images of the placed products

(i.e., McDonald‘s & Dell) with no direct verbal conversation in the script.

In contrast, the prominent/obvious placements include similar visual

images along with direct verbal references to McDonald‘s (or Dell

Computers) in the script dialogue.

Lehu & Bressoud

(2009, p. 9)

Prominence is linked to, among other elements, the size and duration of

the placement on the screen, the number of times the brand appears in a

scene, as well as its location on the screen.

Source: Fanny Fong Yee Chan, 2012, in “Product placement and its effectiveness: A

systematic review and propositions for future research”

First, based on their modes of presentation product placements are categorized

as being visual only, audio only or their combination, audio-visual. Visual only mode

involves display of the brand, logo, billboard or any other visual stimuli that

identifies the brand without being mentioned, whereas the audio only mode involves

the mention of the brand name without being displayed on the screen. The audio-

visual mode involves as its name implies both mentioning and displaying of the

brand at the same time. Next dimension, which is prominence, distinguishes

placements as either being prominent or subtle. In prominent placements the product

is made conspicuous either through its size, position on the screen or centrality to the

plot, integration to the plot, number of mentions, and/or duration on the screen. On

the other hand, in subtle placements the brand is not shown prominently (Gupta and

Lord, 1998). However, there is not a clearcut line between prominence and subtlety

of a placement in the product placement literature. This dimension is interpreted

rather subjectively by several scholars. Table 2 depicts scholars and their

interpretations of prominence versus subtlety of a placement.

Another highly cited placement categorization was put forth by d‘Astous and

Seguin (1998). In their study they distinguish among three placement strategies;

namely, implicit, integrated explicit and non-integrated explicit product placements

(PPL). First, an implicit PPL is one that is analogous to what Russell (1998) and

Gupta and Lord (1998) call visual placement. Since in the same manner implicit

PPL involves product and/or product related items (such as its brand, logo, firm etc)

being present within the program without being formally expressed. On the other

27

hand, in the integrated explicit PPL the product and/or product related items are

formally expressed within the program. This placement type involves explicit

demonstration of product attributes and benefits. The non-integrated explicit PPL

refers to the formal presentation of the product and/or product related items but

without being integrated within the program contents. The sponsor's name may be

presented at the beginning, during or at the end of the program just as in the case of

sponsorship. Therefore, there are critics that this placement type should be regarded

as a sponsorship rather than a placement type (d‘Astous and Seguin, 1998; Sarıyer,

2005).

Moreover, Shapiro (1993) proposes four categories of product placements. His

first proposed placement category involves barely display of brand or product name,

whereas the second one involves the use of the brand/product without being

mentioned. Next, in his third placement category the product or brand is being

mentioned only, while, in fourth the product is used by the main character, as well as,

being mentioned.

However, Panda (2004) in his study opts to modify Shapiro‘s classification and

to scale it down to three placement types; brand is shown only, used in scene and

integrated explicit PPL (product/brand mentioned with hands-on use).

Lehu (2008) together with Bressoud name “prominence, audiovisual and plot

insertion” as placement modalities, while, they offer“classic, corporate, evocative,

stealth” as product placement types (Lehu, 2007). Classic placement makes only the

product/brand appear on the screen, whereas, corporate placement, involves

emphasis of the brand over the product. Evocative placement, on the other hand,

involves neither the display of brand nor its explicit mention, but from product

chracteristics the product can be implied and identified (e.g. the Apple company is

cited as fruit company together with its logo being displayed in the film Forrest

Gump). Lastly, stealth placement is the most discreet form of product placement, in

which the brand is neither placed nor mentioned in the film and in addition product

characteristics are not easily identified. While its discreet presence gives it a natural

aspect, this discreetness can also lead it to be undetected by the viewer. To illustrate,

28

seldom a wiever can detect that in the film Great Expectations (Alfonso Cuaron,

1998) Gwyneth Paltrow‘s costumes were sponsored by Donna Karan (Lehu, 2007).

So, it is obvious that just as it was the case with its definition, there is not also a

certain product placement categorization that is widely accepted by scholars.

2.3.2. Video Game Product Placement Strategies

Yang and Wang (2008) assert that product placement classification for video

games should differ completely from those for TV and movie media since the latter

are based on presentation of the placement. However, games are mission oriented in

which players are assigned to complete missions. Thus, authors argue that game

playing should be considered as a problem solving process with its three key

components for completing missions; namely, goal, feedback and operator. The goal

component is the milestone that the player is assigned to achieve, while, operators

are instruments that players can use for attainment of the assigned goal. Feedback

component is the predetermined desirable or undesirable player behaviors, such as

reward or punishment. Then authors distinguish in-game placements with respect to

brand/product appearances inserted to scenes of these components and name them as

goal placement, operator placement, feedback placement.

Moreover, the review of the so far accumulated literature on in-game

placements revealed that, besides this classification by Yang and Wang (2008), there

are two more stances regarding their categorization.

First, Chen and Ringel (2001) propose that there are three types of placements

within video games; namely, associative, illustrative and demonstrative. Associative

placement involves the display of product/brand in the background. Illustrative

places the product/brand in game with prominently feature. Finally, the

demonstrative placement presents the product in its natural context and invites the

consumer to interact with it, thus having the highest integration. To illustrate, the

29

avatars in the FIFA International Soccer wearing Adidas to promote the shoes and

uniforms can be given as an example for this placement type.

Figure 7. Diesel placement, example of a billboarding, in the game “Need for

Speed” (2013)

Similarly, Glass (2007) distinguishes among three major types of product

placements in video games that are akin to Chan and Ringel‘s (2001) and names

them as monopolization, billboarding, utilization. Monopolization is the one in

which the brand totally monopolizes a game through use of a product tie-in or a

spokescharacter most of the time. On the other hand, in billboarding, placements

appear in natural places within the game environment, and is the most common form

of placement type in video games. Finally, the utilization, which is analogous to

demonstrative placement of Chan and Ringel (2001), involves characters in the game

use the product in a natural way.

2.3.3. Miscellaneous Product Placement Strategies

Some scholars put forth alternative strategies for product placement

formulation. Johnstone and Dodd (2000) proposed that product placements can be

either creative or on-set. While, on-set placements involve display of product in its

30

natural setting such as a bottle of coke on a kitchen table, creative placements refer to

the insertion of the product into film indirectly, such as its display on billboards.

Wenner (2008), on the other hand, distinguishes among three ―variants‖ of

product placements. Besides the basic form of product placement, which he names as

plain old product placement (POPP), and product integration, he proposes the video

insertion as the third variant. Wenner‘s (2008) third proposed product placement

strategy, video insertion, involves the insertion of virtual placements in the program

content. This technology, which was named as L-VIS (pronounced as Elvis), or live-

video insertion system by the founding company, Princeton Video, enables

placement of a digital Elvis or a digital ―anything else‖ into film and television

programs while they are being produced or after they are produced. Initially sports

broadcasts, especially football and baseball broadcasts by adding inserted first down

lines, made use of this technology (see Figure 8). However, the surge of this

technology to prime-time television programming opened a new era that was best

described by Stuart Elliott (October 1, 1999, p. C11, in Wenner, 2008) of the New

York Times:

“Another frontier is being crossed in the commercialization of culture as digital

technology has been used for the first time to “virtually” place products in a prime-

time television entertainment program watched by American viewers. That milestone

interpolation of advertisements where they had not been before is being carefully

studied by Madison Avenue 9as part of its never-ending effort to wrap consumers in a

cocoon of sponsored images that range from the mentioning of brand-name products

in children‟s textbooks to the renaming of stadiums for huge corporations.”

Moreover, there are some other advantages of virtual placements over

traditional ones. First, virtual placements, unlike traditional ones, offer perfect time

and space flexibility such that the product can be placed whereever it is designated in

9Madison is the name of an avenue in New York City that is often used as casual shorthand for the

advertising industry

31

the scene either during the media entertainment or after its occurence. In addition,

virtual placements provide mobility of the technology such that new placements can

be inserted for a re-release of the film or for distribution on DVD, just as it was done

in case of a world wide popular TV series, Friends.

Figure 8: The crowd at the baseball game sees a blue background. Through TV

technology, the director can insert the ads as it is in the image on the right

Figure 9 displays a scene from the TV serie, Friends, in which a box of Oreo

branded cookies are seen on the table. However, the box of Oreos was not on the

table when Friends was first aired on NBC. It was added when the show was made

available on DVD and in syndication and thus expanding visibility of the product.

Figure 9: Example of a Virtual Product Placement of Oreo cookies in the TV series

called Friends

32

Dick Robertson, the President of Warner Bros. Domestic Television

Distribution, described this advantage of virtual product placements as follows:

“Product placement is nothing new to television. This [virtual placement] is

just a better way of doing it, so the product placement doesn‟t have to live in the

show‟s negative forever” (Ross, 1999, preceding p. 1). Thus, that Coke can shown in

the refrigerator of an original show can be bought by Pepsi for rerun syndication,

and sold again to 7-Up for foreign markets” (Wenner, 2008).

On the other hand, there are some shortcomings of this placement type. First,

virtual placements are criticized for having a deceptive nature. The aim of virtual

placements is to make them look real as if they were there when the program was

produced and this feature is highly criticized as being deceptive and “the Harry

Houdini of the media business” (Elliott, October 1, 1999 in Wenner, 2008).

Moreover, another drawback of virtual placements is their limited integration to the

plot of media entertainment since the technology in use today does not provide

examples of hands-on use of the product that is placed virtually. Therefore, they are

executed as background placements most of the time (Lehu, 2007). Nevertheless

Princeton company has developed the technology that enables the media

entertainment character to handle and use the virtually placed product (Ross, 1999 in

Wenner, 2008). In addition, the technology that will enable consumers to “click” on

virtual placements and buy placed products is envisaged in the near future (Goddard,

2000 in Wenner, 2008).

2.4.Research on Movie, Television, and Video Game Product Placements

Academic studies on movie product placements are the most abundant in the

product placement literature. Therefore, in the following pages, first the review of

research on movie product placements will be presented. Then, a review of studies

on TV product placements that will be presented under two distinct categories, and

lastly those on video game product placements, categorized under a single research

theme, will be provided respectively.

33

2.4.1. Research on Movie Product Placements

At the beginning of the year 2005, the journalist Adam Sauer found 497,000

occurrences of the phrase „product placement‟ on the internet, using the Google

search engine. One year later, the same search returned more than 6,000,000 hits.

(Lehu, 2007)

Studies on movie placements can be categorized roughly under three streams:

Studies concerning movie placement effectiveness

Studies dealing with ethics, acceptability of movie placements and their cross-

national comparison

Studies examining practitioners‘ views

In the following pages, review of studies on movie placements the above listed

categories will be made.

2.4.1.1.Movie placement effectiveness

Majority of scholars attempted to measure movie placement effectiveness

through examining its effect on consumer memory. Recall (Gupta and Lord, 1998;

Nelson and Devanathan, 2006; Bressoud and Lehu, 2007; Lehu and Bressoud, 2008;

2009), and recognition (Brennan and Babin, 2004), which are known as explicit

memory measures, as well as, brand salience10

(Babin and Carder, 1996a; Johnstone

and Dodd, 2000) were the most widely applied memory-related effectiveness

measures. Often, together with consumer memory, consumer attitude toward movie

product placements and placed products were investigated as well (Panda, 2000;

10 Brand salience is also considered among memory-related measures since it involves the recognition

of a brand in relation to other brands in that product category.

34

Yang and Roskos-Ewoldsen, 2007; Dens et al., 2012; d‘Astous and Chartier, 2000;

Cholinski, 2012).

Results of these studies, in general, reported that movie placements do have

significant effect on enhancing consumer memory (Gupta and Lord, 1998; Nelson

and Devanathan, 2006; Lehu and Bressoud, 2007; 2008; 2009; Brennan and Babin,

2004; Babin and Carder, 1996; Johnstone and Dodd, 2000; Argan et al., 2007) and

generating positive consumer attitude for products being placed (Panda, 2000; Yang

and Roskos-Ewoldsen, 2007; Dens et al., 2012; d‘Astous and Chartier, 2000;

Cholinski, 2012).

Strong connection of the product placement to the movie plot was found to be

vital for ensuring both high recall rates and positive consumer attitude. Even in cases

when the strong plot connected placements11

were seen only for a short period (4-6

sec) on the screen, unaided recall rate was reported to reach 86.6% (Argan et al.,

2007). Nonetheless, the product placement strategy that involves combination of

strong plot connection with high prominence12

was widely acknowledged to generate

even better results but only for retrieval of the placed brand in consumer memory

(Gupta and Lord, 1998; Bressoud and Lehu, 2007; Lehu and Bressoud, 2008; 2009;

Panda, 2010; Yang and Roskos-Ewoldsen, 2007; Brennan and Babin, 2004; d‘Astous

and Chartier, 2000; Cholinski, 2012).

The same combination was not found to guarantee positive consumer attitude

(Dens et al., 2012; d‘Astous and Chartier, 2000; Cholinski, 2012) since highly

prominent placements were often being criticized by the audience for being irritating

and distracting from their viewing experience, even causing counterarguing, that is

known as Persuasion Knowledge Model (PKM) in the marketing literature (Friestad

and Wright, 1994).

11Plot connection of placements refers to the degree to which the brand/product is integrated into the

plot of the story (Russell, 1998). 12

In high prominent placements the product is made conspicuous either through its size, position on

the screen or centrality to the plot, integration to the plot, number of mentions, and/or duration on the

screen (Gupta and Lord, 1998).

35

According to the PKM (Friestad and Wright, 1994), people develop knowledge

about how, why, and when a message is intended to influence them, and learn how to

cope with this persuasive attempt. To illustrate, presence of a sales agent or an

advertisement is a cause for activating persuasion knowledge. Although exposure to

product placements, in general, does not activate persuasion knowledge, if the

placement becomes extremely prominent then the consumer may realize its

persuasive intent and activate the PKM (Cowley and Barron, 2008).

Therefore, strong plot connected but less prominent placements (Dens et al.,

2012; d‘Astous and Chartier, 2000) were evidenced to attract positive consumer

attitudes. Also, genre of the movie was found to affect consumer attitude towards

the placed brands. Jin and Villegas (2007) observed that consumers who are exposed

to humorous movies scenes are likely to have a favourable attitude towards the brand

and purchase behaviour, especially when they have a positive prior brand

evaluation.

On the other hand, audio-visual placements were found to generate better

memory results than visual-only placements (Brennan and Babin, 2004). However,

adding an audio and/or visual reference to an already high prominent and high plot

connected placement was found to generate mixed results on consumer memory.

Cholinski (2012) found that if a highly prominent and plot integrated placement is an

audio-visual one, then regardless of all other executional variables, it will generate

high recall and recognition rates. Nonetheless, when Gupta and Lord (1998) added

an audio reference to an already visual highly prominent and plot connected

placement, they did not observe enhanced recall rates, whereas, when Brennan and

Babin (2004) did the same, they observed enhanced recognition scores.

Furthermore, other factors that were reported to enhance explicit memory of

the placed brand/product were use of the product by the main character (Yang and

Roskos-Ewoldsen, 2007), familiarity with the product (Brennan and Babin, 2004;

Panda, 2004), first viewing of the film at the cinema as well as its second viewing at

home on a large screen, liking of the movie, its genre, its director (Lehu and

Bressoud, 2008 ;2009; Bressoud et al., 2010) and brand consciousness (Nelson and

36

Devanathan, 2006) which was also found to be highly effective in generating ―the

most favourable‖ consumer attitude towards placements (Nelson and McLeod,

2005). Conditions that were reported to increase brand salience were liking the film

and being high self-monitor (Johnstone and Dodd, 2000).

On the other hand, although purchase intention is an important effectiveness

measure, it has been seldom considered when tapping movie placement effectiveness

(Ong and Meri, 1994; Vollmers and Mizerski, 1994; Morton and Friedman; Jin and

Villegas, 2007). Also, the results of the few studies available are far from reputing

significant effects of movie placement on purchase intention. Since while Ong and

Meri (1994), as well as, Vollmers and Mizerski (1994) did not observe enhanced

purchase intention for products integrated within a movie,

Jin and Villegas (2007) did observe enhanced purchase intention for placed

products but in particular for those already positively pre-evaluated brands/products

placed within humourous film scenes. Auty and Lewis (2004), who examined

preference for placed products by children of ages ranging from 6 to 12, reported that

children showed higher preference for placed brands but their preference, in addition

to placement, was found to be affected by their prior exposure to the brand as well.

Therefore, it can be concluded that based on the reviewed studies the effect of

movie placements on consumer memory and attitude is appreciable but their effect

on behavioural outcomes, such as purchase intention and preference for placed

products, is as yet indeterminate.

2.4.1.2.Ethics, acceptability of product placement and their cross-national

comparison

This stream of scholars opted to investigate placement effectiveness indirectly

rather than directly, through dealing with placement acceptability and ethical issues

which in turn were assumed to have impact on consumer attitudes (Nebenzahl and

37

Secunda, 1993; Gupta and Gould, 1997; Gould et al., 2000; Brennan et al., 2004;

Eisend, 2009; Delorme and Reid, 1999).

Ethical concerns regarding placements are twofold: objecting to product

placements in general since they are perceived to have subliminal effects and

objecting to placements of specific products.

First, in general, positive attitudes toward movie placements (Nebenzahl and

Secunda, 1993) were observed especially among non-students (Sung et al., 2009) and

those who value perceived realism and fewer restrictions (Gupta and Gould, 1997)

were evidenced. Although subtle placements of familiar brands were perceived as

enhancing realism (Delorme and Reid, 1999), there were also those, though in

minority, who perceived this subtlety as deceptive and expressed negative attitudes

(Nebenzahl and Secunda, 1993). Also excessive placements of generic brands were

evaluated as being irritating and distracting from their viewing experience (Delorme

and Reid, 1999).

On the other hand, perceived (un)acceptability of movie placements was found

to differ based on the nature of products, gender and movie watching frequency of

the audience. First with regard to their nature, products in the product placement

literature were distinguished by Gupta and Gould (1997) as being ethically charged

and non-ethically charged ones. Ethically charged goods were defined as those that

arouse ethical concerns and differences across consumers regarding their marketing

and consumption, such as alcoholic beverages, guns and tobacco. On the other hand,

all goods other than ethically charged ones were called non-ethically charged goods

or neutral goods, such as fatty foods, cars, beverages etc.

Next, it was evidenced consistently across product placement literature that

placement of ethically charged goods are less acceptable than placement of neutral

products in US (Gupta and Gould, 1997; Brennan et al., 2004). Despite this, US

consumers perceived the regulation need for placement of ethically charged goods

only for the sake of non-adult audience members (Sung et al., 2009). Additionally, in

US, males and frequent movie watchers were found to tolerate and accept placement

of ethically charged goods more than females and infrequent movie watchers.

38

Thus, it can be noted that the earlier studies dealing with placement ethics and

acceptability of placements were mainly based on data gathered from US

respondents. Fortunately, Gould et al. (2000) took an initiative and compared their

findings generated from a US sample in 1997 with those they had generated from

Austrian and French samples. Also, other studies that compared attitudes towards

and acceptability of product placement by American consumers to those by Chinese,

Australian, Austrian, French (McKehnie and Zhou, 2003) and Italian consumers

(Nelli, 2009) emerged. All of these studies revealed that US consumers were more

accepting and more likely to purchase placed products (country-based difference)

than the French, the Austrian, the Australian, the Italian and the Chinese consumers.

Nevertheless, ethically charged goods, regardless of country, were found to be less

accepted by females and infrequent moviegoers (product difference). Similarly,

regardless of country, males were evidenced to purchase the placed product more

than females (gender difference).

Furthermore, data of the above mentioned studies by Gould et al. (2000) and

Brennen et al. (2004) McKehnie and Zhou (2003) were combined with the one by

Mouskourova et al. (2006) in another study that attempted to generalize acceptability

of ethically charged and neutral goods over seven different countries (Eisend, 2009).

The seven different contries were USA, France, Austria (Gould et al., 2000),

Australia (Brennan et al., 2004), China (McKehnie and Zhou, 2003), Germany and

Bulgaria (Mouskourava, 2005). As a result, Eisend (2009) reported that acceptability

of ethically charged goods was generalizable and it was described as ―indifferent‖

(between acceptable and unacceptable) consistently across seven countries. Also

gender related product placement acceptability was generalizable. However,

acceptability of neutral products was not generalizable as its accepting levels differed

across seven countries. Finally, Torrano and Flores (2009), who compared attitudes

toward product placement by French and Spanish consumers, did not observe

significant differences between the French and the Spanish in relation to their

product placement attitudes.

39

So, based on the above mentioned studies, countries do not differ drastically in

relation to their acceptability of ethically charged goods. Nonetheless, there is still a

gap regarding the ethical concerns and acceptability of product placements within

countries other than US.

2.4.1.3. Practitioners‟ views

Some scholars, alternatively, showed a special interest in the practitioners‘

beliefs when examining product placements on the silver screen (Karrh, 1995;

McKee and Pardun, 1996; 2000; Karrh, McKee and Pardun, 2003; Jan and Martina,

2013) .

Karrh (1995) was the first to investigate practitioners‘ views. His seminal study

involved a survey of 23 ERMA13

members, who described the most effective brand

placements as those that were ―easily recognized‖, ―portrayed positively in the movie

plot‖, as well as, ―being accompanied by further promotional support‖. Moreover,

practitioners in his study generally noted recall and recognition as the best measures

of brand placement effectiveness.

Subsequently, Pardun and McKee (1996) surveyed 89 advertising agency

media directors and examined factors most important in making product placement

decision for a feature film. ―National viewing potential‖, ―price of the placement‖

and ―theme of the movie‖ were noted as the most important ones, while ―action in

the movie‖, ―international viewing potential‖, ―movie producer‖ as the least

important ones out of 10 listed factors. Practitioners noted further positive and long

term roles as well as increased use of movie placements in future.

13 Entertainment Resources and Marketing Association is a leading product placement industry group.

40

Pardun and McKee (2000) later repeated the same study with 106 public

relations (PR) professionals. PR professionals reported ―international viewing

potential‖ instead of national one together with ―price of the placement‖ and ―theme

of the movie‖ as the most important factors.

Later on, Karrh together with McKee and Pardun (2003) repeated his seminal

study conducted in 1995 to reveal the evolution of practitioners‘ product placement

views. The survey items from Karrh‘s study were responded by 28 ERMA members

and results revealed that effective placements in 2003 mandated a more expanded set

of both executional factors and brand characteristics. Also, the importance attached

by practitioners to each executional factor and brand characteristic increased. More

practitioners in 2003 believed that product placements have a subliminal dimension

than in 1995. Additionally, practitioners‘ belief regarding the future rise in product

placements was reinforced in 2003.

With the exception of a recent study, in which Jan and Martina (2013) revealed

that Czech practitioners are sure of product placement efficiency and regard it as

long-term marketing field that involves brand-building efforts, studies investigating

practitioners‘ views, especially those of other than US, are extremely hard-to-come-

by.

2.4.2. Research on TV Product Placements

“The number of viewers of a prime-time, 30- second 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.”

(Lehu, from an interview by Powell, 2007, p.2)

Academic studies on TV product placements can be examined under two

categories:

41

Studies on TV placement effectiveness

Studies investigating prevalence, nature and characteristics of TV placements

It can be noted that scholars mainly employed either experiment or content

analysis method to investigate product placement applications on TV programmes.

Those who investigated its effectiveness used the experiment method, while those

who aimed at shedding light on its nature and characterisitcs employed the content

analysis method.

2.4.2.1.TV placement effectiveness

Just as movie placement effectiveness, effectiveness of TV placements was

generally tapped through consumer attitude and memory related measures.

The methodology utilized most frequently was viewing by a sample of students

a whole TV programme or an excerpt from it with product placements. This viewing

experience was immediately followed by a questionnaire that probed recall,

recognition levels and/or attitudes towards the placed products by the sample

audience (Law and Braun, 2000; van Reijmersdal et al., 2007; Tiwsakul et al., 2005;

Cowley and Barron, 2008; Homer, 2009). In general, overall enhancement of recall

and recognition levels for placed products (Law and Braun, 2000) and positive

attitudes towards TV placements as well as placed products were noted (Tiwsakul et

al., 2005; Schmoll et al., 2006).

Results with regard to effective placement strategies revealed that products that

were placed as visual-only were least recalled but mostly preferred, whereas products

that were placed central to the plot were most recalled but least preferred ones by

undergraduate students (Law and Braun, 2000). It was also evidenced that

incongruences between modality (visual or audio) and plot connection attract

consumer attention and thus improve memory for placed product. However,

persuasion was found to be enhanced by congruency; therefore, the said

42

incongruence was reported to affect consumer attitude negatively (Russell, 2002;

d‘Astous and Seguin, 1998).

High prominence was not found to be a promising characteristic for TV

placement effectiveness. Highly prominent TV placements were found to diminish

positive consumer attitudes and activate PKM especially when they are repeated

frequently for known brands and for viewers who are higher in program liking (HPL)

(Cowley and Barron, 2008).

Viewers who are higher in program liking (HPL) are more attentive and look

forward to watching a program to satisfy their entertainment need. Therefore, they

were found to be irritated more from prominent product placements, and expressed

negative attitudes toward the brands within prominently placed their favourite

programmes.

On the other hand, viewers who are lower in program liking (LPL) are less

likely to be attentive while watching a television program because they are less

reliant on the program to satisfy their entertainment goals. Thus, they were found to

be less likely to be irritated by prominent placements. Nonetheless, LPL viewers

were found to activate PKMand have lower brand attitudes if exposure to a

prominent placement is preceded with a prime, an ulterior motiveof the persuasive

intent of the placement, that is highly accessible. On the contrary, subtle placements,

although less recalled, were evidenced to generate more positive consumer attitudes

than prominent ones (Cowley and Barron, 2008; Homer, 2009).

Moreover, placements of ethically charged goods were found to arouse ethical

concerns and negative attitudes on TV screen as well. Females were once more

found to evaluate placements of ethically charged goods more negatively than males

(Tiwsakul et al., 2005; Schmoll et al., 2006). Additionally, subliminal, implicit and

passive placements were found to arouse negative attitudes and ethical concerns,

especially when they were within information and services TV programme type

(Tiwsakul et al., 2005). On the other hand, congruity between placement sponsor and

the program was found to generate positive ethical and evaluative reactions for all

43

TV program types except for mini-series and dramas, in which placements were

evidenced to generate most negative attitudes (d‘Astous and Seguin,1998).

Additionally, genre of the TV programme was found to influence effectiveness

of product placement as well. Russell and Stern (2005a) studied US sitcoms and they

found out, based on their Product-Character Association (PCA) model, that US

audience associate products placed within sitcoms with the sitcom characters and

their attitudes toward placed products were found to be driven by their attitude

toward the characters. The same association was evidenced to occur in case of US

soap operas as well (Russell and Stern, 2006).

On the other hand, Gupta and Gould (2007) examined placements within TV

game shows in particular. First, they studied how consumers evaluate game shows

and products placed in them and subsequently their effectiveness on consumer

memory in relation to traditional advertising. While location and price of the product

within a game were found to be the factors enhancing recall the most, overall

traditional advertisements were recalled better.

Effectiveness studies that do not employ memory based measures are scarce

for TV product placements as well. Only one study which investigated the effect of

TV product placements on brand image was reviewed. This study evidenced that

brand image starts to change in the direction of the TV programme after -at least- a

second exposure (van Reijmersdal et al., 2005).

So, there is a need in the literature for more studies that shed light on

effectiveness of product placement practice on TV screen through measures other

than memory and attitude related ones.

2.4.2.2.Prevalence, nature and characteristics of TV product placements

This stream of researchers opted to examine characteristics of product

placements appearing on the TV screen. Their research method, content analysis,

44

chiefly involved analysis of TV programming on major TV networks of the countries

to be studied. Very often prime-time, which represents largest number of viewers in

relation to any other time period of the day, was chosen as the period to be analysed

(Avery and Ferraro, 2000). Most of these studies were conducted in the US (Ferraro

and Avery, 2000a; 2000b; La Ferle and Edwards, 2006) with the notable exceptions

by Smit et al. (2006), who examined TV placements on Dutch TV networks and

Wouters and Pelsmacker (2011), who provided comparison of placements on US and

Flemish TV networks.

The study by Avery and Ferraro (2000a) was among the earliest ones

examining prevalence and nature of TV product placements. The authors content

analysed 112 hours of US prime-time programming (April, 1997) and reported that

brands are prevalent on prime time television (one placement every two-minutes of

TV programming) with the majority appearing in real-life events, such as sports,

news, feature magazine and game shows. Moreover, most of them were found to be

visually prominent, with extended portrayals (75%) and foreground placements

(79%) and almost half of the visual placements involving interaction with the

programme character (40%) (Ferraro and Avery, 2000b). In addition, the content

analysis of the nature of TV placements revealed that their commercial intent was

overshadowing the intent for enhancing realism. Despite this, still 60% of the

viewers were found to perceive placements as adding realism to the TV programmes

(Schmoll et al., 2006).

Five years later, when La Ferle and Edwards (2006) content analysed US prime

time TV programming (January, 2002), they observed relatively less prevalence of

brand placements (one placement every three-minutes TV programming) in relation

to 1997. Visual TV placements in 2002 were also observed to be less prevalent in

relation to 1997 (52.8%). Also, in 2002 the type of US TV programmes that involved

most brand appearances was found to be sitcoms and dramas rather than real life

events as they were in 1997. Real life events, such as news and feature magazines,

took the second place. (La Ferle and Edwards, 2006). On the other hand, in another

study, frequency and nature of US TV placements were compared with Flemish TV

45

placements (Wouters and Pelsmacker, 2011). It was found that the difference

between placement frequencies on Flemish and US TV programmes were not

statistically significant. Nonetheless, placements were embedded mostly within non-

scripted TV programmes in US, whereas they were integrated generally within

scripted TV programmes in Belgium.

Additionally, Pervan and Martin (2002) investigated product placements within

soap operas in US and New Zealand. They found that while placements within US

soap operas were mainly produced for promotion of leisure and appearance related

products, those in New Zealand soap operas mostly promoted transport and food

related products. In addition, soap opera viewers in New Zealand were found to show

more positive emotional outcome towards placements in soap operas than US

viewers.

Only two studies that inspected characteristics of TV placements in a country

other than US were found (Smit et al., 2005, La Pastina, 2001). First, Smit et al.,

(2005) focused on Dutch TV placements and observed placements to be more

prevalent on commercial Dutch TV networks than on public networks. Additionally,

those on commercial networks were found to be more prominent than those

displayed on public networks. On the other hand, La Pastina (2001) who studied TV

viewers in a Brazilian rural area revealed that the products placed within soap operas

were not perceived as promotional efforts but rather as portrayals of daily life

necessities by those in upper class.

Alternatively, a theoretical study conducted by Russell and Puto (1999) content

analysed viewers' opinions regarding TV placements expressed via focus groups,

internet fan forums, phenomenological interviews and tapped audiences'

relationships with TV programs. As a result, a construct named "connectedness" was

revealed, which denotes the intense relationships between the audience and a TV

program that touches to individuals' personal and social lives.

46

2.4.3. Research on Video Game Product Placements

“Given that that “young men spend 12.5 hours a week playing video games,

compared with 9.8 hours a week watching television” (Kim 2006, p.C1), video game

product placement should be an excellent medium for reaching this demographic”

(Glass, 2007)

Academic studies on video game placements have been scarce. The review of

the literature on video game placements revealed that to date only effectiveness of

video placements based on memory related measures (Lee and Faber, 2007; Nelson,

2002; Glass, 2007; Walsh et al., 2008; Ho et al., 2008; Yang et al., 2006; Winkler,

2006; Kuhn et al.,2007; Chaney et al., 2004; Acar, 2007; Wise et al., 2008) and

players‘ attitudes toward placed products (Nelson, 2002; Nelson et al., 2004;

Winkler, 2006; Ho et al., 2008) had been studied.

Appendix 3 summarizes effectiveness studies conducted for placements in

games. It should be noted that three game types, namely, video games, computer

games and on-line games were examined. Most of the time computer and video

games were used interchangeably in the studies (Winkler, 2006; Nelson, 2002; Yang

et al., 2006) as it was mentioned before.

Before summarizing the main findings of effectiveness studies, there are a few

points common to the majority of studies that have to be underlined. First, all of the

studies were conducted within the last decade, which exemplifies the novelty of and

the rise of interest devoted to the concept.

Second, methodology of most studies were the same; namely, experiment

combined with a questionnaire. This method involved participants playing games in

a computer lab and, following this game session, a mini survey was conducted

delving into their memory of and/or attitudes toward placements in the game they

had just played.

47

2.4.3.1. Effectiveness of video game placements

Consistent with the previous literature on the effectiveness of movie and TV

product placements, effectiveness of video game placements were also attempted to

be tapped through memory related measures mostly.

Main findings illustrate that placements as billboards in video games were

recalled better than those in real outdoor billboards (Chaney et al., 2004), however,

recall rates for placements in a live sport event outperformed those in a sport game

(Walsh et al., 2008).

On the other hand, congruency between the game setting and the brand was

found to generate a positive attitude both toward the game and the brand, if it is

noticed by the player (Wise et al., 2008). Hence, Lee and Faber (2007) and Nelson

(2002) proposed that the placement, which involves high incongruency between the

game setting and the placed brand, generated higher recall rate than those in which

high congruency is present.

Moreover, it was validated in several studies that the proximity of the

product/brand to the focal area in the game scene is vital for its recall and recognition

(Acar, 2007; Lee and Faber, 2007). Besides, recall rate was found to be higher when

the placed brand is a local one (Nelson, 2002) and the player is an experienced and

skilled one who has been acquainted with the game (Kuhn et al., 2007), as well as,

being moderately involved at that game play (Lee and Faber, 2008).

However, there were contradictory results for the recall of brands that were

new. Nelson (2002) found out that the recall rate of the brand placed in a video game

would be enhanced if that brand was a new one. Whereas, Winkler (2006) proposed

that placement of a brand that was already known by the player would be better

recalled in relation to a new one.

On the other hand, with regard to attitudes, it was found that players in general

held positive attitudes toward placements in games and they do not think that

placements are deceptive. It was observed that generally players believe placements

48

enhance realism, except for the study conducted by Chaney et al. (2004) who

reported only limited support. Moreover, Nelson et al. (2004) evidenced that there

was a direct relationship between attitudes toward advertising in general and

placements in games, meaning that if a player had positive attitude toward

advertising he/she had a positive attitude toward placements in games as well or vice

versa. However, Winkler (2006) found that this direct relationship generates stronger

outcomes in case of having negative attitudes toward advertising. Furthermore, just

as it is with movie and TV media, placements of ethically-charged goods within a

video game were found to be less acceptable than placements of non-ethically

charged goods among gamers consistently (Kim and McClung, 2009).

Recently, Mackay et al. (2009), who examined whether brand placements in

video games can shift pre-existing consumer attitudes towards a specific brand,

evidenced that after exposure to a placed product during game-play, positive brand

attitudes did not but recall rates did increase for those who had already positive

attitude towards the placed product. Jeong et al. (2011), on the other hand, reported

psychological arousal in a game (with violence cues) had positive effect on consumer

attitude, but did not on brand logo memory. Rather high engagement in a violent

video game enhanced recall rates, but generated negative attitude toward the placed

brand logos.

Yang and Wang (2008), alternatively, assert that product placements should

take into account the type of product, placement and the game for enhancing

effectiveness. They proposed that within shooting/sport games, tool products should

be placed as feedback placements14

, while within role-playing/strategic games; tool

and enhancement products should be placed as operator placements. Goal

14Goal in a videogame describes the milestone that players attempt to achieve. For example, in a

shooting game, the goal may be rescuing hostages. Whereas, feedback is a kind of reinforcement. If

some predetermined desirable or undesirable player behaviors are demonstrated, a reward or

punishment is provided for positive or negative feedback. Operators, on the other hand, indicate those

instruments, such as knife, cape, and magic, that players can apply to achieve their objectives (Yang

and Wang, 2008).

49

placements, on the other hand, were proposed to appear when the player passes a

new level.

Two studies that did not investigate effectiveness were the ones by Acar (2007)

and Choi et al., 2013). Acar (2007) examined the incidental exposure and evidenced

that high proximity to the focal area had incidental effects for video game

placementsbut message content did not. Choi et al., (2013), on the other hand,

examined the effect of sensory distractions on implicit memory and they found out

that while auditory distractions did inhibit implicit memory for the placed brand

within a video gamevisual ones did not.

2.5.Overview of Research on Product Placement Effectiveness on Movie,

Television and Video Game Media

For the literature review of this thesis study, 73 academic studies on product

placement were examined (See Appendix for summary of reviewed studies). The

literature review involved not only the product placement effectiveness studies but

also other most popular product placement related research topics (e.g. product

placement acceptability, cross-national comparision, ethics) for the above mentioned

three media vehicles.

However, the scope of this thesis study involves the product placement

effectiveness in particular. Therefore, an overview of product placement

effectiveness studies for cinema, TV and video games media is fundamental.

So, the extended list of factors that influence product placement effectiveness

for all three media vehicles were extracted from reviewed studies and tabulated

(Table 3, Table 4, Table 5).

In the three tables that follow (Table 3, Table 4 and Table 5), factors that

influence product placement effectiveness are categorized in relation to those related

with placed product/brand, respective medium, product placement execution and

audience characteristics. Next, the said factors are outlined, primarily, in relation to

50

their effects on explicit memory measures and attitude, which were revealed to be the

most frequently investigated effectiveness measures in the product placement

literature. Nonetheless, as it was mentioned previously, though being extremely rare,

the researcher came across studies that investigated product placement effects on

measures other than explicit memory and attitude as well. The findings regarding

such rare effectiveness measures are provided under the column named “other

effectiveness measures”.

In addition, factors that were evidenced to generate favourable/positive

outcomes for those effectiveness measures were denoted with a (+) sign, whereas

those that were observed to generate unfavourable/negative outcomes were denoted

with a (-) sign. To illustrate, familiarity, which is determined as a product/brand

related factor affecting explicit memory for movie placements (Table 3), has a (+)

sign implying that familiarity with the placed product/brand was evidenced to

increase explicit memory for the placed product/brand.

On the other hand, the mini-series and drama are displayed as TV programme

genres under the attitude and acceptability column within Table 4. The (-) sign

implies that product placements within these TV programme genres generate

unfavourable consumer attitudes (Table 4).

Table 3: Factors Influencing Effectiveness of Movie Product Placements

Factors affecting on…. Explicit memory Attitude and

acceptability

Other effectiveness

measures

product/brand related familiarity (-) ethically charged goods(-)

familiarity (+)

respective medium

related

first viewing of the

movie at the cinema (+)

2. viewing at home on a

large home cinema

screen (+)

humorous scenes (+)

execution related

strong plot connection

(+)

high prominence (+)

used by main character (+)

multiple simultaneous

placements (+)

brand saliance:

repeated display of

high prominent

51

used by main character

(+)

audio-visual (+)

strong plot connection but

less prominent (+)

subtlety (+)

high repetition frequency (-

)

placement (+)

audience

charactersitics

high film involvement (-)

brand consciousness (+)

liking the film (+)

liking film genre (+)

liking director (+)

gender (males (+)),

movie watching frequency

(+)

postive attitudes towards

advertisments (+)

appreciating realism and

fewer restrictions (+)

purchase intention:

prior brand evaluation

(+)

brand saliance: liking

the film (+), being

high self monitors (+)

In a similar way, in the following tables factors influencing effectiveness of

product placements on TV and video game media are presented respectively (Table 4

and Table 5).

Table 4: Factors Influencing Effectiveness of TV Product Placements

Factors affecting

on…. Explicit memory

Attitude and

acceptability Other effectiveness measures

product/ brand

related

ethically charged goods(-)

familiarity (+)

respective medium

related

TV programme genre

(mini-serie and drama (-))

program liking

(prominent and high

repetitive placements in

liked TV programmes (-))

execution related

explicit, non-

integrated

placements (-)

high plot integration

(+)

visual placements (-)

congruency between

plot and the product

(+)

location (central to

the scene (+)

passive and implicit

placements in

information/services

programmes (-)

explicit, non-integrated

placements (+)

subliminal; prominent

placements in favourite

programs (-)

subtlety (+)

high repetition levels (-)

choice: visual placements (+);

brand image: (when repetition

frequency of placement is 2 or

more (+))

audience

characteristics

gender (males (+))

positive attitude toward

TV programme characters

(+)

52

On the other hand, for academics, research gaps within the product placement

literature were identified. First, it was revealed that most of the product placement

studies across all three media vehicles concentrated on tapping effectiveness through

either explicit memory related measures, namely recall and recognition, or consumer

attitude. Studies to date on effects of product placements on behavioural outcomes,

(e.g. purchase intention, preferences), and attention have been extremely scarce and

inconclusive. Also, the effects of demographics, such as age and level of education,

were rarely taken into consideration.

Therefore, there is a need for academic studies that will investigate effects of

product placements on measures other than memory and attitude related ones, as well

as, for those that will focus on demographic characteristics and reveal the impact of

product placements on different groups in the society.

Table 5: Factors influencing Effectiveness of Video Game Product Placements

Factors affecting on... Explicit memory Attitude and

acceptability

Other effectiveness

measures

product/ brand related

product type (symbolic,

tool and enhancement)

brand origin (local (+))

ethically charged

goods(-)

respective medium

related

introductory footage to

game (+)

game genre

(shooting/sport games,

role playing/strategic

games)

implicit memory:

auditory distraction(-)

execution related

incongruency between

the product and the

game content (+)

strong thematic

connection between

game and brand (+)

incidental exposure:

high proximity (+)

gamers' characteristics

experience (+)

game skill (+)

moderate game

involvement (+)

pre-existing positive

attitude (+)

positive attitude towards

advertising (+)

psychological arousal

(+)

purchase

intention:positive

attitudes towards

placements (+)

53

Moreover, it was also revealed that product placement studies on all three

media used mostly US based data (n=46, 63%). Only 17.8% (n=13) and 13.7%

(n=10) of the reviewed studies were conducted in European countries and rest of the

world (e.g. India, Australia, and China) respectively, while 5.4 % (n=4) of the studies

were comparing product placement practices in US with other countries (e.g. New

Zealand, Belgium). Although it can be noted that European interest to product

placement research, in particular on TV medium (see Appendix 2), has been on rise,

still there is a huge gap in the placement literature regarding its practice in countries

other than US. Then, future studies that will concentrate on this issue will also

contribute to the academic literature largely.

In addition, majority of the studies, especially those investigating product

placement effectiveness, used experiments as the research methodology and used

students as their samples. The application of experimental methodology and

utilization of student samples have some general limitations that might have

influenced the findings. First of all, the artificial setting usually results in more

attention to the stimuli, which in turn can generate higher recall and recognition

rates, as well as different behaviours (van Reijmersdal et al., 2007). Second, the

student samples involved mostly young and highly educated respondents, who might

have been better at noticing product placements and understanding their commercial

intents than less educated ones. Hence, the said methodology might have biased

findings. Therefore, future studies which employ a mix of different methods to

samples that are more representative of the product placement audience can provide

additional insights into brand placement effects.

2.6.Product Placement Practice and Research in Turkey

The previous sections of this study provided a detailed profile of both product

placement theory and practice in the world. This section focuses on the practice and

research of the concept in Turkey.

54

The first practice of product placement in Turkish cinema history was occurred

in 1950 within the old ‗Lüküs Hayat‘ movie, where a radio brand‘s name was

integrated to the plot in return for a fee (Pekman and Gül, 2008 ). Therefore, it will

be misleading to say that product placement is a brand new practice in the Turkish

cinema. Nonetheless, a Hollywood‐like, professional product placement practice in

Turkey was to arrive only during the last decade.

Figure 10: A shot from G.O.R.A. (2003), in which J&B branded whiskey placed on

the table

Figure 11: A scene from Vizontele Tuba (2000), in which Philips branded TV is

placed prominently

Memorable examples of professional product placements appeared in Turkish

movies named KarıĢık Pizza (1998), Her ġey Çok Güzel Olacak (1998) and

55

Vizontele Tuba (2000). However, the milestone of Turkish movie product

placements is the film G.O.R.A. (2003), in which 12 different brands are embedded

both visually and/or verbally (see Figure 10).

On the other hand, instances of product placement practice on media other than

movies were even scarcer in Turkey up until 2011. After April 2011, ban on product

placements on TV medium was anulled eventually in Turkey by Radio and

Television Supreme Council (RTUK)15

.

Before the RTUK Law, product placement was regarded as a type of hidden

advertisement that was completely prohibited by law. Upon the enactment of the new

Law on Foundation and Broadcasting Services of Radio and Television Institutions

numbered 6112, known as the ―RTUK Law‖, the application of product placement

within TV programmes is allowed by the Turkish government under the following

conditions:

Product placement for certain goods and services will be allowed in cases

where such goods and services are included within the program free of any

charge and only under the conditions to be set forth by the Supreme Council

of Radio and Television.

When compared to the program content, the placed product or service should

not be emphasized or promoted in the program explicitly and excessively.

The audience should be informed of product placement at the beginning and

at the end of the programs as well as after the advertorials within the

programs.

Product placement is not allowed in the news, child programs and religious

programs16

.

15Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTUK) is the public legal entity that is responsible for the

regulation of radio and TV broadcasts in Turkey. 16

http://www.gala-

marketlaw.com/joomla4/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=412&Itemid=452

56

Subsequently, a rapid proliferation of product placement practice on Turkish

TV programmes was observed. A study was conducted by DORinsight17

firm in

2012 to investigate the awareness of Turkish population about the product

placement. 914 respondents over age of 18 from 69 cities in Turkey were reached. It

was revealed that the most favourite TV programme genre of Turkish people was TV

series (%88). Moreover, 89% of TV series viewers were aware of the product

placements within their favourite programmes. On the other hand, game shows

(%59) and entertainment programmes (48%) were the other highly preffered TV

programme genres in Turkey. However, only 44% of viewers of game shows and

entertainment programmes declared being aware of the product placements. Finally,

only one-third of football, sports programme viewers declared to have detected

product placements while watching their favourite programmes.

Nar Agency18 and Dentsu Aegis Network Turkey19 are two companies that

content analyze product placement practices within programmes broadcasted during

prime time on 8 Turkish TV channels20

on a weekly basis. Their weekly analysis

distinguishes between two types of product placements: plot integrated product

placements and virtual product placements.

Nar Agencyand Dentsu Aegis Network Turkey define the plot integrated

product placements as those in which the products/brands are present ―concretely‖

during the production of the TV programme. This definition includes also signboards

of department stores appearing on the screen, as well as, the products placed on a

table to be consumed by the participants within sports and/or discussion type TV

programmes. On the other hand, they define virtual product placements as insertion

of product/brand related visual objects to the TV programme virtually after its

production through the use of virtual applications.

17http://cdn.dorinsight.com/dorinsight/bultenler/2012/201202DORinsight_Subat_2012_Urun_Yerlesti

rme_Basin_Bulteni.pdf 18

http://www.narajans.net/ 19

http://www.dentsuaegisnetwork.com/ 20

Atv, Kanal D, Show, Star, Fox Tv, Kanal 7, Stv, Kanaltürk

57

To provide a current snapshot of the practice of product placement in Turkey

for the purposes of this study, the average of data from 5 weekly reports, from

December 30, 2013 till February 2, 2014 provided by Nar Agency and Dentsu Aegis

Network Turkey, was taken.

Figure 12: A scene from “Yalan Dünya”, in which DenizBank, Turkcell and KFC

brands as store signboards are placed

Figure 13: A shot from “Med Cezir”, in which one of the main characters is shown

hands-on using Samsung mobile phone

58

This data revealed that among the 8 listed Turkish TV channels, Kanal D or in

other words, prime time TV programmes broadcasted on Kanal D, encompass the

greatest number of product placements (%48.2%). Kanal D is followed by Star TV

(%21) and STV (%19.8), respectively.

Moreover, on average, 48 product placements within a week of prime-time TV

programming are displayed on eight major Turkish TV channels. %29 (n=14) of

them are virtual product placements and the rest of them are plot integrated ones

(%71) (n=34). While Yalan Dünya, a Turkish humourous TV-serie, is the one that

gives place to the greatest number of different product placements, Med Cezir is the

one that allocates the most place to product placements on a time basis.

The industries that allocate most budget to product placements in Turkey are

textile (%17,6) and automotive industry (17,2 %). Others are communications

(%15.8), construction (%11.2) and IT (13,4) respectively.

On the other hand, in Turkey, academic studies on product placement lag

behind its practice. An exhaustive review of the product placement literature in

Turkey revealed only a handful of studies on this topic.

Among these, TaĢkaya (2009), Aydın and Orta (2010), Pekman and Gül (2008)

investigated the profile of the said practice in Turkish cinema. TaĢkaya (2009) in his

study evidenced a gradual increase in product placement practice within Turkish

movies from 1980s to 2000s. He attributed this gradual increase to neo-liberal

economic policies and profit oriented production policies headed by Prime Minister

Turgut Özal during the 1980s. Moreover, he argued that the neo-liberal policies

aimed at increasing consumption, which involved all consumption related actions

and, in turn, product placements. TaĢkaya (2009) observed automobiles as the most

placed products within Turkish movies, whereas ethically charged goods, namely

cigarettes and alcohol, ranked second. He asserted that restrictions on promotion of

cigarettes and alcohol on other Turkish media vehicles as the reason for this high rate

of cigarette and alcohol placements on Turkish cinema screens. In addition, as the

most applied product placement strategy display of products within their natural

59

settings and hands on celebrity use were observed to be the most used placement

strategies in Turkish movies.

On the other hand, Aydın and Orta (2010), who content analyzed 21 Turkish

films produced between the years 2000 and 2006, observed that product placements

were mostly used in comedy films and in the form of visual placements (79,3%)

within the Turkish movies. Similarly, alcoholic beverages, which are among ethically

charged goods, were found to be the most frequently placed product category

(%13,8) within the Turkish movies for the same above mentioned reason that was

proposed by TaĢkaya (2009). Electronic devices (11,5%) and food (9,2%) were

reported as being other most popular product categories for placements within

Turkish movies.

In a different vein, Argan et al. (2007) investigated placement strategies used in

a Turkish movie named ―G.O.R.A.‖ (2003) in particular and attempted to measure

their effectiveness through unaided recall test. Their content analysis of the said film

and questionnaire with 277 film viewers revealed that % 86.6 of the audience

recalled unaidedly at least one brand that was placed in the film. Most recalled ones

were found to be those that were shortly displayed on the screen (4-6 seconds), but

were plot congruentnonetheless. Additionally, liking of the film affected positively

the recall rate of placed products, but other demographics such as age, gender,

education were not found to affect recall of placed products.

Only one study that investigated practitioners‘ views was found (Yolcu, 2012).

Yolcu (2012) investigated how product placement is accepted as an advertising

method in public relations. The author conducted a research that was similar to the

one conducted by McKee and Pardun (2000). It was observed that product placement

practice in Turkey is being applied mostly due to the requirements of actions within

the film. Moreover, ―movie producer/director‖ and ―international viewing potential

of the movie‖ were reported to be the most important two factors for Turkish movie

product placements.

Finally, two studies of product placement practice on media other than Turkish

movies were found. First, Sarıyer (2005) explored whether customers who prefer

60

different placement strategies on Turkish TV series have different demographic

variables using data from a survey with 364 customers. The author found that

customers with different demographic variables preferred different product

placement strategies. To illustrate, subtle product placements were preferred by

females, single and low educated Turkish citizens, whereas placements of brands that

were incongruent with TV program were preferred by those over 26 years of age and

with low income level. Placements in which brands were congruent with the TV

program type were evidenced to be negatively evaluated by those between 18 and 26,

single and highly educated Turkish citizens.

OkumuĢ and Öztürk (2013), on the other hand, attempted to explain attitudes

towards the product placements with respect to psychographic and sociodemographic

variables through their questionnaires conducted with 601 respondents. Authors,

based on their analyses, observed that consumers were divided into 4 market

segments, namely, innovators, traditionalists, moderns, conscious. First, ―Innovators‖

were identifed as the group which mainly involved high educated and high income,

single women working in private sector or students, that accepted highly placements,

especially placements of books, clothing, shoes. Second, ―Traditionalists‖, who were

mostly middle aged men with low education and income levels, were observed to be

the most sceptic of product placement as an effective promotional effort. Third,

―Conscious‖, who were in general middle aged or over females with moderate

income and high education level, were the most concerned ones with ethicality of

placements. Finally, ―Moderns‖,who were ones with high brand and fashion

consciousness and the least conservativists, were evidenced to be the strongest

believersthat product placements add realism to the TV programmes.

So, although practically product placements on Turkish TV media has been

experiencing a surge after April 2011, academic research on this subject area in

Turkey is as yet insufficient. Therefore, this study, which investigates effectiveness

of product placement on Turkish TV medium, will be of high importance for both

scholars and practitioners interested in this field.

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3. HYPOTHESES DEVELOPMENT AND THE RESEARCH MODEL

3.1.Hypotheses for Evaluating Effectiveness of Test Product Placements in

relation to Neuromarketing Effectiveness Benchmark Scores

Genco, who is renowned as the founder of the modern neuromarketing

revolution, along with his colleagues Pohlmann and Steidl (2013) stated in their book

that investment in developing normative data, that is the measure of the firm‘s

internal metrics in relation to external performance measures, by a neuromarketing

firm indicates its maturity as a business as well as its commitment to the long term

quality of research offerings.

In accordance with this, the Thinkneuro company which is the Turkey‘s first

neuromarketing research conducting firm has developed such a data based on its so

far accumulated neuromarketing research measurements.

The company has developed the following Neuromarketing Effectiveness

Benchmark Scores for Emotional Attachment (EA), Attention (AT) and Stress

(STRS) scores respectively:

EAbenchmark: 0.44

ATbenchmark: 0.70

STRSbenchmark: 0.58

The neuromarketing research company concludes the tested marketing

communication subject (e.g. an ad, a product placement etc) or any other research

variable as effective in establishing an emotional connection with the audience if its

EA exceedes 0.44. Similarly, if AT exceedes 0.70, then it is said that the tested

variable is successful at attracting audience attention. On the other hand, the score for

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STRS has to be less than 0.58 in order for a the tested measure not to be considered

as a stress creating experience.

Then, the effectiveness of differently executed product placements of this

thesis study, will be tested against the said neuromarketingeffectiveness benchmark

scores.

It is anticipated that all product placements of the three groups will attain

benchmark neuroscores statistically significantly.

H1a: EA and ATneuroscores for test product placements (Fiat, Samsung,

Casper, Omo, Cif) viewed by Group A will be statistically significantly higher than

the respective effectiveness benchmark neuroscores (EAbenchmark, ATbenchmark)

H1b: STRSneuroscores for test product placements (Fiat, Samsung, Casper,

Omo, Cif) viewed by Group A will be statistically significantly lower than the

respective effectiveness benchmark neuroscores (STRSbenchmark)

H2a: EA and ATneuroscores for test product placements (Fiat, Samsung,

Casper) viewed by Group B will be statistically significantly higher than the

respective effectiveness benchmark neuroscores (EAbenchmark, ATbenchmark)

H2b: STRSneuroscores for test product placements (Fiat, Samsung, Casper)

viewed by Group B will be statistically significantly lower than the respective

effectiveness benchmark neuroscores (STRSbenchmark)

H3a:EA and ATneuroscores for test product placements (Fiat, Samsung,

Casper) viewed by Group C will be statistically significantly higher than the

respective effectiveness benchmark neuroscores (EAbenchmark, ATbenchmark)

H3b: STRSneuroscores for test product placements (Fiat, Samsung, Casper)

viewed by Group C will be statistically significantly lower than the respective

effectiveness benchmark neuroscores (STRSbenchmark)

63

3.2.Hypotheses for Evaluating Effectiveness of Test Product Placements in

relation to Execution related Factors

In part 2.5 of this thesis study, an overview of reviewed research on product

placement effectiveness for all three media is presented. Factors influencing product

placement effectiveness, that were revealed through the use of traditional research

methods, are categorized as into those related with execution, medium, audience

characteristics and placed product/brand for movie, TV and video game placements

(see Table 3,4 and 5).

Following this, in this section of thesis study, which employs neuromarketing

as its research method, in particular execution related factors will be used to

assesseffectiveness of its test product placements that are executed on TV medium.

The placed product/brand, audience characteristics and other medium related ones

are beyond the scope of this thesis study.In the following, hypotheses that were

formulated according to execution related product placement effectiveness factors

are presented. Also, the proposed research model of this thesis study is presented at

the end of this section (see Figure 14).

3.2.1. Prominence

Prominent vs. Subtle Product Placements

In the product placement literature, the influence of prominence/subtlety of the

placement on its effectiveness had always been a hot topic. It was evidenced in the

literature that high prominence generated high recall rates but at the cost of

unfavourable consumer attitude. On the other hand, subtle placements were observed

to produce more favourable consumer attitude despite lower recall rates.

Therefore, in this study, the researcher anticipates to observe that prominent

product placement will generate higher participant attention but lower emotional

arousal and higher stress. Therefore, prominent product placements are expected to

64

generate higher AT score and STRS score and lower EA neuroscores than

subtleones. To test these hypotheses, neuroscores for prominent placements of

Samsung mobile phone and Fiat automobilethat were viewed by Group A

participants and for subtle placements of same products that were viewed by Group

B participants will be taken into analyses to look for if any statistically significant

difference(s) occur between them.

H4: EAscore of the audience is lower for prominentt placements than for subtle

ones

H5: AT score of the audience is higher for prominentt placements than for

subtle ones

H6: STRSscore of the audience is higher for prominent placements than for

subtle ones

3.2.2. Priming

Subtle vs subtle primed product placements

Priming effect on product placements was seldom investigated in the product

placement literature. The only study that the researcher came across was the one by

Cowley and Barron (2008). The authors evidenced thatfor low programme liking

(LPL) viewers exposed to a persuasive-intent prime before viewing a prominent

placementPKM was activated and generating lower brand attitudes in relation to

LPL viewers that were not exposed to a prime.

On the other hand, in this study, neuroscores for subtle placements of Samsung

mobile phone and Fiat automobilethat were viewed by Group B participants will be

compared with those viewed by Group C participants, who viewed primes prior to

the exactly same subtle Samsung and Fiat placements. For Group C participants,

each subtle placement was preceded by a prime, that was a 10 second ad in our

65

study,and this product placement execution strategy will be investigated in relation to

its primeless version. Since the placements are not prominent but subtle PKM is not

expected to be activated for Group C participants. On the contrary, it is anticipated

that the primed subtle placements will be attracting higher audience attention and

emotional arousal than its primelessexecution. Nonetheless, the primed subtle

placement is expected to generate more stress in relation to its primeless execution.

H7: EA scoreof the audience is higher for subtle placements that are primed

than for subtle product placements that are not primed.

H8: AT scoreof the audience is higher for subtle placements that are primed

than for subtle product placements that are not primed

H9: STRS scoreis higher for subtle placements that are primed than for subtle

product placements that are not primed

3.2.3. Tone/Type of the TV programme

Product placement in a Drama series vs. a Humorous series

In the product placement literature, the genre of the movie/TV programme was

also found to have impact on product placement effectiveness. Bressoud and Lehu

(2007) found that liking the movie genre improved recall rate for placed brands.

While d‘Astous and Seguin (1998) evidenced that product placements within mini-

series/dramas generate negative consumer reactions, Jin and Villegas (2007)

observed that those in humorous scenes generate positive consumer reactions.

Therefore, in this study, neuroscores for aproduct placement within a drama

type TV series, named Kayıp and that was viewed by Group B will be compared

withonewithina humorous one, named Yalan Dünya and was viewed by Group C

participants. Based on the literature, it is envisaged that product placement in a

humorous TV series will attract more attention and emotional arousal in relation to

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the same placement within a drama type TV series. Moreover, consumer stress is

expected to be higher for the placement in the dramatic TV serie.

H10: EA scoreof theaudience is higher for product placements in a humorous

TV serie than in a dramtic one

H11: AT scoreof the audience is higher for product placements in a humorous

TV serie than in a dramatic one

H12: STRS scoreof the audience is higher for product placements in a dramatic

TV serie than in a humorous one

3.2.4. Strategy/Type of the Product Placement

Visual only Plot Integrated Product Placement vs. Visual only Virtual

Product Placements

With its practicality and cost advantage, the popularity of virtual product

placements against plot integrated ones is on the rise. Especially, virtual placements

as billboards have become a very popular product placement strategy within Turkish

TV programmes (Nar Agency, 2014). However, in the product placement literature

there is not even a single study investigating effectiveness of this product placement

strategy.

Nevertheless, in this study, it is anticipated that a visual only virtual product

placement in the form of a billboard will attract more audience attention and

emotional arousal compared to a visual only plot-integrated product placement.

However, the virtual billboard placements is expected to generate more frustration on

the audience since it is expected that the audience in relation to basic product

placements will have difficulties in comprehending the appearance of such a

billboard all of a sudden during their viewing experience. Then, mean neuroscores

for Casper virtual billboard placement that was viewed by Group A participants will

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be compared to those for Casper visual only product placements that was viewed by

Group C participants.

H13: EA scoreof the audience is higher for virtual product placement than for

visual only product placement

H14: AT scoreof the audience is higher for virtual product placement than for

visual only product placement

H15: STRS scoreis higher for virtual product placement than for visual only

product placement

Visual only Virtual Product Placements vs. without Visual only Virtual

Product Placement

To investigate the effectiveness of virtual product placements, this thesis

study tests also whether neuroscores by the same participants differ for video

excerpts, one being with virtual product placement and the other being without. As it

was mentioned before, virtual product placements enable insertion of a product

digitally after its being produced. So, Omo and Cif products were placed with this

strategy by the 3P product placement agency within the Umutsuz Ev Kadınları

named TV series. The researcher was provided with both virtual placement and

placementless versions of the video excerpts by the 3P agency. The test videos were

exactly the same and thus any difference in the mean neuroscores would be due to

the presence of virtual placements of Cif and Omo products. So, it was anticipated

that mean neuroscores for video excerpts with virtual placements will significantly

differ from those without placements.

H16: EA, AT, STRS scoresfor the video excerpts with virtual product

placements will statistically significantly differ from the video excerpts without

virtual product placements

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3.3.The Research Model

Based on the hypotheses developed above, the research model of this thesis study

is depicted as in Figure 14.

This thesis study aims to provide guidelines and propositions for effective

product placement formulation and execution on Turkish TV media based on the

results that will be generated from testing of hypotheses that involve ―execution

related factors influencing product placement effectiveness‖ and ―effectiveness in

relation to neuromarketing benchmark scores‖.

Figure 14: The Research Model

EXECUTION RELATED

FACTORS INFLUENCING

PRODUCT PLACEMENT

EFFECTIVENESS:

Prominence

Priming

Tone of the TV Programme

Product PlacementStrategy

EFFECTIVENESS IN

RELATION

TONEUROMARKETING

BENCHMARK SCORES:

EA:0,44

AT: 0,7

STRS:0,58

EFFECTIVE PRODUCT

PLACEMENTS ON

TURKISH TV MEDIUM

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4. RESEARCH DESIGN,SAMPLING, MEASUREMENT PROCESS AND

PREPARATION OF DATA FOR ANALYSES

4.1.Experimental Research Design: Neuromarketing

The exhaustive literature review that had been conducted for the purposes of

this study revealed that so far majority of studies in the product placement literature

had employed traditional marketing research methods, such as surveys, experiments.

However, this study, alternatively, employed an experimental research design,

neuromarketing, as its research method since just as Patrick Renvoise, chief

neuromarketing officer and cofounder of the neuromarketing firm Salesbrain,

proposed…

“the problem with traditional marketing is that, fundamentally, people don‟t

know what they want. If you ask them what they want, they may give you an answer,

but since they don‟t know, that answer won‟t be valid”

(Patrick Renvoise, in Barkin E., 2013 )

Indeed, when they are asked, most of the time people are unable to answer the

reasons behind many of their choices. The underlying reason for this is that the

source of all our decisions is actually the subconscious.

Martin Lindstrom in his popular book ―Buyology‖ (2008) compared the

traditional marketing research methods with the neuromarketing method and he

described the traditional research as standing in the garden of a house and looking

through the window with the intent of trying to feel what is being discussed inside.

Therefore, in the process of understanding consumer behavior, it is vital to reach the

unconscious source directly instead of interpreting ―directed‖ responses provided by

the traditional marketing research methods (Thinkneuro, 2014).

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It is exactly at this point, where neuromarketing research, that is, the

application of neuroscience techniques to marketing stimuli, sheds light on

consumers‘ minds through the use of brain imaging technology.

Actually, researchers have been investigating the brain‘s response to a

marketing stimuli since 1969. The study that was conducted by General Electric

company researchers using the Electroencephalography (EEG) neuromarketing

technique to identify how viewers reacted to the company‘s TV commercials was

cited as being among the earliest ones (Kalliny and Gentry, 2010). However, the

term neuromarketing was coined only in 2002 by Lewis and Bridger (2005).

It was the Coca Cola vs Pepsi study that was conducted by McClure et al.,

(2004) that fueled the interest in neuromarketing research. The authors conducted

their study with two treatment groups using the fMRI neuromarketing method. One

group was subject to a blind test, in which they tasted Coca-Cola and Pepsi but

without knowing the respective brands. The second group participants were told

which brand they drank. Neuro results indicated that two-third of the second group,

who were told the brand they were drinking, preferred Coca-Cola. However, the first,

blind-tested group, half of the participants preferred Pepsi. This implies that it is the

brand image and the market leadership not the taste what makes Coca-Cola to be

more preferred than Pepsi. So, Pepsi should invest more on strengthening its brand

image rather than its chemical formula, which is obviously very much alike Coke‘s

(Kalliny and Gentry, 2010; Barkin, 2013).

Moreover, the finding that emotion plays a stronger role in consumers‘

decision-making than previously assumed urged researchers to find and employ

techniques that can get beyond the rational survey responses and investigate the

emotional impulses that stimulate them, such as neuromarketing.

There are several neuromarketing research techniques. To illustrate, Voice-

layering, involves recording the voice of the participant and subjecting it to a

software analysis that investigates her emotional state based on her voice tone.

Furthermore, Advanced polygraph, in other words, lie detectors, uses a combination

of metrics, such as pulse, blood pressure, and galvanic skin response (GSR), to

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measure states of arousal. Nonetheless, above mentionedfMRI and EEG along with

the Eye tracking are the most popular neuromarketing techniques.

In fMRI technique blood is measured with radio waves. The waves pick up

different responses from oxygen-rich and oxygen-poor blood, and the contrast

between the two provides a picture of where oxygen is being deployed, that is which

parts of the brains are active and require more blood to do their work.

On the other hand, the EEG technique records electrical activities in the brain,

the brainwaves, along the scalp produced by the synapses in the brain firing (Barkin,

2013). It's usually done with a head-set like cap of electrodes, that is extremely light

one not causing irritation to the participant.

Both fMRI and EEG techniques have their advantages and disadvantages:

While fMRI involves a large, immobile scanner, EEG today has evolved into a

highly portable mechanism, a head-set like cap. Moreover, fMRI provides a more

detailed scan than EEG, but participants must stay in the lab. However, EEG can be

taken to a consumer's natural environment, such as a home or shopping centre.

Additionally, EEG can't detect electrical activity to specific points on the brain, but it

generates a real-time record of a subject's attentiveness and engagement.

Lastly, the Eyetracking technique, as its name implies, is used for tracking the

eye movements of consumers while they are subjected to a marketing stimuli. The

device tracks the pupil with a sensitive mechanism to produce quantitative results

(Barkin, 2013). Although this technique has been utilized since the 1980s as a

research technique, the most recent development in this technique is its combination

with EEG analyses. By converging the data produced by these two devices,

invaluable information providing an insight into the feelings of the consumer when

he/she sees a certain stimuli (part of an advertisement, surface of the package,

product on the shelf etc.) is generated and this neuromarketing research model is

exactly the one that was performed for the purposes of this study.

Eye tracking with EEG analysis were administered to every participant while

they were viewing the video clip that involved excerpts with various product

72

placements from several different Turkish TV series. After each EEG analysis,

Attention scores (AT), Emotional Arousal scores(EA) and Stress scores (STRS)

was generated for each participant and for each video excerpt they had viewed.

The left and right alpha asymmetry in the pre-frontal brain cortex is examined

to measure and detect changes in subjects‘ emotional reactions.Based on studies by

neuroscientists Richard Davidson, Eddie Harmon-Jones, Niklas Ravaja, Rafal Ohme

and others, it was evidenced that greater relative activity in the left frontal region

strongly correlates with approachable motivations, such as liking, purchase intent,

and willingness-to-pay, and this part generates the EA scoreOn the other hand,

greater relative activity in the right frontal region was observed to correlate with

withdrawal motivations,such as disliking, disgust and avoidance behaviour and this

is where the STRS score is obtained (Adhami, 2013).

Lastly, the alpha wave desynchronization in the occipital cortex provides

respondents‘ activation of attention. Based on studies by neuroscientists Rothschild

and Hyun (1990), Wolfgang Klimesch, Marty Woldorff and others, a high degree of

desynchronization of the alpha band (drop in relative alpha power) in the occipital

region was observed to generate amplified attentional activation, the AT score, which

in turn assumed to be highly correlated with recall, recognition, cognitive processing,

and learning (Adhami, 2013).

Moreover, along with Eye tracking and EEG analysis, the research model of

this study involved brief questionnaires as well. Genco (2013) in his book proposes

that ―mixing and matching‖ traditional resarch design with neuromarketing

complements each other yielding a more complete picture of the subject being

studied. While traditional research methods helps in exploration such as providing

self-reports of memory, feelings, attitudes, neuromarketing, on the other hand,

identifies and measures non-conscious working of individuals‘ brains.

Therefore, before and after their viewing experiences, participants were

required to complete questionnaires. The questionnaire that was conducted before

their viewing experience aimed at investigating if the test brands, that are the ones

placed within the TV serie excerpts, are the one of the two brands that come to their

73

mind when asked within its product group. On the other hand, the questionnaire that

was conducted after their viewing experience aimed at primarily tapping recall and

recognition levels for the placed brands. The details of the measurement process and

questionnaires are provided in the section that follows.

4.2.Sampling and the Research Measurement Process

The sample of this study involved 91 participants. For a neuromarketing study

a sample of this size is more than sufficient. Since it was evidenced that generally the

same part in the brain is activated for a particular experience felt by people. To

illustrate, it was observed that when people get excited, the increased activation in

their brain was in the same part, even for those living in extremely different parts of

the world (Thinkneuro, 2014). Therefore, the neuromarketing research conducted

with a sample of this size is anticipated to generate highly dependable results.

Moreover, participants of the study were recruited by the neuromarketing

research company that performed the neuromarketing measurement. Participants

were recruited based on the specifications provided by the researcher. The

researcher, in particular, required a sample that was aged between 18-35 with a

proportionate men and women ratio.

Then, the participants were divided into 3 equal groups. Each participant was

handled on an individual basis within the living room-like decorated NeuroLab of the

neuromarketing research company located in NiĢantaĢı, Istanbul between April 4-7,

2014. The aim was to make participants feel as though they were in a home

environment in which they would normally watch TV programmes.

Each participant was informed about the procedure of the study. However, the

real aim of the study was disguised in order not to cause any bias. Rather participants

were told that they were contributing to a study that investigated the relationship

between TV viewing habits and consumer brand preferences and attitudes. Then,

they started the three-step research process.

74

4.2.1. Step 1: Pre-Test

The pre-test questionnaire involved questions about participants‘ daily TV

viewing frequency/amount, their favourite TV programmes, as well as, the two

brands that come to their minds within listed product groups to which test

products/brands of this study belong. Also, some filler questions such as their

favourite actor and actress etc. were asked in order to disguise the real intent of the

study. At the end of this part they were provided with the summaries of TV series

episodes, from which they were going to view excerpts. The pre-test questionnaire

was handed back to the instructor of the study and the second part, the experiment,

was started.

4.2.2. Step 2: The Viewing of TV serie excerpts

The second step involved displaying of TV series excerpts to the participants,

who were equipped with devices that would generate neuro scores. Each participant

was invited to sit on a sofa in front of a TV within the living room-like decorated

neurolab. The neurocap was prepared for the measurement by the lab administrator,

who poured the liquid, known as pasta, on the tips of the neuro cap to increase its

conductivity of brain waves. The participant then put this head-set like neuro cap on

his/her head. Next, the lab administrator performed the eye calibration of Eye

tracking device called Tobii for the participant. These steps including the eye

calibration were repeated for each and every participant in order to ensure the most

reliable eye tracking and EEG data.

Then, the participant was ready to start his/her viewing experience. The video

clips involved excerpts from at least three different Turkish TV series that were

broadcasted during prime-time (7 to 11 p.m.). TV series were chosen as the test TV

programmes in this study because they are the programme genres that involvethe

most product placements (Nar Agency and Dentsu Aegis Network Turkey, 2014).

75

Prime time was chosen because it is the period of the day when most domestic TV

series that contain several product placements are broadcasted.

The video clips were chosen based on the product placement reports provided

by Nar Agency and Dentsu Aegis Network Turkey. Nar Agency and Dentsu Aegis

Network Turkey are research companies that content analyze product placements on

prime time programmes of eight major Turkish TV channels21

on a weekly basis.

Then, based on the reports provided by the said companies for dates from December

30, 2013 to February 2, 2014, the researcher conducted her own content analysis in

order to find most appropriate product placements for the purposes of this study. To

illustrate, the researcher observed that Casper is the only brand that had placements

within several different TV series and in different forms, as well as, for its different

products; mobile phone and laptop. There were both plot and virtual placements of

Casper branded products within both drama (Intikam, Kayıp named TV series) and

humourous (Yalan Dünya named TV series) TV series. So, Casper was chosen as

one of the test brands of this study.

Moreover, it was observed in the product placement reports provided by Nar

Agency and Dentsu Aegis Network Turkey companies, Samsung mobile phone and

Fiatautomobile is placed consistently within TV series named Med-Cezir. The

researcher content analyzed 8., 10., 31., 35., episodes of the said series and selected

its 8. episode, that involved placements for both Samsung and Fiat. By editing

exactly the same scenes, the researcher obtained video excerpts that involved

prominent and subtle placements of Samsung mobile phone and Fiat automobile.

Lastly, video excerpts that involved virtual product placements of Cif and Omo

within Umutsuz Ev Kadınları named TV series were provided by 3P product

placement agency. Their placementless versions were provided as well.

21 Kanal D, Star TV, Fox TV, ATV, Show TV, Samanyolu TV, Kanal Turk, Kanal 7

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In the following section, the video excerpt contents of each study group are

described in detail.

4.2.2.1.Group A Videos

This group viewed excerpts from TV series named Med Cezir, Ġntikam and

Umutsuz Ev Kadınları.

Table 6: Details for the Group A videos

GROUP A VIDEOS

Name of the

TV serie

Episode

number Placed brands

Type/Strategy

of the

Placement

Characteristics of the Placement

Strategy/Type

Med Cezir 8. Fiat Prominent not a close-up shot but the brand logo

seen for 10 seconds

Med Cezir 8. Samsung Prominent

a close-up shot but seen for 3 seconds

only during hands-on use by the main

character

Ġntikam 41. Casper

Virtual

Placement

(Billboard)

seen for 10 seconds

Umutsuz Ev

Kadınları 26.

Omo and the

same video

without the

Omo placement

Virtual

Placement

(Visual only)

seen once but for 7 seconds

Cif and the

same video

without the Cif

placement

Virtual

Placement

(Visual only)

seen several times both on foreground

and background but each not exceeding 3

seconds

The excerpt from Med Cezir involved plot-integrated and prominently

displayed placements for Samsung mobile phone and Fiat automobile. First, one of

the main characters, Mira, is turning on her mobile phone and the camera shoots

close-up the greeting of her mobile phone ―Samsung Galaxy Note III‖ for almost 5

seconds. In the next scene, another character, Hale, walks down the street towards

77

her car. She stands next to her car and conducts a phone call. While she talks on her

mobile phone, the logo of her car, Fiat, can be read for more than 10 seconds (Figure

15). When compared, Fiat logo is not as visible as Samsung‘s, but Samsung is not

displayed on the screen as long as Fiat. Nonetheless, both placements were rated as

being extremely prominent by 3 marketing experts 22

despite their different

operationalisations which were depicted detailly before (see Table 2).

Figure 15: Group A test product placements from the TV serie named Med Cezir

Figure 16: Group A test product placement from the TV serie named İntikam

22One academician, Prof. Dr. Mustafa Dilber and two practitioners, Dr. Yener GiriĢken (founder of

ThinkNeuro Research company) and Akif Elbiclioglu (founder of Turkish product placement agency

named 3P)

78

Next, the excerpt from the TV serie, Ġntikam involved a virtual billboard

placement of Casper Via V4 mobile phone. The character, Cemre, walks desperately

on the seaside. She walks and passes by a huge billboard on which, Casper Via V4 is

written with huge puntos (Figure 16).

Figure 17: Group A test product placement from the TV serie named Umutsuz Ev

Kadınları

Figure 18: Group A test product placements from the TV serie named Umutsuz Ev

Kadınları

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Finally, the excerpt from Umutsuz Ev Kadınları involvedtwo different virtual

product placements, for detergents Omo and Cif. First, the character Elif is washing

the dishes and the Cif detergent is situated virtually onto the kitchen desk (Figure 17).

In the second one, Elif is folding the clothes while having a conversation with

her husband and the Omo detergent is situated virtually on the bench in front of her

within their living room (Figure 18).

It is important to note that for Omo and Cif branded placements this group

watched two video excerpt versions, those with virtual product placements of Cif,

Omo and the versions prior to the virtual placements in order to get the exact neuro

scores. Only the virtual product placement enables having exactly the identical

scenes, as with the plot integrated placements the product is integrated to the

scenario and thus it is impossible to edit it and get exactly identical excerpts, one

being with the placement and one without the product placement.

Additionally, the excerpts were not displayed at a predetermined/same order for

every participant. Instead, they were displayed randomly for each participant, that is

highly recommended by Genco (2013) in order to avoid any bias that would result due

to their displayed sequence.

4.2.2.2.Group B Videos

This group viewed excerpts from TV series named, Med Cezir, Yalan Dünya,

Ġntikam and Umutsuz Ev Kadınları.

The excerpt from Med Cezir involved also plot-integrated product placements

for Samsung and Fiat brands but they were placed subtly. The clip of Group A was

edited to omit the scenes where the logo/brand names ―Samsung Galaxy Note III‖

and ―Fiat‖ were apparently seen. So, placements become subtle. For this group, Mira

is shown hands on using her mobile again but the brand logo and the model of the

mobile phone is not seen apparently. Also, Hale is shown having a phone

conversation next to her car but the logo of her car is not displayed.

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Table 7: Details for the Group B videos

GROUP B VIDEOS

Name of the

TV serie

Episode

number Placed brands

Type/Strategy of

the Placement

Characteristics of the

Placement Strategy/Type

Med Cezir 8. Fiat Subtle

seen several times for less

than 3 seconds but not with

a close-up shot

Med Cezir 8. Samsung Subtle

seen several times for less

than 3 seconds but not with

a close-up shot

Yalan Dünya 62. Casper Visual-only seen for 10 seconds on the

foreground

Umutsuz Ev

Kadınları 26. Omo

Virtual Placement

(Visual only) seen once but for 7 seconds

Umutsuz Ev Kadınları

the same video

from Group A for

Cif but without the

Cif placement

no placement

On the other hand, the excerpt from the TV series, Yalan Dünya, a popular

humorous series, involved the plot integrated placement of Casper branded laptop.

The character Gülistan learnes that her husband Selahattin was not actually alone in

his room to recover from flu, but rather he was online all the time chatting with girls.

She prepared a bad surprise for him and connected to him online via a Casper laptop,

whose brand logo was apparent for more than 10 seconds on the screen.

Figure 19: Group B Casper Laptop Scenario Product Placement from the TV serie

named Yalan Dünya

81

Similarly, the video excerpts from Umutsuz Ev Kadınları with Omo and the

one without Cif from Group A are shown to this group.

4.2.2.3.Group C Videos

This group viewed excerpts from TV series named, Med Cezir, Kayıp and

Umutsuz Ev Kadınları. This group viewed exactly the same clip as for Group B from

Med Cezir but it was preceded by a prime; a 10 second ad for both Samsung Galaxy

Note III mobile phone and Fiat 500Lautomobile.

Table 8: Details for the Group C videos

GROUP C VIDEOS

Name of the

TV serie

Episode

number Placed brands

Type/Strategy of the

Placement

Characteristics of the

Placement Strategy/Type

Med Cezir 8. Fiat Prominent

not a close-up shot but the

brand logo seen for 10

seconds

Med Cezir 8. Samsung Prominent

a close-up shot but seen for

3 seconds only during

hands-on use by the main

character

Kayıp 10. Casper Visual-only seen for 10 seconds on the

foreground

Umutsuz Ev

Kadınları 26. Cif

Virtual Placement

(Visual only)

seen several times both on

foreground and

background but each not

exceeding 3 seconds

Umutsuz Ev Kadınları

the same video from

Group A for Omo

but without the Omo

placement

no placement

On the other hand, the excerpt from the TV series Kayıp, which was a drama

series, involved also the plot-integrated placement of Casper laptop. The detective

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Mehmet and her sister view live recordings of a candid camera using the Casper

laptop, whose brand logo is apparent for more than 10 seconds on the screen.

Figure 20: Group C Casper Laptop Scenario Product Placement from the TV serie

named Kayıp

Other excerpts from Umutsuz Ev Kadınları involve the version with Cif

placement but without Omo to serve as control for respective vido excerpts from

Group B.

4.2.3. Step 3: Post-test

This part involved two questionnaires.The first one, in particular, investigated

participants‘ recall of placed products unaidedly. There were also some other filler

questions such as those investigating whether TV series that they had viewed were

their favorite ones, as well as if they remember having viewed the respective TV

series episodes before.

Then, once participants completed and handed back the first one to the lab

instructor, the second questionnaire, which investigated participants‘ recognition of

placed brands from a list of brands including both placed ones and filler ones, was

given to the participants. Otherwise, participants might have the chance to reminded

themselves of placed brands from the recognition list and thus might have biased the

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unaided recall results. This questionnaire also asked participants to rate their liking of

placed products, their agreement extent to statements that tapped attitude toward

placed brands, as well as, toward product placement and ads in general. Lastly

participants were asked to state the brand of the automobile, mobile phone and laptop

they owned along with questions regarding their socio demographic statuses.

4.3.Preparation of Data for Analyses

After the research measurement process the researcher was provided with the

following data by the neuromarketing research company:

Three neuroscores (AT, EA, STRS) for each participant and each video in

deciseconds (one tenth of a second) as excel spreadsheets

The test video excerpts with product placements that were viewed by

participants but this time they included eye tracking results for each participant

To prepare the above mentioned data for the analysis, first each test video clip

for each participant was viewed by the researcher to check if participants had seen

the product placements that were included in the test videos. The detection was

determined based on the red dots, which indicated where the participant had been

looking throughout the video clip.

If a participant was not detected to look at the product placement for a

particular video, then neuroscores of that participant for that video were not taken

into consideration for further analysis. On the other hand, if a partcipant was detected

to look at the product placement then the researcher watched that video for a couple

of times to record the exact seconds and deciseconds during which the participant

looked at the placement. This procedure was repeated for each participant who had

looked at the product placement within each test video.

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Figure 21: A snap shot from video excerpt and Eye tracking results of Respondent 3

of Group A evidencing that he/she has looked at the placement

Figure 22: A snap shot from video excerpt and Eye tracking results of Respondent 1

of Group Awho has not looked at the placement rather focused on the face of the

character and the surrounding

Once the timing for each test video was obtained, the computation of averages

for three neuroscores was to start. First, averages of three neuroscores from the

beginning of the test video till to the second/decisecond when the participant was

detected to look at the product placement were computed. These three averages were

named as ATbefore, EAbefore, STRSbefore. Next, the averages of neuroscores for the

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seconds during which the participant looked at the product placement were computed

and they were called as AT, EA, STRS.Finally, averages of neuroscores for seconds

after product placement till the end of the test video (or if there is, till the occurence

of second product placement) were computed and they were called as ATafter,

EAafter, STRSafter. Then, the neuroscores were ready for analyses.

4.4. Validity and Reliability

Experimental research design is not a familiar topic for most market

researchers who have a background in survey based research designs rather than

experimental one. While assessing the quality, reliability and validity of a survey

most marketers know where to look. However, for assessing reliability and validity

of a neuromarketing research study is not so clear-cut. Nonetheless, Genco et al.

(2013) in his book provides a roadmap for assessing validity and reliability of a

neuromarketing research study.

For validity, which deals with if the neuromarketing study measuring the right

variable, Genco et al. (2013) propose that a valid measure of attention should

produce same or similar results with other measures of attention because it is a

conscious response. To illustrate, the authors assert that AT neuroscores can be

checked and compared with self-report of attention. Following their

recommendation, the researcher checked the validity thorugh comparing attention

scores of each participant for each test product placement he/she viewed. To do so,

the researcher first distinguished between those who had an ―attention score 70 and

above‖ and those who had ―attention score less than 70‖ for each placed product.

Next, the researcher distinguished between those who ―recalled and recognized a

particular placed product‖ and those who ―did not recalled and recognized that

particular placed product‖. Then, the researchers checked and evaluated the data

provided by a particular participant for a particular test product placement as valid if

the participant had ―attention score 70 and above‖ for that placement and had also

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―recalled and recognized the placed product‖, or, if the participant had ―attention

score less than 70‖ and ―did not recalled and recognized the placed product‖. This

procedure was repeated for each participnat and for each test product placement they

had viewed. Consequently, the data provided by those who did not qualify one of the

said two cases was not considered as valid and thus was not taken into statistical

analyses.Based on this, Table 9 presents the participants, that were not evaluated as

having provided valid data, for each group and for each placed product.

Table 9: Participants, whose data were not evaluated as valid and thus not

taken into statistical analyses

Group Product Placement Participant No

A Samsung 3, 4, 29, 30, 31

A Fiat 13, 30

A Casper 4,8,11,21,30

A Omo 21, 30, 31

A Cif 11, 21, 30, 31

B Samsung 2, 13, 14, 17, 25, 30

B Fiat 6, 14, 18,25, 26, 30

B Casper 1, 13, 17, 27

B Omo 6, 13, 30

C Samsung 8, 16, 28

C Fiat 12, 26, 27

C Casper 6, 13, 28

C Cif 6, 28,30

On the other hand, for reliability of a neuromarketing study, Genco et al.,

(2013) proposes testing repeatability of its results. They suggest drawing two

samples from the same population and exposing them the same stimuli under the

same experimental conditions. The results should be extremely similar if it is a

reliable study. Following this, the researcher displayed exactly the same video clip

with Omo placement to Group A and B, as well as, the same video clip with Cif

placement to Groups A and C, just for this reliability check.

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To check if the data was reliable independent samples t-test between average

neuroscores of Groups A and B for video clip with Omo placement was performed.

Table 10: Excerpt from independent samples t-test output that was performed

for reliability check between Groups A and B for test video clip with Omo placement

Group N Mean

Std.

Deviation Significance

EA_OMO A 18 0,44 0,15 0, 648

B 16 0,42 0,13

AT_OMO A 18 0,71 0,18 0,91

B 16 0,70 0,15

STRS_OMO A 18 0,58 0,15 0,36

B 16 0,62 0,15

As Table 10 evidences, there was not any statistically significant differences

among average neuroscores of Groups A and B participants, who viewed exactly the

same video clip under the same experimental conditions.

Additionally, independent samples t-test between average neuroscores of

Groups A and C for video clip with Cif placement was performed as well. Table 11

reveals that there was not any statistically significant differences among average

neuroscores of Groups A and C participants as well, evidencing reliability of the

study data.

Table 11: Excerpt from independent samples t-test output that was performed

for reliability check between Groups A and C for test video clip with Cif placement

Group N Mean

Std.

Deviation Significance

EA_CIF A 20 0,44 0,12 0,72

C 20 0,43 0,10

AT_CIF A 20 0,73 0,14 0,06

C 20 0,79 0,09

STRS_CIF A 20 0,61 0,14 0,28

C 20 0,57 0,11

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4.5. Descriptives:

The study sample involved 91 participants that were aged between 18 and 35.

It was divided into three groups, namely A, B, C. Group A involved 31 participants,

while Groups B and C involved 30 participants each (Table 12).

Table 12: Descriptive Statistics for the Sample : Group Size

GROUPS Frequency Percent Valid

Percent

Cumulative

Percent

Valid

A 31 34,1 34,1 34,1

B 30 33,0 33,0 67,0

C 30 33,0 33,0 100,0

Total 91 100,0 100,0

Table 13: Descriptive Statistics for the Sample: Gender

GENDER Frequency Percent Valid

Percent

Cumulative

Percent

Valid

Female 45 49,5 49,5 49,5

Male 46 50,5 50,5 100,0

Total 91 100,0 100,0

Male and female distribution of the study sample was almost equal (Table 13).

Moreover, 56% of the sample was single and 52,7% was under 25. (Table 14, Table

15).

Table 14: Descriptive Statistics for the Sample : Marital status

MARITAL

STATUS Frequency Percent

Valid

Percent

Cumulative

Percent

Valid Married 40 44,0 44,0 44,0

Single 51 56,0 56,0 100,0

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Total 91 100,0 100,0

Table 15: Descriptive Statistics for the Sample : Age

AGE Frequency Percent Valid

Percent

Cumulative

Percent

Valid

18-25 48 52,7 52,7 52,7

26-35 43 47,3 47,3 100,0

Total 91 100,0 100,0

90

5. HYPOTHESES TESTING

5.1. Testing Effectiveness in relation to Neuromarketing Effectiveness

Benchmark Scores

Table 15 depicts the one-mean t-test results that was performed for EA, AT,

STRS scores for Group A, B and C participants against the respective benchmark

neuromarketing effectiveness scores.

It was hypothesized that all product placements of this thesis study will attain

neuroscores that will satisfy statistically significantly the effectiveness benchmark

scores. However, as it can be observed from Table 16, this hypothesis was not fully

supported.

Table 16: Extract from one sample t-test for testing EA neuroscores of all product

placements in relation to respective effectiveness benchmark neuroscore

TEST

VALUE:0,44

Group Mean

Std.

Deviation

Std. Error

Mean Significance

EA_SAM A 0,42 0,13 0,02 0,33

EA_FIAT A 0,49 0,23 0,05 0,35

EA_INT_CAS A 0,45 0,14 0,03 0,83

EA_CIF A 0,45 0,16 0,03 0,85

EA_OMO A 0,46 0,15 0,03 0,67

EA_SAMSUNG B 0,47 0,18 0,04 0,37

EA_FIAT B 0,47 0,13 0,03 0,34

EA_YD_CAS B 0,48 0,24 0,06 0,53

EA_PSAMSUNG C 0,47 0,11 0,02 0,18

EA_PFIAT C 0,55 0,18 0,04 0,01

EA_KCAS C 0,46 0,13 0,03 0,54

First, for product placements viewed by Group A participants, it can be said

that only the prominent placement of Samsung mobile phone and the billboard

virtual placement for Casper attained AT score that statistically significantly exceeds

the respective benchmark score. None of them attained EA score that is statistically

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significantly higher than the benchmark score for emotional attachment and this

outcome implies that none of the Group A placements was able to establish an

emotional affinity with the study participants. For the stress neuroscore, only the

virtual placement of Casper on a billboard attained a neuroscore that is significantly

different than the respective benchmark score. However, this attained stress score

was significantly exceeding the benchmark score for the stress.

Table 17: Extract from one sample t-test for testing AT neuroscores of all product

placements in relation to respective effectiveness benchmark neuroscores

TEST VALUE:0,7

Group Mean

Std.

Deviation

Std. Error

Mean Significance

AT_SAM A 0,77 0,11 0,02 0,00

AT_FIAT A 0,74 0,14 0,03 0,17

AT_INT_CAS A 0,77 0,14 0,03 0,00

AT_CIF A 0,74 0,13 0,03 0,27

AT_OMO A 0,75 0,17 0,04 0,19

AT_SAMSUNG B 0,73 0,11 0,02 0,26

AT_FIAT B 0,74 0,14 0,03 0,16

AT_YD_CAS B 0,71 0,15 0,04 0,79

AT_PSAMSUNG C 0,78 0,11 0,03 0,01

AT_PFIATSIZ C 0,77 0,13 0,03 0,03

AT_KCAS C 0,77 0,07 0,02 0,00

Secondly for product placements that were viewed by Group B, it can be

observed fromTables 16, 17 and 18that none of them achieved to satisfy statistically

significantly the benchmark effectiveness neuroscores. Subtle placements of Fiat

automobile and Samsung mobile phone in Med Cezir named TV series along with

the visual only placement of Casper notebook within the Yalan Dünya named TV

series generated neuroscores that were not statistically significantly satisfying the

benchmark scores.

Lastly, for product placements that were viewed by Group C, it can be

observed that the placements of this group yielded best neuroscores especially in

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relation to attention. All of the placements of Group C obtained AT that is

statistically significantly higher than ATbenchmark. The video excerpts for Fiat

automobile and Samsung mobile phone placements for this group were exactly the

same with those for Group B. However, prior to subtle Fiat and Samsung placements

10 second commercial for each brand was shown to Group C and this execution

created a significant difference in the outcomes. Additionally, when primed, subtle

placement of Fiat automobile was observed to generate emotional attachment score

that is significantly higher than the EAbenchmark.

Table 18: Extract from one sample t-test for testing STRS neuroscores in relation to

respective effectiveness benchmark neuroscores

TEST VALUE:0,58 Mean Std.

Deviation

Std. Error

Mean Significance

STRS_SAM 0,62 0,17 0,03 0,17

STRS_FIAT 0,61 0,16 0,04 0,41

STRS_INT_CAS 0,64 0,12 0,02 0,01

STRS_CIF 0,60 0,16 0,04 0,58

STRS_OMO 0,51 0,17 0,04 0,08

STRS_SAMSUNG 0,6 0,17 0,03 0,61

STRS_FIAT 0,6 0,18 0,04 0,22

STRS_YD_CAS_ 0,52 0,17 0,04 0,15

STRS_PSAMSUNG 0,58 0,15 0,03 0,95

STRS_PFIAT 0,60 0,17 0,04 0,53

STRS_KCAS 0,48 0,12 0,03 0,00

On the other hand, visual only placement of Casper notebook within the drama

type TV series named Kayıp generated an effective audience attention level, as well

as, a stress score that is signicantly lower than the STRSbenchmark.

So, while hypotheses H1a, H1b, H3a and H3b were partially supported, H2a and

H2b were not supported.

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5.2.Testing Effectiveness in relation to Execution related Factors Revealed in

the Literature Review

5.2.1. Prominence

Prominent vs. Subtle Product Placements

To test H4, H5 and H6, an independent samples t-test, which is described as the

simplest and most direct statistical test for a neuromarketing study (Genco,

2013),was performed between EA, AT and STRS scores of Fiat and Samsung

placements of Groups A and B. Also, the average of the scores prior to the product

placement (EAbefore, ATbefore, STRSbefore) and after the product placement (EAafter,

ATafter, STRSafter) were taken into the said test.

Table 19: Extract from independent samples t-test for testing influence of

prominence on effectiveness of Samsung and Fiat placements between neuroscores

of groups A and B

PROMINENT VS.

SUBTLE Group Mean Significance

EA_SAMSUNG A 0,42 0,18

B 0,47

AT_SAMSUNG A 0,77 0,12

B 0,73

STRS_SAMSUNG A 0,62 0,58

B 0,6

EA_FIAT A 0,49 0,61

B 0,46

AT_FIAT A 0,74 0,48

B 0,72

STRS_FIAT A 0,61 0,77

B 0,63

First, the assumption of equal variances was checked with the Levene‘s test for

equality of variances. This tests if the variation of scores for the two groups is the

same (Pallant, 2005). The significance value greater than 0.05 assumes equal

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variances. In our case, significance values for Levene‘s test for each test variable

exceeds 0.05 and thus are not violating the assumption of equal variances. Then,

result of the t-test revealed that mean EA, AT, STRS (also EA_before, AT_before,

STRS_before, EA_after, AT_after, STRS_after scores) scores for both prominent

(Fiat and Samsung) and subtle (Fiat and Samsung) placements did not statistically

significantly differ from each other.

Therefore, H4, H5 and H6 were not supported.

5.2.2. Priming

Subtle vs subtle primed

To test the influence of priming on product placement effectiveness, an

independent samples t-test was employed for EA, AT, STRS mean scores of subtle

(Group B) and primed subtle (Group C) Fiat and Samsung placements were tested.

Similarly, the assumption of equal variances was checked and it was observed that

the assumption of equal variances was not violated. Results revealed that there is

statistically significant differences between EA and STRS scores for subtle

placements and primed subtle placements.

EA and EAafter and STRSafter scores for Fiat subtle placement and Fiat primed

subtle placement differed statistically significantly. The emotional attachment with

the Fiat placement was attained only after the prime, 10-sec Fiat commercial.

Priming the Fiat placement with a 10 second ad increased its EA and EAafter score

significantly (Table 20). In addition, priming enabled the subtle Fiat placement to

decrease stress level significantly in relation to its primingless subtle placed version.

Then, H7, H8, H9are partially supported.

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Table 20: Extract from independent samples t-test for testing influence of priming on

effectiveness of Samsung and Fiat placements between neuroscores of groups B and C

SUBTLE VS.

PRIMED SUBTLE Group Mean Significance

EA_SAM B 0,47 0,98

C 0,47

AT_SAM B 0,73 0,07

C 0,79

STRS_SAM B 0,6 0,75

C 0,58

EA_FIAT B 0,46 0,05

C 0,55

EA_FIAT_AFTER B 0,42 0,00

C 0,55

STRS_FIAT B 0,63 0,78

C 0,61

STRS_FIAT_AFTER B 0,63 0,03

C 0,53

5.2.3. Tone/type of the TV programme

Product placement in a Drama vs. a Humorous serie

To test if the same type of placement for the same product generate different

EA, AT and STRS scores within a dramatic and humorous Turkish TV series, again

the independent samples t-test was performed between Casper EA, AT, STRS scores

of Groups B and C.

However, contrary to expectations, EA, AT and STRS scores did not differ

significantly for the placement of the same product with the same placement strategy

in relation to the tone of the TV serie, namely drama and humorous TV series. Thus,

H10, H11, H12 were not supported.

96

Table 21: Extract from independent samples t-test for testing influence of tone/type

of the TV programme on effectiveness of Casper placement between neuroscores of

groups B and C

INFLUENCE OF TONE OF

THE PROGRAMME (DRAMA

VS. HUMOROUS)

Group Tone of the TV

Programme Mean Significance

EA_CAS C Drama 0,48 0,81

B Humorous 0,46

AT_CAS C Drama 0,71 0,15

B Humorous 0,77

STRS_CAS C Drama 0,52 0,50

B Humorous 0,48

5.2.4. Strategy/Type of the Product Placement

Visual-only Plot Integrated Product Placement vs. Visual-only Virtual

Product Placements

To test if the effectiveness of product placement differs in relation to its

strategy, namely virtual vs. plot integrated product placement, independent t-test was

applied for EA, AT, STRS scores of Casper placement between Groups A (virtual

billboard placement) and C (visual only plot integrated product placement). Videos

of both groups involved excerpts from drama type TV serie (Intikam and Kayıp), so

that the differences in scores that might have stemmed from different programme

types/tones were controlled.

Results revealed that virtual and plot integrated visual only product placements

differ significantly only in their STRS scores (STRSbefore, STRS, STRSafter). Mean

STRS scores for virtual billboard placement of Casper brand was significantly higher

than the STRS scores for visual only plot integrated product placement

Thus, while H15 is supported H13 and H14 were not supported.

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Table 22: Extract from independent samples t-test for testing influence of

placement strategy on effectiveness of Casper placement between neuroscores of

groups A and C

INFLUENCE OF

PLACEMENT TYPE GROUP MEAN SIGNIFICANCE

EA_CAS A 0,45 0,73

C 0,46

AT_CAS A 0,77 0,97

C 0,77

STRS_CAS_BEFORE A 0,64 0,03

C 0,54

STRS_CAS A 0,64 0,00

C 0,48

STRS_CAS_AFTER A 0,64 0,05

C 0,56

Visual-only Virtual Product Placements vs. without Visual-only Virtual

Product Placement

To test if neuroscores for the same participants differ for the video excerpts,

one being with virtual product placement and one being without the virtual product

placement,a paired samples t-test was performed. Paired samples t-test was

appropriate because it is used when data from two different occasions is collected

from only one group, just as it was in our case. Neuroscores of Group A participants

for two versions of video clips, one with Omo and Cif placements and the other

without placements, from Umutsuz Ev Kadınları named series were subjected to

paired samples t-test to test if virtual product placements created any significant

difference.

Since participants and the video clips were exactly the same, any detected

difference would be stemming from the presence/absence of the virtual placements.

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However, the results of paired samples t-test revealed no statistically

significant differences among neuroscores for the two video clip versions, with and

without virtual product placements (Table 23). So, H16 was not supported.

Table 23: Extract from paired samples t-test for testing influence of virtual

product placement strategy

Mean

Std.

Deviation

Paired

Differences

in Means Significance

Pair 1 EA_CIF 0,45 0,16

EA_WOUTCIF 0,46 0,13 -0,01 0,83

Pair 2 AT_CIF 0,74 0,13

AT_WOUTCIF 0,77 0,15 -0,03 0,22

Pair 3 STRS_CIF 0,60 0,16

STRS_WOUTCIF 0,59 0,23 0,01 0,91

Pair 4 EA_OMO 0,45 0,15

EA_WOUTOMO 0,45 0,14 0,00 1,00

Pair 5 AT_OMO 0,75 0,17

AT_WOUTOMO 0,74 0,13 0,01 0,83

Pair 6 STRS_OMO 0,51 0,17

STRS_WOUTOMO 0,58 0,13 -0,07 0,11

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6. DISCUSSION OF RESULTS

Product placements on Turkish television media is allowed as of April, 2011.

Therefore, both its theory and practice in Turkey is at its infancy period yet.This

thesis study aimed at shedding light on effectiveness of this relatively new

phenomenon on Turkish TV media through use of the neuromarketing research

method. In addition, along with effectiveness factors that were revealed from the

product placement literature, effectiveness benchmark neuroscores, which were

developed based on established of experience and expertise of the neuromarketing

research company, were taken into consideration for evaluating effectiveness of

various product placement executions being tested.

First, from practical point of view, effectiveness of various test product

placements were assessed in relation to benchmarkEmotional Attachment, Attention

and Stress neuroscores. When one-sample t-test was performed for EA, AT and

STRS scores of the subjects of Group A against the respective benchmark scores, it

was revealed that only the prominent placement of Samsung mobile phone, that was

shown on the foreground for approximately 4 seconds, attained statistically

significantly the effectiveness benchmark score for the attention. However, the said

placement was neither effective in establishing emotional attachment with the study

subjects nor in preventing the stress on them.

Next, Fiat car, which was also prominent being seen for almost 10 seconds but

on the background for almost 10 seconds, was not able to satisfy statistically

significantly any of the benchmark effectiveness neuroscores.

Based on this outcome, it can be said that prominent placements may perform

better in terms of attracting consumer attention when they are seen on foreground

explicitly, even for a very short period of time rather than being seen on background

for longer time periods. However, even so executed product placement did not

succeeded in establishing emotional affinity with the audience and decreasing their

stress, avoidance behavior (see Table 24).

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Moreover, the other test product placement for Group A was virtual billboard

placement of Casper mobile phone. Testing its scores in relation to benchmark

effectiveness scores revealed that virtual billboard placements are extremely

successful at attracting consumer attention, however, at the expense of increasing

their stress. In other words, virtual billboad placement of Casper mobile phone

succeeded at attracting high attention but this can not be interpreted as a favourable

one since at the same time their stress neuroscores increased statistically

significantly. Actually, participants devoted their attention to the virtual billboard

placement in order to figure out the reason of its presence within that scene. This

experience can be said to have created avoidance behavior at Group A participants

(see Table 24).

In addition, the last test product placements of Group A, Omo and Cif, were

virtual product placements. Similarly, their performance in relation to benchmark

scores did not yield statistically significant results as well (see Table 24).

Table 24. Results for Test Product Placements in relation to Effectiveness

Benchmark Scores

Statistial Significance between

EA, AT, STRS neuroscores of

test placements and Benchmark

scores

Group Placed Product

Name of the TV

serie Type/Strategy of the Placement EA: 0,44 AT: 0,7 STRS: 0,58

A Fiat 500 automobile Med Cezir Prominent no no no

A

Samsung mobile

phone Med Cezir Prominent no yes no

A

Casper mobile

phone Ġntikam Virtual-Billboard no yes yes

A Omo cleanser

Umutsuz Ev

Kadınları Virtual-Visual only no no no

A Cif cleanser

Umutsuz Ev

Kadınları Virtual-Visual only no no no

B Fiat automobile Med Cezir Subtle no no no

B

Samsung mobile

phone Med Cezir Subtle no no no

B Casper notebook Yalan Dünya Prominent- Visual only no no no

C Fiat automobile Med Cezir

Subtle with Priming (10 sec Fiat

ad) yes yes no

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C

Samsung mobile

phone Med Cezir

Subtle with Priming (10 sec

Samsung ad) no yes no

C Casper notebook Kayıp Prominent- Visual only no yes yes

C Fiat automobile

TV commercial (the

prime) 10 sec Fiat TV commercial no yes yes

C

Samsung mobile

phone

TV commercial (the

prime) 10 sec Samsung TV commercial no yes no

Furthermore, with regard to test product placements of Group B, as it is

depicted in Table 24, none of them yielded statistically significant results in relation

to benchmark neuroscores. Then, it can be said that when the placement is a subtle

one (Fiat automobile and Samsung mobile phone)it neither can attract consumer

attention nor can it establish an emotional warmth. Also, it can not bypass consumer

avoidance behavior, that was rvidenced by the STRS neuroscore. Moreover, contrary

to what was expected, the other test product placement of Group B, that was

placement of Casper notebook within a humorous TV series, did not generate

statistically significant results as well. Although the product and its logo was seen on

the foreground more than once and in couple of times for more than 5 seconds. Still

the placement was not evaluated as an effective one in relation to benchmark scores.

This outcome was explainedby Mr. Girisken and Mr. Demircioglu, founders and

owners of the neuromarketing research company,who stated that the appearance of

the face of one of the characters at the same time with the product logo directed the

consumer attention to the character‘s gace. They asserted that people always have

tendencies to look at faces whenever they appear on the TV screen, as it can be

observed from Eye-tracking results of the said test placement within Figure 23.

Finally, with regard to test product placements of Group C, it can be observed

from the Table 24 that priming the subtle placements with 10 second ads improved

statistically significantly their effectiveness, in particular for Fiat automobile

placement. Only the primed subtle Fiat automobile placement succeded at

establishing an emotional warmth at participants, along with high attention. Although

priming of subtle Samsung placement attained statistically significant attention level

in relation to benchmark score, it still could not create an emotional affinity with

participants. So, it can be said that priming a subtle placement, is an effective

102

execution strategy for attracting high consumer attention. Table 24 evidences that

consumer attention level for placed product can be increased significantly by primes.

However, creating an emotional warmth with a primed subtle product placement is

still not a guarantee, which may depend on the product type.

Figure 23: Eye Tracking result by Respondent 1 of Group B, who did not look at the

logo of the brand placed but rather focused at the face of the character

Moreover, the other test product placement, that was placement of Casper

notebook within a drama type TV series, yielded promising results for attracting

consumer attention and bypassing consumer stress and avoidance behavior. As it can

be observed from Figure 24, that is Eye-tracking result of a participant in Group C,

the placed product is exactly the same with the one in Group B that was placed

within humorous TV series (Figure 23).

Figure 24: Eye Tracking result by Respondent 3 of Group C, who did look at

the logo of the placed brand

103

However, the logo of the placed brand is less visible in relation to the one in

Figure 23. Despite this, the placement in the drama type TV series performed better.

This can be justified again on the same ground that was put forth before, there is no

appearance of a character‘s face for the placement of Group C placement that was

displayed in the drama type TV series. So, the participants focused on the logo of the

placed brand and generated high attention neuroscores, as well as, low stress

neuroscore, implying that they did not have difficulties in articulating the presence of

this branded product within the scene.

On the other hand, in relation to product placement execution related

effectiveness factors that were revealed throughout the review of the literature,

effectiveness of test product placements were assessed in relation to namely

prominence, priming, tone/type of the TV programme and the product placement

strategy. Table 25 summarizes results of the all hypotheses of this study.

Table 25: Results of the study

Hypotheses Testing.. Hypotheses

Placement

Characteristics Placed Brand Groups Results

in relation to effectiveness

benchmark neuroscores

H1a, H1b, H2a,

H2b, H3a, H3b

All test product

placements

Fiat, Samsung,

Casper, Omo,

Cif A, B, C

H1a, H1b, H3a, H3b

partially supported; H2a,

H2b: not supported.

in relation to execution

related factors

Product Placement Strategy:

Prominence

H4, H5, H6

Prominent vs.

Subtle Product

Placements Fiat, Samsung A, B

H4, H5, H6: not supported

Priming H7, H8, H9

Subtle vs. Subtle

Primed Fiat, Samsung B, C

H7, H8, H9: partially

supported; Significantly

higher EA and lower STRS

neuroscores for Fiat primed

placement

Type/tone of the TV

programme H10, H11, H12

Humorous vs

Drama TV series Casper B, C H10, H11, H12: not supported

104

Product Placement Strategy:

Virtual vs Plot integrated H13, H14, H15

Virtual vs. Plot

integrated Casper A, C

H15:

supported;Significantly

higher STRS neuroscores

for virtual placement H13, H14: not supported

H16

Virtual Product

Placement Omo, Cif A H16:not supported

With regard to prominence, in the literature review it was revealed that

prominent product placements performed better than subtle ones in relation to

consumer memory measures. In accordance with the findings from the literature, it

was anticipated that prominent placements would perform better than subtle ones and

generate higher EA and AT but lower STRS neuroscores. However, the output of

independent samples t-test, that was performed between EA, AT, STRS neuroscores

of prominent Fiat and Samsung placements (viewed by Group A participants) and

subtle Fiat and Samsung placements (viewed by Group B participants), revealed that

there were no statistically significant differences among neuroscores of prominent

and subtle product placements. Based on the neuromarketing research method, it can

be concluded that executing a prominent product placement will not yield

significantly better outcomes than those that subtle ones will yield.

Moreover, with regard to priming, it was revealed in the literature that a prime

prior to a prominant placement activates PKM and generates negative brand attitude.

However, in this study when independent samples t-test between EA, AT, STRS

neuroscores of subtle Fiat automobile and Samsung mobile phone placements

(viewed by Group B) and primed subtle placements (viewed by Group C) was

performed, it was revealed that priming improved effectiveness of subtle

placements.Especially, the Fiat primeimprovedneuroscoresof Fiat subtle placement

significantly. EA score both during and after the Fiat placement increased

significantly for its primed execution implying that the primed Fiat placement

achieved to establish emotional connection with Group C participants. In addition,

STRS neuroscore for Group C participants decreased afterviewing primed Fiat

105

placement. But for subtle Samsung mobile phone placement, an antecedant prime did

not generate statistically significant differences in EA scores in relation to its

primeless execution.

Next, in the product placement literature it was revealed that placements in a

humorous scenes generate more favourable consumer attitudes in relation to those in

non-humorous scenes. However,in our case, when differences in EA, AT, STRS

neuroscores for Casper notebook placement within a humorous and a drama type TV

series were investigated, no statistically significant differences were observed. The

appearance of face of the one of the main characters of the at the same time with the

placement might have affected the effectiveness of the neuroscores for the Casper

placement within the humorous series.

Additionally, effectiveness of two different product placement execution

strategies were compared. EA, AT and STRS neuroscores for virtual billboard

placement and plot integrated visual only placement of Casper branded notebook

were compared. To avoid any differences in neuroscores that might have sourced

from the tone of the TV programme, both of placements were extracted from drama

type TV series (Intikam and Kayıp). The independent samples t-test revealed that the

said two product placement execution strategies differed statistically significantly

only in their STRS neuroscores. The virtual billboard product placement strategy

created more stress at the Group A participants than the plot integrated visual only

placement had created at Group C participants.

In addition, for assessing effectiveness of virtual product placements,

differences in neuroscores of Group A participants for both video clips with and

without virtual placements of Omo and Cifwere compared. The two versions of

video clips were exactly the same, except for the presence of virtual placement in one

of them. However, the paired samples t-test did not yield statistically significant

differences between the two versions. So, it can be concluded that the virtual product

placement despite its increasing popularity on Turkish TV media, is not an effective

product placement execution strategy.

106

7. CONCLUSION, IMPLICATIONS AND LIMITATIONS

7.1. Conclusion

Product placement has been increasingly attracting both scholarly and

practitioner interest during the last three decades. However, question marks

regarding its effectiveness are still prevalent. Especially in Turkey, where the said

practice on TV media was allowed and regulated with the 6112 numbered RTUKact

since April 2011, both academic studies and practitioner efforts devoted for assessing

product placement effectiveness are extremely scarce. This thesis study took an

initiative for shedding light on this issue. Besides its topic, the research method

employed for the purposes of this study, the neuromarketing, is a novel one for

Turkish marketing literature as well. To date, there is not any published academic

studythat had been conducted on the product placement subjectusing the

neuromarketing research method.

The effectiveness of test product placements of this study were assesed from two

aspects. First, the neuroscores for test product placements were assesed in relation to

neuromarketing effectiveness benchmark scores, that were developed by the

neuromarketing research company. Second, they were assessed in relation to

execution related effectiveness factors that were revealed during the literature review

part of this study.

Results from both asssesments revealed two common conclusions that(i) it is not

the prominence, subtlety, strategy of the placement or the tone/type of the TV

programme that boosts effectiveness of product placements but rather an antecedent

ad, (ii) virtual product placements, despite rising as a new popular product placement

strategy on Turkish TV media, is not actually an effective product placement

strategy, attracting high consumer attention but at the cost of creating high stress,

confusion at the consumer.

107

7.2.Managerial Implications

Based on the two common conclusions stated above, invaluable implications can

be drawn for practitioners in the field. First, the product placements, which had been

promoted as viable alternatives to traditional ads for years, should not be considered

as rivals to ads anymore. Instead they should be considered as parts of an product

placement execution strategy, where an antecedant ad supplements effectiveness of

the product placement,especially in attracting high consumer attention. Effectiveness

of product placements in establishing an emotional link with the consumer was

observed only in case of one product, Fiat automobile. Therefore, establishing an

emotional atachment with the consumer through a product placement execution that

involves an antecedant prime can be said to be dependant on the product

type/category.

Moreover, the reports by Nar Agency evidenced that the presence of virtual

product placement applications are on a rapid rise in Turkey. However, based on the

results of this thesis study it can be proposed that this product placement strategy

should not be a preffered one. While virtual placement of products within the

plot/scene creates no significant differences at all, the virtual billboard placement

attracts high consumer attention but actually because of confusion, stress that it

creates at consumers. The consumer experiences difficulties at understanding the

reason of such a branded billboard that is most of the time appearing all of a sudden

during their watching experience of the TV series. Therefore, not only any financial

resources devoted to the said product placement strategy will be wasted, but also it is

highly likely that this placement strategy generates unfavourable consumer attitude

toward the placed brand.

108

7.3.Limitations and Future Research

Although the research design of this study can be considered as a well-founded

one as compared to a typical experimental research design, it is still subject to some

limitations, mainly due to its sample size. Although the total sample size (n = 91) and

the sample sizes for the three groups (n = 31; n = 30; n = 30) can be considered as

more than sufficient (compared to the most experimental research studies), sample of

this size may still cause difficulties for performing solid statistical analyses.

Admittedly, there were several casesin each of the groups that were not involved in

the statistical analyses either because the data provided by them was not evaluated as

valid or due to technical problems experienced during neuromarketing measurement

process. In addition, it can be said that the group sample sizes for some test

placements were decreased to even 18 in some cases. However, since a typical

sample size for most neuromarketing studies is maximum 18, then sample of this

sizeisstill expected to yield firm statistical results. Nonetheless, the readers should be

cautious in generalizing the results.

Moreover, this study only focused on a limited number of different product

placements execution strategies, namely prominent, subtle, primed, virtual, visual-

only plot integrated product placements. Therefore, future studies should investigate

effectiveness of other product placement execution strategies, such as audio-only,

both visual and audio product placements. Also, in this study only the product

placement effectiveness within a humorous and drama type TV series were

investigated. Future research can explore effectiveness within other type of TV

programmes, such as information-news programmes, game shows, competitions.

Additionally, it should be also noted that in this study only a limited number of

product types, namely, automobile, mobile phone, notebook and cleansers, that were

placed within TV series were considered. Future research may focus either on other

product types or prefer to explore more in-depth only one or at most two of the said

product types. To illustrate, focusing on effectiveness of placements of automobiles,

109

which based on the results of this study were found to be most influental at the

consumer among all test product placements, will most likely yield invaluable results

for practitioners in the field.

Next, a 10 second ad was considered as a prime for product placement execution

in this study and was evidenced as highly influental in product placement

effectiveness, in particular attracting consumer attention. Future research may

explore its influence on product placement effectiveness in case of executing it not

before but after the product placement.

110

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118

APPENDICES

Appendix 1. Studies on Movie Product Placements

Reference Year Aim

Sample and

Method

Effectiveness

measure Effect

Brennan et

al. 2004

to investigate

perceptions and

attitudes of Australian

moviegoers' in

relation to the

acceptability of

placements including

those of ethically

charged goods

survey with 146

students (with a

mall-intercept

approach on a

campus)

attitude

acceptability of

ethically and

non-ethically

charged goods

Non-ethically-charged-goods (neutral

products) were accepted more than

ethically charged ones;cigarettes being

the least acceptable of ethically charged

ones and fatty foods in neutral ones.

Males and frequent movie watchers were

found to accept ethically goods more

than females and infrequent movie

watchers.

Similar pattern of individual influences

found on placement perceptions between

Australians' and those of Americans',

Austrians' and Frenchs'

d'Astous

and

Chartier 2000

to examine the impact

of objective and

subjective

characteristics of

placements on

consumer evaluations

and memory

experiment

(excerpt from

movies)

accompanied by a

telephone survey

of 103 moviegoers

one week later

spontaneous

recall and

recognition

Positively evaluated and prominent

placements were evidenced to increase

brand awareness

Strong plot connected found to enhance

favourable consumer attitudes

DeLorme

and Reid 1999

to examine how brand

placements are

interpreted within the

everyday lived

experience of the

movie audience

8 focus groups and

30 interviews with

nonstudent

movieviewers

placement

interpretations

Three themes - appreciating realism,

noticing the familiar, relating to

characters- to movie centrality

four consumption specific themes -tools

for purchasing decisions, tools for

identity and aspirations, changes and

discomfort, and belonging and security-

were uncovered.

Regardless of age and movie watching

frequency, participants were active in

viewing experience and interpreting

placements, which to older ones

symbolized social change while to

younger ones belonging and security.

Gupta and

Gould 1997

to explore perceptions

of the acceptability of

placements in movies

survey with 1012

college students

attitude

product

placement

acceptability

Positive attitudes in general -especially

by those who value percieved realism

and less restrictions- were observed

Less acceptability of ethically charged

goods (alcohol, guns, cigarette) was

prevalent.

Frequent movie watchers and males

were found to more accepting ethically

charged goods.

119

Gupta et

al. 2000

to discuss product

placement issues from

perspectives of

marketers,

moviemakers,

consumer advocates

re-analysis of

survey data from

Gupta and Gould

(1997) attitude

2 distinct segments, "those who like ads

less" and "those who like ads more"

were found

Positive attitudes toward placements

replicated but higher for the latter

segment.

Two perdictors of attitude toward

placements "attitude against placement

of ethically charged goods" and "

subconcious influence potential of

placements" were evidenced to have

differential impact between segments.

Gould et

al. 2000

to investigate

crossnational

perceptions of the

efficacy and

acceptability of

placements through

comparison of results

by Gupta and Gould

(1997) in US with

those generated from

Austrian and French

samples

U.S. survey data

from Gupta and

Gould (1997) and

questionnaire with

204 French and

240 Austrian

participants

attitude

product

placement

acceptability

U.S. consumers found to accepting more

and purchasing more likely the product

placed (country-based difference).

Some products (ethically charged ones)

were found to be less acceptable

(product difference)

Gender differences were evidenced

across all three countries (individual

difference; males accepting more than

females)

Gupta and

Lord 1998

to compare

effectiveness of

product placement

strategies with each

other and with

advertising

experiment

(excerpt from

movies)

accompanied by a

survey of 274

students

spontaneous recall

aided recall

Prominent placements generated higher

recall than advertisements, which, in

turn, outperformed subtle placements.

Explicit audio placements lead to better

recall rate than a subtle visual placement

but adding audio message to a prominent

visual placement did not enhance its

recall rate.

Auty and

Lewis 2004

to examine the

influence of product

placements on

children of two

different age groups

(6-7 and 11-12)

experiment

accompanied by an

interview with 105

children (48 of

them were 11-12;

rest 6-7 years old)

recall

implicit test of

preference

The group that saw the branded movie

clip prefered significantly to drink the

product that was placed in the film.

However, the interview revealed that it

was not only the exposure to placement

but rather together with a previous

exposure that affected choice. Age was

not found to affect the choice.

Yang and

Roskos-

Ewoldsen 2007

to examine the

influence of three

different placement

leveles on explicit and

implicit memory for

the brand, implicit

choice behavior and

attitudes toward the

brand

experiment (movie

clips with three

placement levels,

background, used

by character, plot

connected)

accompanied by a

survey with 373

students

explicit memory

(recognition),

implicit

memory (word-

fragment completion test)

implicit

behavior

attitude toward

the brand

Recognition rate was heighest for the

one used by the character and the plot

connected one but lowest for

background placement.

Word-fragment completion (implicit

memory) rates for placed brands were

higher than those that were not placed.

Participants who were exposed to the

brand in the movie were more likely to

choose the brand than those were not.

Only when the product was used by

main character the audience expressed

more positive attitude toward the placed

brand.

120

Jin and

Villegas 2007

to explore the role of

prior brand evaluation

and the placement in

humorous movies on

the consumer

judgement stage

experiment (two

different versions

of a movie clip

displayed to two

different groups)

accompanied by a

survey of 185

undergraduate

students

emotional response

attitude

purchase

intention

Placements in humorous movie scenes

lead to positive emotional responses

from consumers.

Prior brand evaluation was found to be

significant in post-decision-making

processes (e.g. purchasing behavior).

Johnstone

and Dodd 2000

to investigate

effectiveness of

placements as

mediators of brand

salience within a UK

cinema audience

experiment

(excerpt from a

movie)

accompanied by

both pre- and post-

exposure

questionnaires with

53 participants

brand salience

self monitoring

liking

attitude

Placements increased levels of brand

salience and these levels found to be

likely to increase significantly in

individuals who like (or attend to) the

film and who are high self-monitors

Familiarity with a product category and

prior exposure to host communicator

were found to be likely to have an

adverse effect upon brand salience

Cholinski 2012

to examine the

effectiveness of

prominent, audio-

visual, highly plot

connected product

placement

experiment

accompanied by a

survey of 200

Polish movie

viewers

unaided brand

awareness,

attitudes toward placed brands

brand choice

Exposure to the prominent, audio-visual,

highly plot connected placement

increased brand awareness among

viewers, regardless of other executional

variables

However, it did not guarantee positive

impact on attitudes and brand choice.

Nelson

and

Devanatha

n 2006

to explore Indian

moviegoers' responses

to brand placements in

a Bollywood film

experiment

accompanied by a

survey with 86

participnats (%85

graduate students)

recall (effect of

film

involvement

and brand

consciousness on recall)

attitude

Film involvement showed a negative

effect on brand recall, whereas, brand

consciousness had a positive effect

Brand consciousness also had a positive

effect on enhancing film realism aspect

of brand placements but it was not

related to attitudes toward placements in

general.

Nelson

and

McLeod 2005

to assess influence of

commercial media

(e.g.Tv, movies) and

percieved peer and

parent brand

consciousness on US

adoloscent brand

consciousness

survey of 462

students (about

clothing, selection,

appearance

satisfatction,

communication

with peers and

parents)

brand

consciousness,

placement

awareness and liking

percieved

effects on self

and others

Movies and percieved parent and peer

brand consciousness were positively

related to adolescent brand

consciousness.

High brand conscious adolescents were

most aware and favourable towards

placements.

All adolescents found to consider that

others were influenced by placements

more than themselves (third person

perception)

Panda 2004

to examine

effectiveness of

product placements in

Indian films in

relation to brand

memory and attitude

experiment

accompanied by a

survey with 80

postgraduate

students

recall, recognition

attitude

Positive attitudes toward placements in

general were observed.

Well known brands (recall rate for Coke

%100) and explicit placements were

recalled better than lesser-known brands

and subtle placements.

Lehu and

Bressoud 2008

to explore new

insights regarding

viewers' reactions

during a second

viewing of a movie

experiment

(watching of a

rental DVD at

home) rented

accompanied by a

survey with 3532

French DVD

viewers

recall:

sponataneous

day after recall

(SDAR)

Recall of placed brands improved after

first viewing of the movie at the cinema,

as well as, after watching it at home on a

large home cinema screen

Choosing a DVD movie because of its

director and liking the movie itself were

found to enhance recall of the placed

brands.

121

Lehu and

Bressoud 2009

to investigate the

interaction between

prominence and plot

connection in the

context of consumer

perceptual process

experiment

(watching of a

rental DVD at

home) rented

accompanied by a

survey with 3532

French DVD

viewers

recall:

sponataneous

day after recall

(SDAR)

Prominent and plot connected

placements were found to generate better

brand recall than prominent placements

that were not plot connected, which in

turn, lead to better recall rate than plot

connected placements that were not

prominent

Bressoud

and Lehu 2007

to assess effectiveness

according to the

spectator's viewing

conditions (before,

during, after viewing

the movie)

experiment

(watching of a

rental DVD at

home) rented

accompanied by a

survey with 3532

French DVD

viewers

recall:

sponataneous

day after recall

(SDAR)

Liking movie director, movie genre, and

the movie itself improved recall of

placed brands but speaking with

someone else while watching the movie

weakened the recall rate.

Dens et al. 2012

to investigate effects

of placement

prominence and plot

connection on brand

attitude and

recognition

experiment

accompanied by an

online survey with

375 watchers of a

full length movie

in a movie theater

(real setting)

recognition

attitude

Highest recognition score was observed

for placement that was highly prominent

and highly plot connected but most

positive attitude was observed for

strongly plot connected less prominent

placements.

Brand recognition found to mediate the

effect of only plot connection -but not

the prominence- on brand attitude.

Brennan

and Babin 2004

to assess the effect of

adding an audible

reference to a visually

prominent brand

placement on

recognition of the

brand placed

experiment (entire

movie viewed in

class) accompanied

by a survey with

98 undergraduate

students recognition

Recognition levels of audiovisual

prominent placements are higher than

those by visual-only placements

Higher recognition scores for familiar

brands than for unfamiliar ones, even

when recognition scores for familiar

brands were adjusted

Morton

and

Friedman 2002

to investigate the

correlation between

audience beliefs about

a placement and

reported product

usage following

exposure

survey with 132

college students

belief (attittude)

and behavior

Beliefs that are associated with a

product's portrayal in a movie were

found to be likely to be useful in

predicting product usage following

exposure

Eisend 2009

to investigate cross

cultural

generalizability of

consumers' acceptance

of movie placements

re-analysis of

survey data from

previous

acceptability

studies (Gould et

al, 2000; Brennen

et al., 2004;

McKehnie and

Zhou, 2003;

Mouskourova et

al., 2006)

attitude

acceptability of

ethically

charged and

neutral goods

Product placement acceptability of

ethically charged goods were found to

be generalizable over 7 differerent

cultures but neutral product were not.

Ethically charged goods were described

as "indifferent" between acceptable and

unacceptable over all cultures, while

neutral products were highly accepted

and its acceptance varied from country

to country.

Vollmers

and

Mizerski 1994

to assess

communication

effects of product

placements

Experiment with

71 college students

that involves

placements within

a movie clip recall

Found high unaided recall of brands

placed within the movie clips, but no

significant difference between the

treatment and control groups in terms of

affect for the products appearing in the

films.

122

Pardun

and

McKee 1996

to gain a better

understanding of their

perspective on the

practice of brand

placement as part of

an overall media

strategy.

National mail

survey of top 500

advertising

agencies in United

States

practitioner

beliefs

Respondents were relatively

knowledgeable and enthusiastic about

the practice of movie placements

They acknowledged the positive and

long-term role of brand placement in

movies, considered the potential for a

national audience to be the most

important benefit, and expected to

increase their usage of brand placement

in the future

Ong and

Meri 1994

to assess viewers'

brand recall, purchase

intentions, and ethical

judgments of the

practice of brand

placement.

75 theatergoers

sample two real

movies shown in a

theater and theater

exit interviews

spontaneous

recall

Found low unaided recall with recall

ability and patterns differing greatly

among individual respondents.

Subjects who did remember brands in

movies did not indicate increased

purchase intentions.

Respondents had generally positive

attitudes toward the practice of brand

placement.

Nebezahl

and

Secunda 1993

to explore

moviegoers' attitudes

toward the practice of

brand placement in

movies

survey with 171

college students attitude

Most respondents did not object to brand

placement, considering it as an effective

marketing communication technique

More positive attitudes were observed

toward the practice than toward other,

more obtrusive promotional forms.

A small minority of respondents

objected to brand placement because

they felt it was deceptive.

Karrh 1995

to examine

professionals' beliefs

about the practice of

brand placement.

National mail

survey 22 brand

placement

practitioners who

were all members

of the professional

group, ERMA

practitioner

beliefs

Respondents believed the most effective

brand placements have a recognizable

package or design, positive portrayal in

the movie, and further promotional

support.

They consider the best measures of

brand placement effectiveness to be

recall and recognition.

McKee

and

Pardun 2000

to examine PR

professionals' beliefs

about the practice of

brand placement.

survey with 106

public relations

professionals in

US.

practitioner

beliefs

PR professionals reported ―international

viewing potential‖ instead of national

one together with ―price of the

placement‖ and ―theme of the movie‖ as

the most important factors.

Karrr,

McKee

and

Pardun 2003

to reveal the evolution

of practitioners‘

product placement

views since Karrh's

study conducted in

1995

questionnaire with

28 ERMA

members

practitioner

beliefs

Effective placements in 2003 mandated

a more expanded set of both executional

factors and brand characteristics.

Also, the importance attached by

practitioners to each executional factor

and brand characteristic increased.

More practitioners in 2003 believed that

product placements have a subliminal

aspect than in 1995.

Additionally, practitioners‘ belief

regarding the future rise in product

placements was reinforced in 2003.

Babin and

Carder

1996

a

to assess

communication

effects of 39 brands

placed within full-

length movie, Rocky

III (1982)

Simulated theater

viewing

experiment with

108 college

students brand salience

Brand salience was significantly greater

for treatment than control group for

more than 25% of the 39 brands

appearing in the movie.

No significant differences found

between groups in terms of attitudes

toward 15 of the brands examined.

123

Babin and

Carder

1996

b

to explore viewers'

recognition of movie

product placements

Simulated theater

viewing

experiment with 98

college students

focusing on

viewers'

recognition of 36

brands appearing

in each of the full

length movies

Rocky III and

Rocky V. recognition

Viewers correctly recognized brands

appearing within their respective movies

and also were able to distinguish

correctly among brands not present in

the movie they viewed.

For Rocky III, over 50% of brands were

recognized by more than 30% of its

viewers and for Rocky Vover 33% of

brands were recognized by more than

30% of its viewers.

Argan et

al 2007

to explore placement

strategies used in a

Turkish movie named

GORA and measure

their effectiveness

through unaided recall

test

content analysis

and a questionnaire

with 277 film

viewers

unaided recall

nature and

prevalence of

placements

% 86.6 of the audience recalled

unaidedly at least one brand that was

placed in the film.

Most recalled ones were shortly showed

on the screen (4-6 seconds) but they

were congruent to the plot.

Liking of the film affected positively the

recall rate of placed products but other

demographics such as age, gender,

education etc did not

Bressoud

et al 2010

to assess relative

impact of placement

and audience

characteristics on

product placement

recall

survey with 3,532

individuals who

viewed a DVD

movie

rental the previous

day recall

Viewing the movie on a large screen was

found to be the most important factor on

recall. It also increases the positive

impact of visual characteristics of the

placement.

Another key finding was the detrimental

effect of multiple simultaneous

placements, which reduce placement

recall as well as eliminate the otherwise

positive impact of a placement‘s level of

plot integration and auditory mention.

Jan and

Martina 2013

to discover connection

between company‘s

competitiveness

and product

placement as a

marketing tool, as

well as, the genesis of

product placement

survey with 24 TV

studio experts,

directors and

producers, and

other experts

(media agencies

and advertisers) in

Czech Republic

practitioners

views

Marketers are sure that product

placement is efficient.

The product placement is one of above-

the-line marketing tools belonging to a

longterm marketing field where the

brand building is also included.

Nelli 2009

to investigate attitudes

toward and

acceptability of

product placements

by Italian college

students

survey with 400

Italian college

students

attitude

acceptability

Generally favourable attitudes toward

product placement were found.

Product and gender have an impact on

product placement acceptability.

Comparisons to the previous American,

Australian, Chinese, Austrian and

French findings show a similar pattern

of individual infl uences on product

placement perception.

Nonetheless, Italians had lower

acceptance levels for product placements

and ethically charged goods in relation

to US, French and Austrian consumers.

124

McKehnie

and Zhou 2003

to compare attitudes

of Chinese consumers

towards product

placement to those of

American consumers

experiment (

watching of a

movie clip that

involved scenes

with product

placements from 4

different films)

accompanied by a

self-administered

questionnaire with

108 Chinese

studentss

attitude

acceptability

Country differences were evident since

Chinese consumers were generally less

accepting of product placement than

American consumers.

However, individual differences were

not found to have much of an impact

given the major differences in cultural

values between the US and China.

Also more ethically-charged products

generated greater concerns among both

US and Chinese consumers than less

ethically-charged products

sung et al 2009

to investigate attitudes

towards product

placement in films

among non-student

viewers

survey with a US

sample of 3,340

non-students

attitude

consumer

perceptions

Non-students are more neutral towards

the practice than students. They are

positively disposed towards product

placement, value the realism that

placement brings, and do not perceive

the practice as unethical or misleading.

A diverse pattern of differences in

perception across demographic groups

Minority perceived need for

governmental regulation of product

placement and that the only situation for

which consumers would desire

regulation is for the placement of

ethically charged products having a

significant proportion of non-adult

audience members.

Torrano

and Flores 2009

to analyse product

placement (PP)

effectiveness based on

Dual Mediation

Hypothesis Model

DMH (Mackenzie et

al, 1986) for French

and Spanish

consumers

experiment (four

groups formed

based on movie

watching

frequency and

frequency of using

the product)

accompanied by a

questionnaire to a

sample of 409 (205

French and 204

Spanish

undergraduate

students).

effectivene

ss through

thoughts,

attitude,

brand

influences,

purchase

intention

and cross-

cultural

comparison

Thoughts about PP were found to

influence on attitude towards PP,

attitude toward PP to influence thoughts

about brand, and thoughts about brand

influences in turn on attitude towards

brand, and attitude towards brand

influences on purchase intention.

With reference to cross-cultural aspect,

the results show that there are not

significant differences between French

and Spanish consumers.

Appendix 2. Studies on TV Product Placements

Reference Year Aim Sample and Method Measure(s) Results

d'Astous

and Seguin 1998

to examine the impact of

different placement

strategies (based on type

of placement, sponsor's

image, type of TV

program, sponsor-

program congruity) on

experimentally

designed

questionnaires, which

included 12 vignettes

corresponding

placement conditions,

with 93 students Attitude

Most negative reactions were

evidenced to be generated by

placements in mini-series/dramas.

Placements were percieved as less

ethical when they are passive and

implicit witihin an

information/services magazines.

125

consumer reactions Sponsor-program congruity leads to

better ethical and evaluative

reactions for all TV program types

except for mini-series and dramas

Law and

Braun 2000

to investigate

effectiveness of

placements on TV

through explicit and

implicit memory measures

experiment (watching a

10 minute clip from a

TV serie) accompanied

by a survey with 111

undergraduate students

recall and

recognition

implicit

memory

(product

choice)

Overall enhancement in product

recall, recognition and choice due to

placement was observed.

Centrality to the plot generated

increased recall but not product

choice, while visual placements

most influenced choice but were

least recalled.

Performance on explicit memory

task found to be not neccessarily

related to implicit memory

performance.

Reijmerdsal

et al. 2007

to examine effects of

exposure frequency of

television placements on

brand image and to

investigate the role of

brand memory

an online survey with

655 respondents and an

experiment (watching

an informational TV

program) as well as a

second follow-up online

survey with 139

undergraduates

recognition,

brand image,

attitude

toward

placement

Effects of placements on brand

image were observed to occur after

two or more exposures.

Brand image changed in the

direction of the program but no

effect of brand memory on brand

image and no significant

relationship were observed between

exposure frequency and brand use,

age, education, gender, attitude.

Tiwsakul et

al. 2005

to investigate attitudes to

and recognition of

explicit, non-integrated

placements in British TV

programs by young and

mixed nationality TV

viewers

in-depth interviews and

questionnaires

regarding soap operas

and mini-series on

British TV channels

with 50 respondents

Attitude

acceptability

Positive attitudes but low recall

rates for the said placement type

were observed but inconclusive

result for its direct sales effect.

Placements were prefered to

advertisements but subliminal

placements and the use of ethically

charged goods in placements were

found to be major ethical concerns.

Gender differences in acceptability

of ethically charged goods was

observed.

Cowley and

Barron 2008

to investigate whether

prominent placements in

TV programs will cause a

negative brand attitude for

viewers who like the

program

experiment (display of

2 mini-serie episodes,

one with placements

and the other with both

placements and ads as

persuasive-intent

primes) to two groups

accompanied by a

survey with 215

undergraduate students

recall and

recognition

Prominent placements were found to

generate negative brand attitude

when the program was liked; it

lgenerated positive brand attitude

when the program was not liked

much but this positive shift

disappeared when a persuasive-

intent prime preceded exposure to

prominent placement.

Subtle placements were found to be

less likely to cause negative shifts in

brand attitude

Homer 2009

to examine the effects of

placement repetition

comparing to subtle

placements with

prominent ones

experiment (4 movie

clips -subtle/prominent

placement *

low/moderate

repetition-

shown)accompanied by

a survey with 108

attitudes

towards brand

and the TV show

beliefs

regarding the

Repetition of prominent placements

for known brands found to have a

negative impact on brand attitude

but subtle placements were

appreciated especially with

moderate repetition levels.

126

students program

Gould and

Gupta 2006

to inquire how consumers

view game shows and

products placed in them

In Study1 101 students

watched and

commented on one game show;

in Study2 23 informants

were interviewed

consumer

interpretations

Study 1 yielded four major themes:

(1) the referencing practices of

reflexivity, intertextuality, and

communal referencing; (2) specific

game shows as ites of meaning; (3)

postmodern game show

ambivalence; and (4) product

placement as a site of meaning

A model emerged consisting of

three interacting sites of constructed

meaning—(1) consumers, (2) game

shows, and (3) products placed

Gupta and

Gould 2007

to explore relative effects

of placements (in the form

of prizes in game shows)

versus traditional

advertising in terms of

recall and within the

context of game shows

experiment (30 minute

clip with both

placements and

commercials from a

game show shown)

accompanied by a

survey with 167

students

unaided,

aided and

total recall

Location and price of the product

were most important predictors for

placement (prize) recall and

commercials were overall better

recalled

Russell and

Stern 2005

to predict product

placement effets on TV

sitcoms with his proposed

Product-Character

Association (PCA) model

experiment (watching a

sitcom episode that was

created for the study)

accompanied by a

survey with 106

undergraduate students

attitudes

toward the

sitcom

episode,

products and

characters

Respondents distinguished between

recurrent and temporary characters

and made more PCAs with recurrent

ones; respondents were found to

associate products with characters

and their attitudes toward character

were found to drive attitude toward

the product associated with the

character.

Schmoll et

al. 2006

to investigate baby

boomers' attitudes

towards placements in

movies and TV

survey with 305

respondents Attitude

In general positive attitude towards

placements was observed and this

attitude was related to media

consumption.

Males were more positive than

females

%60 found to believe that

placements add realism into TV

shows.

Russell 2002

to investigate the

effectiveness of

placements on TV shows

through effect of modality

and plot connection

congruence on brand

memory and attitude

experiment (watching

of a 27 minute sitcom)

with 107 respondents

accompanied by

questionnaire

attitude

toward the

show,

characters and

recognition of

placed brands

Memory improved when modality

and plot connection were incogruent

but persuasion was enhanced by

congruency

Congruent placements appeared

natural, incongruents adversely

affected brand attitudes.

Ferraro and

Avery 2000a

to outline the frequency,

context and characteristics

of brands placed on

prime-time television

content analysis of 112

hours of prime-time TV

programming on 4

major networks

(ABC,CBS,FOX,NBC)

brand

appearance,

verbal

mention

Majority of placements were

observed to appear in sitcoms,

movies, dramas (%43), sports (%8),

news, feature magazine (%38) and

game shows (%11).

%40 of placements appeared in

shows suitable for product

placements and in these shows

placements were prominent,

127

involving character interaction

and/or being essential to the scene

Avery and

Ferraro 2000b

to explore the manifest

and latent aspects of brand

portrayal

content analysis of 112

hours of prime-time TV

programming on 4

major networks

(ABC,CBS,FOX,NBC)

prevalence

and nature of

placements

Majority of placements were

observed to appear in live or topical

events.

The majority of brands appeared in

scripted programs were suitable for

passive persuasion and subtly

displayed, while prominently placed

ones involved character interaction

and plot connection

Smit et al. 2009

to investigate the

prevalence and

characteristics of

placements on Dutch TV

and experiences of

practitioners in placement

production for TV

content analysis of one

week Dutch TV

programs and 24

interviews with

practitioners

placement

prevalence

and characteristics

practitioners'

views

Placements were more prevalent on

commercial networks than on public

network programmes; placements

on commercial networks were

mainly visual and plot integrated

while those on public channels were

less prominent.

Practitioners asserted that

placements are future of TV

advertising

Wouters

and

Pelsmecker 2011

to examine differences in

frequency and type of

placements between

scripted and non-scripted

US and Flemish TV

programs

content analysis of 42

prime-time nights on

six Flemish TV

channels was conducted

frequency and

type of

placement

No difference in placement

frequency between Flemish and US

programs was observed.

Flemish placements more often

produced in scripted programs,

while, US placements occured in

non-scripted more often.

US marketers handle the placement

integration more professionally than

their Flemish counterparts.

La Ferle

and

Edwards 2006

to assess placement

techniques, placements in

different program types;

the techniques used to

place goods, services and

other types of brands;

prevalence of placements

versus plugs and growth

of placements over time

content analysis of 105

hours of prime-time TV

programming across 5

major networks

(CBS,NBC,ABC, FOX,

The WB)

visual and

verbal

characteristics

One placement every 3 minutes of

programming with being mostly

visual (%52.8) was evidenced.

Brands related to media and

entertainment placed mostly

(%32.7), while special event

programmings involved the greatest

number of placements.

Traditional products (%38.2) were

most likely to be placed, followed

by entertainment-related (%26.1)

and service-related (%25.9) ones.

Russell and

Puto 1999

to investigate qualitatively

audiences' relationships

with TV programs

content analysis of

viewers' opinions on

focus groups, internet

fan forums,

phenomenological

interviews

high

involvement

and

connectedness

A construct named "connectedness"

was revealed

It defines the intense relationships

between the audience and a TV

program that touches to individuals'

personal and social lives

128

La Pastina 2001

to discuss the way that

rural viewers appropriate

telenovelas in their daily

lives and assign meanings

to the texts according to

their own values and

beliefs about gender

roles, relationships, and

sexuality.

a year-long

ethnographic study of

soap viewers in a small

rural community of

Brazil

consumer

interpretations

Product placements within

telenovelas are not necessarily read

as direct product promotion or

advertising but instead are perceived

as the glamour of upper-class

urbanites.

Relationship between viewers and

product placement is dynamic in

that different viewers not only

address the same text with different

subjectivities, but also within

contextual structures that enable or

constrain that text-reader

relationship.

Pervan and

Martin 2002

to examine the types of

products, context and

emotional outcomes of

consumption imagery in

soap operas in US and

New Zealand

content analysis of

highest rated soap

operas of US and New

Zealand

types of products

context and

emotional

outcomes of

consumption

imagery

Placements in American soap operas

displayed more consumption

imagery in relation to leisure and

appearance-related items, whereas

New Zealand soap operas included

placements of transport or food

related products.

Placements in New Zealand soap

operas yielded more positive

emotional consequences,

particularly for products such as

alcohol and cars in relation to those

in US soap operas

Appendix 3. Studies on Video Game Product Placements

Reference Year Media Aim Sample and method

Effectiveness

measure Effect

Acar 2007

Online

games

to examine effects of incidental

exposure to advertisements in

online games taking into

account location (high/low

proximity) and message

content (visual/verbal)

experiment (playing

an online game with

placements)

accompanied by a

questionnaire with

190 undergraduate

students

incidental

exposure

measures

High proximity to the focal area

was observed to have but

message content had no

incidental effects.

Chaney et

al. 2004

Online

games

to investigate effectiveness of

billboard placements

experiment (playing

an online game with

placements)

accompanied by a

questionnaire with 42

participants

unaided

recall

Higher recall rates than those for

sports events were evidenced.

Pictures were recalled better

than words and game experience

did not influence recall.

But there was a limited

agreement on the view that

billboards enhances game

experience

129

Wise et al. 2008

Video

games

to explore how variation in the

thematic connection between

the game and the brand affects

the relationship between

attitude toward the game and

the brand

experiment (playing a

video game with

placements)

accompanied by a

questionnaire with 40

participants

attitudes

toward the

game and

brand

Strong thematic connection

between the advergame and the

brand found to lead to stronger

positive relationship between

attitude toward the advergame

and the brand.

Kuhn et al 2007

Video

games

to investigate factors effecting

recall of brands placed in a

video game

focus group with 7

marketing students recall

Introductory footage to a game,

enhanced game skill and

experience were observed to

increase recall rate.

Lee and

Faber 2007

Online

games

to explore under which

conditions product placement

in an on-line game will get

noticed and be remembered

from a perspective of the

limited-capacity model of

attention

experiment (playing

an online game with

placements)

accompanied by a

questionnaire with

155 students

recall and

recognitio

n

Moderate involvement of

experienced gamers enhanced

their recognition of focal brands

but high involvement and low

game experience weakened the

recall; high incongruency

between placement type and the

game content enhanced recall.

Yang and

Wang 2008

Compu

ter

games

to examine under which

placement forms and for which

product types placements in

computer games are most

effective

experiment (playing

game with the three

placement forms,

goal, operator and

feedback)

accompanied by a

pre- and post-

experiment

questionnaire with

153 respondents

percieved

brand/pro

duct equity

brand

recall and

recognitio

n,

For shooting/sport games; tool

(high-utility but low price

products such as food and fuel)

and symbolic products (high

price but low utility such as

jewellery) feedback placements

For role-playing/strategic

games, tool and enhancement

products (high price and high

utility such as white electronics)

operator placements were found

to be suitable.

Goal placements should appear

when the player passes a new

level.

Winkler 2006

Compu

ter/vide

o

games

to investigate memory of

products, brands, and

companies in advergames and

whether the acceptability of

product placement in

advergames is related to

attitude towards advertising in

general

online questionnaire

applied to 42

advergamers who

were generated with

snowball sampling

recall

attitudes

toward in-

game

product

placement

s and

advertisin

g

Recall of products and

companies was high (%86).

Advergames might work more

effectively for brands that are

already known to the game

player

Being negative about advertising

in general was observed to have

a stronger influence on the

attitude towards product

placement in games than being

positive about advertising in

general

Glass 2007

video

games

to explore effectiveness of

product placements in relation

to attitudes using IAT (implicit

associations test)

experiment (playing a

video game with

placements)

accompanied by an

online questionnaire

with 28 college

students

IAT

(implicit

associatio

ns test)

Players categorized in game

brands as ―good‖ significantly

faster than they categorized

them as ―bad‖

They categorized in game

brands as "bad" significantly

longer than they did out-of-game

brands.

130

Walsh et al 2008

video

games

and

sports

progra

m

to compare effectiveness of

product placements in live tv

sport programs and those in

sport video games

experiment (playing a

video game,

NASCAR, with

placements)

accompanied by a

questionnaire with 72

undergraduate

students

recall and

recognitio

n

Brands placed on live tv sport

program (NASCAR race)

generated higher recall and

recognition rates than those in

sports video game (NASCAR

game)

Nelson 2002

comput

er/

video

games

to examine short term and long

term effectiveness of product

placements and players'

attitudes toward placements in

games (immediately after the game and 5 months later )

experiment (playing a

video game that

encompasses product

placements)

accompanied by a

questionnaire with 20

game players

unaided

and aided recall

attitude

25 to 30 % of recall rate in short

term, 10 to 15% in long term

was observed.

Recall superiority of brand when

it was major part of the game,

local, new and incongruent to

game setting.

Nelson et al 2004

comput

er

games

to explore attitudes of game

players toward advertising and

product placements

netnography and

questionnaire that

resulted in analysis of

805 postings on

Slashdot named

discussion web site

attitude

evaluation

s of

placement

s

Positive relationship between

attitudes toward advertising in

general and attitudes toward

product placement in games was

observed

Yang et al. 2006

comput

er/

video

games

to examine effectiveness of

product placements in terms of

explicit (recognition test) and

imlicit memory (word

fragment test) measures

experiment and

questionnaire

recognitio

n

word

fragment

test

Low levels of explicit memory

(recognition test) for the brands

was evidenced

Rather high implicit memory

(word-fragment test) for the

brand names placed in the video

games.

Kim and

McClung 2009

sport

video

games

to examine ethics and

acceptability of product

placements within sport video

games (SVGs) and attitudes

towards placements in SVGs

together with their effects on

purchase intention for product

placed within SVGs.

online survey with

253 sport video

gamers

attitude

acceptabil

ity

purchase

intention

Generally favorable attitudes

toward placements in SVGs

were observed.

Ethically-charged products are

perceived as less acceptable than

other products.

Individual differences among

gamers are found based on their

related attitudes, hours of

playing games, and gender.

Also, gamers who have

favorable attitudes toward

product placement are more

likely to intend to purchase a

product which may be placed in

SVGs.

Mackay et

al 2009

comput

er/

video

games

to examine whether brand

placements in computer/video

games can shift pre-existing

consumer attitudes towards a

specific brand

experiment (playing a

video game that has

placements)

accompanied by a

questionnaire with

154 Australian game

players

attitude

recall

Participants with a pre-existing

positive attitude towards the

embedded product did not show

increases in their brand attitudes

Nontheless, they did show

higher recall rates after exposure

to this brand during game-play

in relation to those who were

less positively predisposed to the

embedded brand

131

Choi et al. 2013

comput

er

game

to investigate the influence of

sensory distractions on implicit

brand memory

experiment followed

by a postexposure

questionnaire with 80

S.Korean

undergraduates

implicit

memory

Auditory distractions were

found to inhibit implicit brand

memory but visual ones were

not found to distract implicit

brand memory significantly.

Higher distraction effects were

found more for familiar brands.

Jeong et al. 2011

video

game

to investigate the effects of

violence cues (blood and

screams of pain) and players‘

individual differences in

aggression (trait aggression) on

brand logo memory and on

attitude change in a violent

video game

experiment

accompanied by a

pre- and post-

questionnaire to a

sample of 80

undergraduate

recall

attitude

Physiologi

cal

Arousal,

Spatial

Presence

and

Engageme

nt

Violence cues found to influence

brand logo memory through

engagement and affect attitude

change through arousal.

Although physiological arousal

led to positive change in brand

attitude, it does not significantly

influence logo memory.

132

APPENDIX 4:

ÖZGEÇMĠġ

VILDAN KARIġIK

(AraĢ. Gör.)

TC Kimlik No /

Pasaport No: 17180982804

Doğum Yılı: 1983

YazıĢma Adresi : VALĠKONAĞI CADDESĠ LEYLAK SOKAK NO:8/8 FLORYA

34153 Ġstanbul/Türkiye

Telefon : 02125806614

e-posta : [email protected]

EĞĠTĠM BĠLGĠLERĠ

Ülke Üniversite Fakülte/Enstitü Öğrenim Alanı Derece Mezuniyet

Yılı

Türkiye Fatih Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler

Enstitüsü

Üretim Yönetimi

ve Pazarlama

Doktora

(Tez

Dönemi)

Ġngiltere,

Ġtalya,

Ġsveç

Heriot Watt

University,

Politecnico di

Milano, Umea

University

School of

Management

Management

(Strategic

Project

management)

Yüksek

Lisans 2010

Türkiye Boğaziçi

Üniversitesi

UYGULAMALI

BĠLĠMLER Y.O.

Uluslararasi

Ticaret Lisans 2008

AKADEMĠK/MESLEKTE DENEYĠM

Kurum/KuruluĢ Ülke ġehir Bölüm/Birim Görev Türü Görev

Dönemi

Fatih

Üniversitesi Türkiye Ġstanbul

ĠġLETME

(ĠNGĠLĠZCE)

AraĢtırma

Görevlisi 2010-

UZMANLIK ALANLARI

Uzmanlık Alanları

Sosyal ve BeĢeri Bilimler, Üretim Yönetimi ve Pazarlama

133

DĠĞER AKADEMĠK FAALĠYETLER

Son Bir Yılda Uluslararası Ġndekslere Kayıtlı Makale/Derleme Ġçin Yapılan

DanıĢmanlık Sayısı

Son Bir Yılda Projeler Ġçin Yapılan DanıĢmanlık Sayısı

Yayınlara Alınan Toplam Atıf Sayısı

DanıĢmanlık Yapılan Öğrenci Sayısı

Tamamlanan

Devam

Eden

Yüksek

Lisans

Doktora

Uzmanlık

Diğer Faaliyetler

(Eser/görev/faaliyet/sorumluluk/olay/üyelik

vb.)

ÖDÜLLER

Ödülün Adı Alındığı KuruluĢ Yılı

Tübitak Yabancı Öğrenci Doktora Bursu Tübitak 2011-

2012

Bölüm ve Fakülte birincisi Ödülleri, En BaĢarılı Yabancı Öğrenci

Ödülü

Boğaziçi

Üniversitesi 2008

AVRUPA BĠRLĠĞĠ ERASMUS MUNDUS YÜKSEK LĠSANS

BURSU (40000 € DEĞERĠNDE)

Politecnico di

Milano 2008

YAYINLARI

SCI, SSCI, AHCI indekslerine giren dergilerde yayınlanan makaleler

Bayyurt, Nizamettin., KarıĢık, Vildan., and CoĢkun, Ali. (2013) ―Gender Differences in Investment

Preferences‖, European Journal of Economic and Political Studies, Vol 6, No.1.

Jusufovic-Karisik, Vildan (2014) 20 Years of Research on Product Placement in Movie, Television

and Video Game Media. Journal of Economic and Social Studies, 4 (2). ISSN 1986 – 8502; doi:

10.14706/JECOSS114210

Hakemli konferans/sempozyumların bildiri kitaplarında yer alan yayınlar

134

Istanbul Conference of Economics and Finance (ICEF) 2011, “Investement Preferences of

Individual Women Investors in Turkey”,Vildana Jusufovic, Ali CoĢkun, Nizamettin Bayyurt

Düzenleme Tarihi :05/06/2014