The Impact Of Product Placement Prominence And Plot Connection On Television Placement Effects

The emergence of new media and the development of mobile application technology enable consumers to take advantage of the fragmented time. They can get access to information whenever they want and wherever they are, thus weakening the dominance of television and other traditional media. The diversity of media choice makes it easier for consumers to circumvent advertising information, so the traditional television advertising effectiveness is declining. Meanwhile, the State Administration of Radio Film and Television has issued a regulation to restrict any form of advertisement during the TV series. This initiative makes the product placement gain more attention of the advertiser. Product placement refers to the paid inclusion of branded products or brand identifiers within mass media programming, instilling the message to the audience through a subtle way in order to achieve the advertisers’marketing goal. How to combine the commercial brand marketing with the art work perfectly to enhance the effect of product placement becomes the focus of research at home and abroad.This paper first summarizes the relevant product placement concept, the execution variables and the placement effects. On the basis of this, the conceptual model was developed. Then this study investigates the influence of placement prominence (how prominently the brand is represented in the television show) and plot connection (how well the placement is related to the movie’s story) on brand placement effects in the experimental setting. Furthermore, on the basis of previous studies, this article further propose the hypothesis that placement prominence and plot connection have an interaction effect on brand recognition and brand attitude, and use the SPSS 19 to verify the hypothesis presented in this paper.The results show that the implementation elements have impact on the effectiveness of product placement. Placement prominence and plot connection positively affect the views’ brand recognition and attitude toward the brand placed. Besides, they have an interaction effect on placement effectiveness. A prominently placed brand leads to higher brand recognition than a subtly placed brand and a strongly plot-connected placement leads to higher brand recognition than a weakly plot-connected placement. Brand placements that are both prominent and strongly plot connected result in the highest brand recognition than any other combinations. However, placement prominence has a negative effect on attitude toward the placed brand. In the case of strongly placed brand, if the brand is subtly placed at the same time, then it will lead to the most positive brand attitude.