Ms. Adverthinker

How do we combat that pesky DVR fast-forward button that zips our consumers right through our commercials?  Product placement in the show!  But is it too much?  According to an article in BusinessWeek:

“…American Idol has become as much a marketing showcase as musical slugfest.  Contestants cavort in rock videos to pitch Fords, troop off to Apple to record iTunes tracks, and answer questions brought to you by AT&T.”

“Three years ago, Idol scaled back its sponsors from five to three to limit ad clutter.  But this year it added Apple, figuring it fit the show’s demographic. Meanwhile, advertisers like Ford Motor, which on May 14 unveiled a sportier Focus in a weekly 45-second rock video, became omnipresent.  It’s a lot of plugs to get through.  Idol showed 4,151 product placements in its first 38 episodes this year according to Nielsen Media Research.  That’s up just 4% from ‘07, but the time on screen jumped nearly 19%, to a total of 545 minutes.”

The result?  An aging audience for American Idol.  Those skeptical youngsters are tuning out the product plugs and moms are tuning in instead: the median age of Idol viewers is now 43.

I saw Juno three times.  It was a great, heart-warming movie–obviously, I loved it.  When you see a movie that many times over a two-week period, you start noticing details that could have been missed.  My thoughts today turned to Tic Tacs.  Paulie Bleeker, the boy who knocks up Juno, had one vice according to Juno: orange Tic Tacs.  Throughout the movie he is eating them and at one point Juno stuffs his mailbox full of them.  I was craving orange Tic Tacs after the third viewing and I couldn’t tell you the last time I even thought about Tic Tacs.

Did the Tic Tac brand pay for that placement?  Are they doing anything to leverage that placement now?  I haven’t seen anything, but they should.

Today I read about a Tic Tac sampling event that encourages consumers to mix music tracks using the sound of Tic Tacs clanging around in their iconic box.  The target for this promotion is 18-24 year olds.  While I get that they are trying to connect music–which is important to this audience–to the Tic Tac brand, it just seems lame after witnessing the connection that Paulie Bleeker and Juno had to Tic Tacs.  That is what Tic Tacs should be using to connect to this audience: Juno.  Why aren’t they leveraging that product placement?