Product Placement - Will Promotional Products Be Used To Advertise Brands in UK TV Programmes?

It is a marketing tactic that has traditionally been banned in the UK and has spawned many imaginative ways of getting round it, but product placement is set to be given the green light by the government this week. Up until now, producers have not been allowed to give prominence to a brand in television programmes, but now all that is set to change as entertainment shows, TV series and sports programmes will get the go-ahead to accept money for product placement.

This comes on the back of falling advertising revenues as a result of increasing competition not only with the high number of digital TV stations but from companies turning to the internet to market their brand.

The UK has traditionally been reluctant to introduce this tactic, with TV shows famously using their imagination to get around the ban by creating their own popular brands (such as the Newton and Ridley brewery in Coronation Street) and marks something of a U-Turn in policy by the government.

So whether we like it or not it seems that we'll have to get used to the site of Simon Cowell sitting at his desk with a branded Coke glass, or football analysts debating the post match controversy with their favourite beverage in their hand.

So with the lifting of the ban, how will businesses choose to advertise their brands through product placement?

One of the popular forms of product placement in the US is the use of promotional products that bear the featured brand's name. These are particularly useful on panel shows and entertainment programmes where the presenters, panellists or judges can use promotional products bearing the featured brand throughout the show, giving prominence and exposure to the company.

Promotional products have long been used as part of a marketing campaign to raise awareness of a brand and provide a practical, usable item to give the brand exposure. By using promotional products in product placement, the same benefits are maintained but the audience is much bigger, opening a brand up to millions of potential customers. Rather than just putting a logo on a mug, promotional products in product placement can raise awareness of an entire brand, tying in the brand with the values of the TV programme and using a brand consistent promotional product to sell the company to millions of relevant potential customers.

The introduction of product placement will be a huge relief to many UK networks who have been struggling to get by on revenues from traditional forms of advertising, but it may not be quite such a shock for viewers who are already used to seeing advertising in the television that they watch. Viewers will already be used to seeing brands adorning the front of football shirts, stadia named after companies and product placement in Hollywood films, so rather than a promotional revolution it will be more of an extension of what viewers are already seeing elsewhere into the programmes they watch nightly.