The other day I caught Bravo’s new show on Monday nights, called “Outrageous and Contagious Viral Videos”. It highlights all those online videos that get emailed around and talked about the most.
While I think the site for this show looks a bit confusing, I did enjoy the episode I saw. For more info click here.
Not due to the quality, but due to the free content, this easily is a show that doesn’t require a big budget to produce.
Check out this great post, An Open Letter to the New “Social Marketers“, by Nedra Kline Weinreich at Weinreich Communications. She writes about the the dual meanings of the term ’social marketing’. (Thanks, Nedra, for inviting me into the conversation!)
To briefly summarize, the original quarter-century old meaning of the term ’social marketing’ is: to use marketing methods to bring about social or behavioral change. More recently bloggers have come to use the term ’social marketing’ to refer to blogging, RSS, podcasting, etc. Very different uses of the word.
In one of the comments to Nedra’s post, by Rohit Bhargava, it is pointed out that there might be a more common ground that brings the two definitions together. As Rohit suggets, both definitions are about:
“…connecting with individuals to promote a core belief in a cause, product or service …. It’s not about selling widgets, it’s about connecting with and fostering vocal advocates. “
That makes sense to me. Though I agree with Nedra, too, that there is still a lot of confusion by the dual definitions. This is a topic that would definitely be worthwhile having more ongoing dialogue about.
Check out other posts on Nedra’s social-marketing blog. For a quick summary, check out her Suidoo lens. (To learn more about Squidoo, read Squidoo’s free ebook, “Everyone’s an Expert (about something)” by Seth Godin.)
So, with the wonders of digital technology, now product placement in TV shows can be done after the fact and doesn’t need to be pre-planned.
On a separate but related note, I wanted to mention that I’ve recently begun a Graphics Design and Animation program over at The Chubb Institute, in NJ. At this school, it has repeatedly been mentioned that the future of “digital” is a rapidly growing area which will continue to grow in ways we don’t even know yet. Finding this article on “digital product placement” in the daily GMA SmartBrief dated Feb 16, 2006, is further proof of that.
According to this article (as originally published in the Detroit Free Press), with digital logos, products, or brands being digitally added to a TV show after it is produced, advertisers like the fact that there is less threat of their products “being edited out of scenes”. But personally I agree with some that the lines are getting blurred with this type of ‘advertising as entertainment’ (as this is also referred to in this piece). And to additionally paraphrase, I’m glad to hear that there is a product placement watchdog group out there, namely Commercial Alert, which “has lobbied Congress for stronger oversight of product placements.” A direct quote from Commercial Alert (in this article) sums up the concern:
“But they pretend that these are just ordinary programming rather than paid ads. This is an affront to basic honesty.”
