文献出处：Williams K, Petrosky A, Hernandez E, et al. Product placement effectiveness: revisited and renewed[J]. Journal of Management and Marketing Research, 2016, 7(1): 16-24. 原文
Product placement effectiveness: revisited and renewed
Product placement is the purposeful incorporation of commercial content into non- commercial settings, that is, a product plug generated via the fusion of advertising and entertainment (Ginosar and Levi-Faur, 2010). Product placement--also known as product brand placement, in-program sponsoring, branded entertainment, or product integration--is a marketing practice in advertising and promotion wherein a brand name, product, package, signage, or other trademark merchandise is inserted into and used contextually in a motion picture, television, or other media vehicle for commercial purposes. In product placement, the involved audience gets exposed to the brands and products during the natural process of the movie, television program, or content vehicle. (Panda, 2004; Cebrzynski, 2006) That is, product placement in popular mass media provides exposure to potential target consumers and shows brands being used or consumed in their natural settings (Stephen and Coote, 2005).
In terms of the Internet, consumers want to communicate with companies and brands so that they can get the information they want or need. So, companies need to listen to online conversations and establish what interests their online community. Then, they can provide that information in an engaging format including storytelling, articles, images, and video. For example, Yahoo! has produced branded video content – 5-10 minute “webisodes” that usually feature story lines around a specific product such as a show about someone driving cross country in a Toyota Hybrid, sponsored by Toyota. (Falkow, 2010) “Being able to creatively brand interesting and valuable online content that attracts readers and viewers might just turn out to be the shortest way to consumer?s hearts and minds.” (Falkow, 2010, p. 1)
Product placement can be very useful. Ultimately, product placements among entertainment firms, corporate brands, and agencies are all monetarily driven, either directly or indirectly. At the very least, entertainment firms and independent
production companies are hoping to reduce their budgets so that more dollars can be invested elsewhere. (Chang, Newell, and Salmon, 2009) Its purposes include achieving prominent audience exposure, visibility, attention, and interest; increasing brand awareness; increasing consumer memory and recall; creating instant recognition in the media vehicle and at the point of purchase; changing consumers' attitudes or overall evaluations of the brand; changing the audiences' purchase behaviors and intent; creating favorable practitioners' views on brand placement; and promoting consumers' attitudes towards the practice of brand placement and the various product placement vehicles. (Panda, 2004; Kureshi and Sood, 2010) As noted by van Reijmersdal, Neijens, and Smit (2009), a substantial part of the effects and interactions of product placement is still unknown.
Various empirical studies conducted within the field of product placement conclude by claiming its efficacy in influencing media consumers to develop positive brand attitude and boost brand recognition as such it has become a vital marketing communication tool and strategy (Brennan and Babin, 2004; Karrh, McKee and Pardun, 2003; Delorme, and Reid, 1999; Gupta and Lord, 1998).
In an attempt to measure the efficacy of product placement in marketing communication, Balasubramanian, Karrh and Patwardhan (2006) developed a model that comprises of four factors that impact the efficacy of product placement:
1) Stimulus factors such as placement modality or programme type as well as execution flexibility. Various theorists underline different modes of stimulating behaviour. While Bandura (1989) strongly contends that “most of the cognitive process that regulate behaviour are primarily verbal rather than visual”. There are also theorists such as Paivio who argue otherwise by claiming the superiority of visual stimuli over verbal stimuli (Balasubramanian, Karrh and Patwardhan, 2006). Whatever the case may be, such arguments reflect the need for product placement strategies to revolve around individual specific factors that have impact on individuals processing style, hence in addition to processing styles and individual specific factors, the efficacy of product placement is a function is also a function of modality.
2) Individual Specific factors including brand familiarity, attitudes and
perceptions towards the brand and involvement with the programme where product is placed highly determine the efficacy of product placement and accomplishment of brand holders? intent (Russell, 1998).
3) Processing depth which refers to the level of conscious processing by individuals who are exposed to product placement can highly affect the efficacy of product placement. Recent studies identify most product placements as practices that are best suited for low involvement products and or services rather than high involvement brands that require extensive knowledge regarding a brand (La Ferle and Edwards, 2006).
4) Message outcomes which would measure whether individuals recall and identify a brand from product placement and as to what level that would affect their purchase decisions are also essential factors that help determine the efficacy of product placement strategies and techniques (La Ferle and Edwards, 2006; Balasubramanian, Karrh and Patwardhan, 2006).
According to Steortz (1987), successful product placement is one which would allow for a minimum of 20% of population to develop awareness towards a brand and its identity and today based on positive attitude scores and recall and recognition levels, many researchers within the field highlight the huge success that product placement entails in terms of enhancing the image and identity of a brand and entrusting positive brand perception among audience (Cowley and Barron, 2008; Pride and Ferell, 2011). Researchers also focus in highlighting the advantages that it offers which over score traditional communication mix:
A study conducted by 1st Place in 2010 in the U.S shows that 90% of media consumers with digital recorders skip T.V commercials, this in turn highlights the need for advertisers to get inside the content of the show that people prefer to see, thus through product placement, the product placed in any media cannot be ignored as it is an integral part of the movie or show that people wish to view hence zapping is reduced.
People would develop better association with the brand depending on the person who is promoting or endorsing it; and thus bring the brand to life. Referring to the
study conducted by 1st Place (2010) 60% of sample interviewed reported to have felt positive about the brands they recognized in placements and 45% claimed to be more likely to make purchase.
Product placement is helpful in offsetting costs as it allows brand holding companies to share costs with artists, programme producers and other parties involved (Cowley and Barron, 2008).
The other major advantage of product placement over traditional media is the advertiser faces no competition in promoting the brand. This is because purchase of space within a programme or sponsorship diminishes interfering messages from other competitors including message clutter which audiences may find exhausting and can have negative impact on the message that a brand holding company is trying to get across (Cowley and Barron, 2008).
However, product placement as a marketing communication tool is not without flaws and critiques; according to Daugherty and Gangadharabatle (2005) product placement entails major hindering factors related to:
1) Lack of control: the brand holding company has little control over the way the brand is incorporated or portrayed into a story line or a scene.
2) Risk of negative association: there are high chances for a product or a brand to be misinterpreted, criticized or linked to negative values depending on the medium that the product is placed on. Moreover, uncertainties regarding the success rate of a programme or a movie could also have relatively huge impact on product placement decisions.
3) Pricing: Accepted placement fees are usually dependent on standard scales of audience size of media vehicle. Thus it is assumed that a the placed brand is going to gain equal exposure across scenes and events, however this strategy completely ignores time and modality thus pricing still remains somewhat of a vague concept in product placement (Pokrywczynski, 2005).
4) Product Placement ethics: Critiques of product placement continuously debate the ethics of product placement in exposing viewers to marketing by drawing light to the fact that it reflects an intrusive approach to communicating with audience;
aggressive commercialization. And perhaps one of the major obstacles in the field of product placement is its vulnerability to strict rules and regulations. For instance in U.K, it was not until end of February 2011 that the government allowed product placements on mass media communication platforms. Prior to that, OFcom, which is the communications regulator in U.K, regarded product placement as illegal marketing communication tactic. The ban was lifted to compensate for the loss that the media and entertainment companies were facing under the condition that viewers were made aware of the fact that the content they were viewing also included product placements by including ?P? as an identification mark and that product placement was editorally justified. (BBC, 2011) Although highly popular in the United States, Product placement is also subject to many rules and regulations as identified by the CSM (Centre for the Study of Commercialism) in Washington. There are still continuous debates on whether product placement should be disclosed to audiences or not, mainly to protect children from being exposed to unnecessary contents. More over, although not applicable to movies and video games, when it comes to television product placements, programme producers are by law obliged to disclose the presence of product placement to audience prior to receiving payments. 译文
植入式广告营销效果:回顾和更新 Williams K, Petrosky A, Hernandez E
植入式广告是指商业内容有目的地编入进非商业性的设置中,也就是说,一个产品通过广告和娱乐的插入融合产生(吉罗撒和利瓦伊-福尔,2010)。植入式广告——也被称为产品品牌植入,撰写赞助，品牌化娱乐或产品集成——是广告和促销中的一个营销实践，其品牌名称、产品、包装、标识、商标或其他商品被插入并根据具体情况得以应用于电影、电视或以商业为目的其他媒体工具。在植入式广告中, 在电影,电视节目或媒体的自然发展过程中，相关受众会接触品牌和产品。(潘达,2004;Cebrzynski,2004)也就是说, 在流行的大众媒体中的植入式广告提供了接触潜在目标消费者的机会,同时也说明品牌在自然环境中被使用或消费(斯蒂芬·库特,2005)。
在互联网方面,消费者如果想要与公司和品牌沟通，以得到他们想要或需要的信息。所以,公司需要倾听在线对话并建立网络社区。然后,他们可以以一个吸引人的形式提供有效信息，这些形式包括故事、文章、图片和视频。例如,雅虎创作了与品牌视频相关的内容——5 - 10分钟的“网络视频短片”，通常的故事情节是围绕一个特定的产品,比如显示有人驾驶丰田混合动力车越野,由丰田赞助。(弗,2010)“能够创造品牌趣味性和有价值的线上内容,可能是吸引读者和观众在最短时间内进行消费的方式。”(弗,2010年,p . 1)
植入式广告可以是非常有效的。最后，娱乐公司，公司的品牌和机构的产品植入直接或间接都来自金钱利益的驱使。至少,娱乐公司和独立制片公司希望减少他们的预算,这样可以有更多的钱投资其他地方。(昌,纽维尔和萨蒙,2009)其目的包括实现受众认可,关注和兴趣,提高品牌知名度,增加消费者的记忆,在媒体工具上创建即时识别；改变消费者的态度或对品牌的整体评价,改变受众的购买行为和意图；建立从业人员对品牌植入的良好见解;提高消费者对品牌植入的态度。(潘达,2004;科瑞士,2010)如上所述，相当一部分植入式广告的效果和交互作用仍然是未知的。植入式广告领域内的各种实证研究结论声称其功效为在媒体消费者中形成积极的品牌态度,提高品牌认知度等已经成为一个至关重要的营销沟通工具和策略(布伦南和巴宾,2004;考利木,麦基和潘顿,2003;戴勒姆,里德,1999;古普塔和洛尔,1998)。
为了衡量植入式广告在营销传播中的效果,考利木和帕沃顿(2006)开发了一个模型,该模型包括影响植入式广告功效的四个因素:
1) 刺激因素如布局形态或项目类型以及执行的灵活性。各理论界强调不同的刺激行为模式。班杜拉(1989)强烈认为,“大多数的认知过程,规范行为主要是语言,而不是视觉”。也有理论家如维奥他们声称，言语刺激比视觉刺激更具优势(考利木与帕沃顿,2006)。无论情况如何,这样的争论反映了植入式广告策略需要考虑个人特定的因素，其会影响个人的处理方式,因此，除了处理方式和个人特定因素以外, 植入式广告的功效是一个函数也是一个函数的形态。
2)个人特定的因素包括品牌熟悉度,对品牌和参与该项目的态度和认知,高度确定植入式广告的效果和成就品牌持有者的意图(拉塞尔，1998)。
3)处理深度指通过个人完成意识水平的处理（完整译文请到百度文库），个