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Comment by hristov | Hacker News Reader

Sounds great but the sad reality is that Netflix shows have commercials inside of them. I was really excited about this netflix show "love" until the macdonalds product placement inside of it just made me sick and i stopped watching it. I haven't been watching much original netflix shows since then, but whenever i feel like peeking into a new show i notice product placements pretty soon.

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I don't really mind if the product placement is subtle, and they don't start shooting from different angles just to show the thing off.

If the protagonist is going to use a laptop computer anyways, I don't care if Apple or DELL paid them so it's going to be one of theirs.

30 Rock also had good product placement, often times making jokes about how forced a product placement in the show was.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d36wUmJGzvA

That's actually pretty clever since it draws the viewer's attention and also associates good feelings (humor) with the brand. So it's a parody of product placement that also happens to be an extremely effective form of product placement. Smart.

I never understood why product placement upsets people so much. Unless the premise is pure fantasy or a completely alternate reality, real brands help more quickly get me past the sense artificiality that is drama/theater that suspends disbelief. I can get engrossed more quickly. When I see products that are similar and obvious knock-offs of a brand that avoids the name or trademark design, I'm immediately somewhat distanced again from the performance. I genuinely court it. Surely I'm not the only one who feels that way.

It upsets at least some people precisely because it often breaks suspension of disbelief. Not many people complain if the hero drives a cool real car or uses a Dell laptop, but it is irritating if the technician in a crime show is telling everyone how they are using "Microsoft Windows Photo somethingorother" to enhance the image of the suspect (when they've been using the typical TV made-up interface that looks totally different everywhere else), or they hold a glowing logo on a device always just in frame.

I don't mind it as "character in contemporary show eats Frosties cereal rather than shredies"

When Captain Kirk answers his Nokia phone while drinking his Budweiser, that's when I hate it.

Agreed. I used to notice that there were many Microsoft products like the Surface in the show Arrow. But it was subtle enough that most people wouldn’t know unless they can recognize the logo on the device.

Great show, in my opinion, loved it, if they make some extra money through product placement - good for them, I don't really care.

And then some shows really get the product placement right:

http://i.imgur.com/2Mc7YlO.jpg

ALL shows have product placement. Some more blatant than others. You can't get around that.

The FX show Baskets has its product placement front and center the entire time. It's hilarious and I don't mind one bit though.

There are a few shows like Chuck that were basically saved by blatant product placement. It's funny to watch - breaks the illusion for a moment - but knowing the story behind how it basically saved the show makes it worth it for the fans.

Oh man, Chuck was awesome! I'm adding it to the list of shows to re-watch.

That is simply not true, firstly most cartoons and anime, but also other shows that come with a higher budget seem to be able to avoid product placements.

Interestingly enough, Fight Club managed to put every product placement right next to sad or violent imagery.

Some animated shows, like Aqua Teen Hunger Force and Frisky Dingo, did great jobs of using product placement as a comedic part of the show.

That's because those are the product. Pokemon is the best example of this. I will concede that shows like Game of Thrones are very good at avoiding this, but I'm tempted to propose that shows like that exist to sell HBO subscriptions.

They also have a whole lot of merchandise available.

> That is simply not true, firstly most cartoons and anime...

https://anime.stackexchange.com/questions/4257/have-there-be...

Those are just the most obvious product placements, recognizable to folks who can't read all the little japanese labels on things that appear in the background.

There are also shows which are nothing but vehicles for products.

Didn't Hasbro and Tomy create Transformers explicitly as a marketing/ sales vehicle?

Transformers, G.I. Joe, Strawberry Shortcake, He-Man, My Little Pony... all either toys first or simultaneously created as toys. Usuaslly a good giveaway is when Hasbro or Mattel is mysteriously the creator of the show.

Of course this isn't just a Western phenomenon, the video game/anime/movie/card game/merchandise extravaganza that is and always was Pokemon being probably the best single example.

Product placement in series and movies really break my heart, because it plain and simply taints the piece forever.

When it's released, sure, okay, so you do your product placement and get some extra cash to finance the series. Fine. But now, your series which hopefully is good enough to still be watched 20 years, 30 years from now has characters randomly bringing up how they drive an Audi and did you see that builtin navigation system or some bullshit like that.

Some TV series are works of art. Thankfully, those tend to not have product placements because they have a high budget to begin with. But sometimes, PP works itself into "classics" and that's when it's really upsetting.

Nothing disappoints me more than product placement in music videos of all places. I can understand the use of products in rap music, absolute obedience to brands and slavish desire for status symbols is very much a core of what rap is about, but just in general music it is often insulting to both the audience and the performer. I remember when that kid Greyson Chance had a YouTube video that made him famous because he is an amazing singer. He got a record deal and I was curious to see if he'd end up like the next generations Bob Dylan or a crooner or something with the voice he had. But of course, no, they turned him into a knockoff of Justin Bieber and filled his first music video with blatant product placements. I just hope he got enough money so that when he's older he doesn't regret selling his artistic integrity down the toilet before he was even an adult.

the way you talk about ‘rap’ (by which i assume you mean a superset of hip-hop) makes it sound like you really don’t know anything about it. blind brand obedience is absolutely not ‘a core’ of rap. Some very mainstream music featuring rap verses are that way, but your statement was far too broad.

Agreed, but just by the references, I assumed the poster was referring to the commercial rap / hip-hop world, and specifically to the popular club oriented segment.

What the poster said is pretty much true all around for anything in the most commercial space of music. "Country" music for instance has some pretty blatant product placement, too... but again, largely only at the most commercial space only (the radio-friendly arena-rockish style). Jason Aldean for instance got an endorsement from Coors, and actually changed a song lyric in one single from "Shiner Bock" to "Rocky Tops" as a result. (https://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/branding/1084513...). The same applies for the club friendly / arena side of electronic dance music. A large percentage of them will include product placements, particularly for club lifestyle type products and/or liquors of some sort.

Overall, product brand "name drops" have increased heavily in the lyrics of top pop music over the last 20 years (http://www.meiea.org/resources/Journal/Vol.14/Gloor-MEIEA_Jo... page. 48).

I personally find this type of product placement annoying, and prefer other strategies where companies gain presence without intruding into the music too much. (Red Bull IMHO is an example here: their focus tends to be on content marketing strategies, a strategy that has worked out well for them, and at least in music I find much less annoying).

Heh, it gets better:

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/jun/22/new-technology...

... for some definition of better.

I find just the opposite to be disconcerting. Back in the day, Some procedural cop show was talking about "FacePlace" as a stand in for Facebook.

Then again it sticks out like a sore thumb to me when shows you IP addresses that can't be valid....

I don't mind product placement if it's on topic. For example, using Google or Facebook when relevant or showing the brand logos of the PCs in an office.

It's when they take the time to show off their completely irrelevant windows tablet or car navigation system or worse. When it's blatant.

On the other hand the cans of beans that had the word "Heinz" blacked out in 70s BBC programs are really distracting.

Just finished Lala Land, didn’t notice any.

...unless you live in basically any western country (except the US) that have high quality Public Service TV, where commercials and product placement is not allowed.

I always thought House of Cards had some of the most bizarre ones. I can't remember anything too blatant in Love, but I only got a few episodes into the second season before dropping it out of boredom.

I actually didn't notice the McD placement, but I swear every episode namedropped Uber very, very obviously.

Real life has product placement every time you go outside in civilization. I'm getting upset about you guys getting upset over something so trivial.

Edit: read further down and I have to say that I've never seen (or noticed) anything so blatant as characters going on about features of a car. That would indeed be frustrating.

> Real life has product placement every time you go outside in civilization. I'm getting upset about you guys getting upset over something so trivial.

That's a false equivalence and a poor way to think about things.

People making those real-life product placements are not deliberately placing those products in view of others in exchange for money for the sole purpose of manipulating viewers to buy said product. I agree with the GP. At least with ads you know that you're being manipulated.

It's not the same thing, product placement is paid for by the brand. And it's upsetting because it's deceitful - designed to appear to be something other than it is, legitimate use.

If they treated a product just the way they would have treated it in real life I probably would not be upset. But that is usually not the case. Companies that pay money usually require special treatment. If you are lucky, it would be the camera lingering on the product for a long time. Or perhaps the product being painted in extra bright colors (I saw some Fedex boxes that were specially painted for product placement on a set once, they were so bright I literally could not look away from them. )

But if you are less lucky it would be completely disruptive to the world the show or movie is trying to create. For example, in the show love, the silverlake hipsters that the show took such long pains to describe would have never touched mcdonalds. Yet in the show they go around saying how great it is.

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