Zugl.: Münster (Westfalen), Univ., Magisterarbeit, 2006

Zugl.: Magisterarbeit.

"Product Placement" or "Brand Placement" is the paid inclusion of branded products or brand identifiers, through audio and/or visual means, within entertainment media. This dissertation is a collection of three essays that investigate factors affecting the effectiveness of product placements. The first essay focuses on two measures of product placement effectiveness - audience recall and attitudes toward the placement. Extant empirical studies that address the antecedents of these constructs were integrated through a meta-analysis. Some key findings are as follows. The prominence of placements is a controllable executional factor that was found to have a significant positive relationship with recall. Recall was also affected by modality - audio-visual placements had better recall than audio-only placements which in turn performed better than visual-only placements. Audience attitudes toward placements had a strong relationship with the nature of the product - products that had negative ethical connotations were found to be less acceptable to audiences. However, viewers who were avid consumers of entertainment media tended to have more positive attitudes. Essay 2 focuses on the effect of repetition of placements of the same brand within a single television program. The results from an experiment show that unlike advertising, there was no negative-U relationship between the frequency of placements and audience attitudes toward the brand placed. In the case of visual placements, attitudes actually improved with frequency as a result of the mere exposure effect. However, this effect was not observed in the case of audio placements. Essay 3 addresses "Need for Cognition", an individual level variable that was found to affect audience response toward the brand placed. Data were collected through an online survey and analyzed using structural equation modeling. The mood of the viewer and their parasocial attachment with the character in the program that was associated with the placement had significant positive relationships with their attitude toward the specific placement, which in turn had a strong positive relationship with the attitude toward the brand. However, the latter relationship was moderated by NFC, with the effect being significantly stronger for those viewers who did not engage in, or enjoy analytical activity. Limitations of the studies, the relevance of the findings to marketing practice, and the contribution to scholarly research are discussed.

Marketing and commercial communication and the position of product placement within them; Product placement, the history, forms and the legal frame; Theory of measuring and evaluating commercial communications in general and specifical theories applicable for product placement; Experimental evaluation of these theories on concrete case.

Product placement is now a US$7.76 billion industry, flourishing as advertisers attempt to combat audience sophistication, zipping, zapping, muting of commercials, TiVo, media multi-tasking, the Internet and digital television, all of which may signal the death knell of the interruptive commercial model. Yet whilst research on product placement is growing, it has not kept pace with the practice, and many findings do not converge across studies. This is likely the case because parameters remain undefined and there is no operational framework to describe how product placements are processed, and no agreement as to what effects are possible or how they should be examined. Most effects-based research has focussed on executional factors and what the product placement does to the audience member. This assumes that the recipient is a passive participant. However this thesis argues that the audience member is actually an active processor who should be the focus of research. This research distinguishes product placement from related activities and develops a new conceptual model of product placement processing. It puts a strong focus on the role of the audience member, stating that their level of familiarity of the placed brands, and their level of engrossment with the entertainment story will impact their recognition of product placements in that story. Applying Rasch Measurement Theory, an Audience Engrossment scale is developed and refined over four stages of data collection, with 1360 respondents across seven films, to capture the quality of people??s interaction with a film. The result is a scale comprising 19 feeling items, 10 arousal items, 6 appraisal items and 7 cognitive effort items. The scale was then tested as part of the conceptual model, with 191 participants watching The Island and completing questionnaires after the film relating to their recognition of brands within the film and their level of engrossment. Brand familiarity information was collected four weeks earlier. Onset prominence, high plot connection, dual modality and use by star were found to have the strongest direct effects on recognition, with brand familiarity and the four audience engrossment dimensions generally found to interact with the product placement characteristics as hypothesised.

Universiẗat, Mag.-Arb.--Münster.

Product placement is now a US$7.76 billion industry, flourishing as advertisers attempt to combat audience sophistication, zipping, zapping, muting of commercials, TiVo, media multi-tasking, the Internet and digital television, all of which may signal the death knell of the interruptive commercial model. Yet whilst research on product placement is growing, it has not kept pace with the practice, and many findings do not converge across studies. This is likely the case because parameters remain undefined and there is no operational framework to describe how product placements are processed, and no agreement as to what effects are possible or how they should be examined. Most effects-based research has focussed on executional factors and what the product placement does to the audience member. This assumes that the recipient is a passive participant. However this thesis argues that the audience member is actually an active processor who should be the focus of research. This research distinguishes product placement from related activities and develops a new conceptual model of product placement processing. It puts a strong focus on the role of the audience member, stating that their level of familiarity of the placed brands, and their level of engrossment with the entertainment story will impact their recognition of product placements in that story. Applying Rasch Measurement Theory, an Audience Engrossment scale is developed and refined over four stages of data collection, with 1360 respondents across seven films, to capture the quality of people??s interaction with a film. The result is a scale comprising 19 feeling items, 10 arousal items, 6 appraisal items and 7 cognitive effort items. The scale was then tested as part of the conceptual model, with 191 participants watching The Island and completing questionnaires after the film relating to their recognition of brands within the film and their level of engrossment. Brand familiarity information was collected four weeks earlier. Onset prominence, high plot connection, dual modality and use by star were found to have the strongest direct effects on recognition, with brand familiarity and the four audience engrossment dimensions generally found to interact with the product placement characteristics as hypothesised.

Teilw. zugl.: Mittweida, Hochsch., Diplomarbeit, 2005

Zugl.: Würzburg, Univ., Magisterarbeit, 2007

Universiẗat, Diss., 1998--Mannheim.