Look For Producer To Push Product Placements On The Peacock
By Alex Ben Block
HOLLYWOOD, CA. (Hollywood Today) 3/29/07 – Get ready for a lot more product placement from the Peacock. Ben Silverman’s appointment as co-chairman of NBC Entertainment and the NBC Universal Television Studio, along with veteran business executive Marc Graboff, isn’t business as usual; it’s another step in NBC Universal President and CEO Jeff Zucker’s plans to ramp up the lucrative, controversial and rapidly growing practice of “product integration”—even as consumer groups and the writers guild, among others, charge that it constitutes commercials hidden inside shows.
Whether NBC under the new co-chairs can raise the broadcast network’s ratings remains to be seen; but Silverman will certainly raise revenues from this evolving form of paid placements, which has emerged as an important way for networks to make money beyond 30 second spots.
Silverman has already plowed new ground in product placement as a producer, inserting paid product plugs into scripted, reality and competition shows, such as “The Office,” “Ugly Betty,” The Biggest Loser,” “Nashville Star” and especially “The Restaurant,” which aired on NBC in 2003 and 2004.
It was “The Restaurant” that first connected Silverman with Jeff Zucker, then running the NBC network. Zucker at the time publicly complimented Silverman, saying they would not have put that show on without his methods: “”It enabled us to make a show we couldn’t get financed in a traditional way.”
What Zucker meant was that Silverman not only brought in product placements; but integrated sponsors into the storyline of the show. In return, such companies as American Express, Coors and Mitsubishi, fully financed the cost of making the show. “The Restaurant” was never a huge ratings draw and critics did carp about the brazen product plugs.
In a 1995 White Paper, the Writers Guild of America cited an editor who worked on “The Restaurant” as saying he was told to meet advertiser requests for multiple mentions: “Because of pressure to show a product X amount of times over the course of a season, you have to find a place to put it in an episode even sometimes in places where it doesn’t fit.
Sometimes you have to cram it in, and it creates a problem for the show if Master Card or the Diner’s Card is supposed to be shown 12 times, and you’ve only shown it ten – you have to find two more, whether or not it’s appropriate.”
Silverman was asked by a reporter after the first season of “The Restaurant” brought protests if things would change in the second season? “Will I rein it in?” said Silverman. “A little bit. But the advertisers wanted as much value as possible for their money.”
In other words, no. Not only won’t it change. It is going to get even more aggressive. And since then that is exactly what has happened. In retrospect, it was a landmark in showing Hollywood a new way to make money. From that point on all the networks, broadcast and cable, were looking to get into “product integration” to cover costs and increasingly, replace falling advertising sales.
According to Nielsen Media Research, which began tracking product placements about four years ago, the number of placements jumped 30% between 2005 and 2006. According to that study, NBC already had the most placements with 7,470 instances just on its reality show “The Contender” and 3,009 placements in one year on “The Apprentice.”
“Broadcasting & Cable” magazine reported in April 2006: “Two thirds of advertisers employ ‘branded entertainment’—product placement—with the vast majority of that (80%) in commercial TV programming.”
The Writers Guild brought “Everybody Loves Raymond” producer Phil Rosenthal to Washington earlier this year to lobby for rules to limit the extent and use of product placements on TV and to force more visible disclosures in the credits. The Writers want credits that include the name of the product plugged, and not just a vague reference to the parent company that produced it.The Writers Guild brought “Everybody Loves Raymond” producer Phil Rosenthal to Washington earlier this year to lobby for rules to limit the extent and use of product placements on TV and to force more visible disclosures in the credits. The Writers want credits that include the name of the product plugged, and not just a vague reference to the parent company that produced it.
Jody Frisch, Director of Public Policy and Government Affairs for the Writers Guild of America West calls this one of the “biggest issues” facing the industry.
Frisch raises questions about the need to “protect the consumer,” and to insure that “a writer is not forced to write something that goes against the storyline; any more than an actor should be forced to act as a product spokesman.”
Frisch had no knowledge of Silverman specifically but quickly offered up as an example of the kind of placement that raises concerns “The Office,” a Silverman show. In one episode, the plot revolves around Staples, the office supply company. In another the lead character, played by popular actor Steve Carell, sings the jingle for “baby back ribs” from a specific restaurant chain.
The issue of paid plugs began with investigations into practices in radio as early as the 1930s and then expanded to TV in the 1950s with the quiz show scandals. At that time, the networks ended a practice of selling all the time in a show to sponsors, who controlled the program.
After the quiz show scandal, from about 1960 on, networks controlled the content and preferred for the most part to have multiple sponsors in each show, so no one advertiser could dictate terms.
Things changed after 1992 when the networks were de-regulated by Congress. Until then there was virtually no paid product placement on network television, just the occasional “product placement,” as it used to be called, which often amounted to a prop master seeking out products at no cost, but rarely charging the company that provided the goods an additional fee.
Technically, paid product plugs without public notification are banned by the FCC under a law first passed in regard to radio in 1927 and later updated. As it has evolved, the only requirement is that a plug must be disclosed somewhere in the show. That has come to mean a fleeting mention during the final credit roll. Those credits often pass by rapidly, in small type, and fill only part of the screen as the networks seek to avoid viewers changing the channel.The Writers Guild brought “Everybody Loves Raymond” producer Phil Rosenthal to Washington earlier this year to lobby for rules to limit the extent and use of product placements on TV and to force more visible disclosures in the credits. The Writers want credits that include the name of the product plugged, and not just a vague reference to the parent company that produced it.
As it has evolved, the only requirement is that a plug must be disclosed somewhere in the show. That has come to mean a fleeting mention during the final credit roll. Those credits often pass by rapidly, in small type, and fill only part of the screen as the networks seek to avoid viewers changing the channel. What changed was the widespread introduction of the DVR, or digital video recorder, whose best known brand is TiVo. It made it possible to record shows easily and then watch the content while fast-forwarding through the commercials. This sent shock waves through the network and advertisers, which are still being sorted out. Only in the past two weeks have advertisers for the first time agreed to pay for some DVR viewing up to three days after a program’s initial airing.
What all that commercial skipping meant to advertisers and their agencies was that the messages they paid big bucks to place on networks were no longer being seen, especially in the kind of upscale households that were the first to embrace the DVR technology.
So the search was on for new ways to get the messages across, to hide the plugs inside the shows.
At the same time, the old barriers against inserting paid plugs into shows was being eroded by literally hundreds of cable and satellite channels vying for ad dollars. Unlike the networks, many didn’t have strong standards. They were often pleased to do deals that were little more than infomercials, such as a home improvement show sponsored by a big box store where the contestants bought all the stuff used on the program.
Then came the Internet, where advertisers could not only call the shots, but also add an interactive element that let them take orders rapidly and communicate with their audience and buyers in new ways. It provided new leverage with traditional advertising mediums.
It didn’t take long for this to impact the big commercial networks, who have watched their share of the overall audience erode for years. Even as their numbers dropped, for a long time the networks were able to sell the quality of the viewership (the “demos”) and then they sold on the basis they were still the only place to aggregate a mass audience.
But the reality was there were few shows like the “Super Bowl” or the finals of “American Idol” that really did attract that kind of mass audience any longer.
Increasingly the audience was smaller, and advertisers were diversifying their media buys away from just 30 second spots to new media.
If the networks hadn’t figured out themselves how the new math worked, then they had an instructor in producer Mark Burnett, creator of shows like “Survivor” and the whiz kid of product placements, the recently canceled “The Apprentice.”
Beginning with “Survivor” in 1998, Burnett made it part of his pitch, and his business plan, to stuff his shows with product placements. He even brought in advertiser commitments with him when he sold the show, often from blue chip sponsors such as General Motors, Reebok, Visa and Target Stores. He showed that advertisers would pay major money for placements.
Burnett had no greater student than Silverman, his producing partner on “The Restaurant.” Silverman, a native New Yorker who became a William Morris agent in London before returning home to launch his production company, soon adapted Burnett’s attitude that advertisers would pay more and aggressive marketing plans.
Now Silverman has become the master, and everybody at NBC are about to become his pupils. A clue of what to expect was in a September 2006 article about Silverman written by Bill Carter in the New York Times. Carter said that Silverman’s vision of the future is one “in which programming is marketed directly to advertisers. He plans to ask auto insurers to invest in ‘Driving School,’ and do the same with an air carrier like Jet Blue for ‘Airline.’ They would cover production costs, which will be far short of conventional television budgets, in exchange for a percentage of future profits.”
Carter than quotes Silverman as saying: “We can offer advertisers exclusives all around the content.”
Ironically, when his show “The Office” was a critical darling but had such low ratings it would normally be cancelled, it was Kevin Reilly who stepped up and saved the show, because he believed in the content. It was Reilly who fought Zucker and others to keep it on the air, where it soon became a hit. It was the success of that show that helped propel Silverman’s company into lucrative additional deals with NBC, MSN and others.
It was also Reilly who had his hands partially tied by Zucker’s NBC 2.0 initiative, which cut his budget, especially for shows that air in the crucial 8 pm hour, which can set the pattern for the entire primetime for many viewers. Silverman is being brought in at a higher corporate level, which may mean he will have more freedom to spend what he needs to do that job.
Reilly managed to develop his share of hits, including “Heroes,” the biggest breakout show of the past season. Now it is Reilly who is shunted aside to make room for Silverman and a new era of interactive, seamless televised product placements.