ad space sale

The invention of the DVR also know as TIVO dealt a blow to traditional commercial advertisting. Marketing directors since then have tried to make up what has been lost in commercial viewing with slick product placement, including seemless integration into the content of TV shows, film, magazines, and celebrity sponsorship. (Which I think we have talked about on a couple of days in visad class).

Last night CBS news ran a really cool piece at like 2AM about a company called Marathon Ventures. The largest growing virtual/digital brand integration strategist in the country. They have people screen every type of entertainment media produced. They look for ideal places for their high paying clients products to be part of scenes, storylines, and general sets/props. Once the client chooses what the best spot, the product is magically superimposed by computer, either where nothing was before, or rebranding something existing in the shot, for instance a characters t-shirt. Furthermore, that product placement is usually only guaranteed for one showing, each re-run could have a different box of cereal at the breakfast table for instance. And movie theatres in different locales could play the same film with different products that were chosen for their demographics, and the same goes for different releases of dvds in rental stores and for purchase in stores.

So my question is, that if they can do this so easily for products why don't they strategically place pink ribbons during breast cancer awareness month, or have characters attend a charity function, or put a rainbow bumper sticker on the back of a passing car. Catch my drift. We need to sneak some visual advocates into the product placement companies, or make non-profit marketing directories aware of this strategy so that they can beg for their causes air-time. I don't know. Just a thought.