Three rights does make a wrong

There are many things that I enjoy in life. For instance I love the Olympics, I love DreamWorks animated films and I love Advertising. Putting all of these things together into one item does not make a win win.

To shed more light on what I am talking about, let’s discuss the Olympics DreamWorks product placement deal. As you know we are now in day four of the Olympics and Bob Costas is our host every night and guides us through the Olympics that air in prime time. As you may have noticed each night as a lead in to the commercial pod (break), Bob tells us about DreamWorks new movie ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ and talks about how there are similarities between the Olympics and the movie, then NBC cuts to the specially created Olympics/’How to Train Your Dragon Trailer’. The shift from the Live Olympic coverage is meant have a smooth transition for all of us to stay glued to our TV and watch the trailer. For me personally, it is a bad transition that just annoys me. I would enjoy it more if they did not do the NBC lead in with bob and just ran the commercial.
I totally understand the ultimate goal of what they are trying to do and how difficult it is for product placement to work into live programming. I also know it is not just DreamWorks that NBC is doing this type of promotion with, but no matter what advertiser it is, this is not an effective way to incorporate your commercials into the Olympics.

Take for instance Coke and Gatorade and how well they have done with their product placement. On American Idol, the judges drink out of a large Coke Glass. The glass just sits there and at no point do the judges say “I am going to take a drink of coke now”. You get the full affect of the placement of coke without a hard sell. Gatorade also does a great job of product placement. I mean how many Athletes you see drinking a Gatorade after an endurance event. When you sit back and watch TV, take a look at all of the product placement in live and pre-recorded television programs and decide for yourself what works and what does not work.