Product Placement: How it Really Works (in Our Mind)
Odin Christophe Rolland
Strategy Director | Lecturer in Brand Strategy & International Maketing | AIGA Leader Member | APG Member
Product placement, whether in a movie or a series always has a surprising effect. It's hard not to notice - and that's the intended goal - but the sudden presence of a brand in a work of fiction always generates a slight discomfort. The brand enters the film forcefully, as an unwelcome intrusion into the story we are watching.
While we understand its legitimate presence in an advertising or promotional context, it is persona non grata in a movie or TV show because it insinuates itself in an ambiguous way. It's as if it wants to be noticed while remaining discreet. Indeed, if it's too visible and screams "advertisement," the effect will be ruined.
It should therefore insinuate itself subtly, but that is rarely the case. It falls "like a hair in the soup," and even more annoyingly, it extracts us from our contemplative distraction to bring us back to a mercantile reality: the sale of a product. And yet it works, thanks to the mental work done by the viewer themselves and thanks to the miracle of Suspension of Disbelief.
This concept first appeared in the work of the English poet and aesthetic philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge, meaning ??the avoidance, often described as willing, of critical thinking and logic in understanding something that is unreal or impossible in reality.??
When we watch fiction, to enjoy it, we mobilize this Suspension of Disbelief as a blurring of our reason. In a way, we try to forget that we are watching a movie so that we can become fully immersed in the story and captivated by it. To achieve this, we must detach ourselves from reality and "suspend our disbelief" that what we're seeing is fictional - with its scripted dialogues, cameras, and actors.
Frédéric Lambert describes this paradoxical state of the viewer in his book "Je sais bien mais quand même (1)" (I know well, but still). When we watch an episode of Stranger Things, for example, we know that the monsters that populate the series are purely imaginary. But we try to believe in them a little "anyway" otherwise the fiction doesn't work.
We place ourselves in an intermediate state: we believe and we don't believe at the same time. Knowing that the more we believe, the more pleasure we feel.
I use the example of Stranger Things because the series contains several product placements, notably Coca-Cola. And where it becomes interesting - and a little disturbing - is that it is we, the viewers, who make the necessary effort to make this advertising acceptable. It's a bit like when we're half asleep, we start to wake up, but we try to go back to a dream because it's pleasant. Similarly, with product placement, we are awakened, the flagrancy of advertising creates a rupture of reality and we want to return to the sweet fiction. And it's ourselves who will "de-advertise (2)" the brand, to resume the normal course of the story.
By "de-advertising" the brand, I mean removing its advertising claims, certainly, but not necessarily obscuring it. The can of Coca-Cola that Eleven tries to warp with the power of her mind still exists, it's part of the story, simply, by Suspension of Disbelief, we remove its advertising characteristics so as not to be bothered in our seamless waking dream.
The brand remains present in majesty, stripped by ourselves of its advertising intent. It's as if we're watching an advertisement without realizing it. This advertisement is therefore even more impactful. It seems harmless by not saying its true name.
It's ironic, but it's the reality. When we notice a product placement, we may feel a sense of pride in recognizing it, but we often don't realize that we are the ones who suspend our disbelief to make it more acceptable and thus remarkably more effective.
(1) Frédéric Lambert, Je sais bien mais quand même, Essai pour une sémiotique des images et de la croyance, Le Havre : éditions non standart, 2013
(2) Karine Berthelot-Guiet, Caroline Marti de Montety et Valérie Patrin-Leclère, Entre dépublicitarisation et hyperpublicitarisation,une théorie des métamorphoses du publicitaire, SEMEN, revue de sémio-linguistique des textes et discours, n° 36, 2013