It has become conventional to use product placement in music videos. Big brands have started marketing themselves through product placement, for example, brands such as BMW, VitaminWater and Virgin Mobile. Placing products in music videos could be perceived as the brands linking themselves with celebrities. This product placement could either have a positive or negative effect on the celebrity and/or the brand. This research study aimed to provide the world of brands with insights into 18-28-year-olds’ perception of product placement in music videos, and whether placing their product in a music video where the audience is not partial to the celebrity, could be detrimental or not. This research study aimed to determine the selected sample’s (Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University students) perceptions of the product placement of three specific brands (VitaminWater, BMW and Virgin) in three specific music videos, namely: Jessie J and David Guetta “Laserlight” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syxd2n8S4AE JLo’s “Get on the Floor” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4H_Zoh7G5A Lady Gaga and Beyoncé “Telephone” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQ95z6ywcBY An electronic survey questionnaire was concluded with both closed and open-ended questions relating to the use of product placement in these three music videos. The survey questionnaire helped to determine what the selected sample’s perceptions were of each brand and celebrity, what they were after the respondents and seen the relationship between the brand and celebrity and finally, of product placement in general. A semiotic analysis of screen shots from each music video was conducted to determine what kind of nature the product placement occurred in in each music video.

Product placement as one of the modern tools of marketing communication has become very important. This is also the case of the Czech Republic, especially after recent legislative changes and related legalization of product placement. The thesis characterizes product placement, states its particular forms and methods of evaluating its effectiveness. The aim of the thesis is to determine the difference between product placement in a situation when in an audiovisual work is presented in the first case known brand, in the second case unknown brand and in the third case fictitious brand. This is examined by the executed experiment based on watching a video with three type situations and filling in a subsequent questionnaire survey. Analysis of the survey results reveals that product placement is the most effective when displaying known brand, using unknown brand is considerably less effective and that the effectiveness of fictitious brand is the lowest. On the basis of statistical hypothesis testing, it is confirmed that there is a statistically significant relation between brand knowledge and its effectiveness.

The goal of this Master's Diploma Thesis was to compare the use and perception of the product placement promotion technique in the Czech Republic and in Russia. It focuses mainly on the use of this technique in films and TV shows. First of all, the term product placement is defined, its history and measuring of its effectivity are described briefly, plus some examples of successful and unsuccessful product placement are presented. Subsequently, the legal framework regulating product placement in the Czech Republic and in Russia is compared, together with examples of the use of product placement and with available data from public opinion polls. The practical part presents the results of an online survey among 190 Czech and 190 Russian respondents / viewers. It appears that there are no great differences -- although Czechs watch TV more (and domestic TV shows), and Russians go to the cinema more. However, it does seem that Russian respondents tend to buy promoted products more often. Still, the survey only had a form of a tentative probe.

The aim of this thesis entitled "The application of product placement in music videos and its perception by target groups" to contribute to the understanding of the product placement in the music industry and to analyze the attitude of the target group to it. The theoretical part includes the various forms of marketing communication and definition of product placement. The brief history of this tool and its advantages and disadvantages are also described, including its legal definition and ethical aspects. There is also the classification of forms of product placement, where more attention is paid to the importance of product placement in music videos. Another part of the theory is an analysis of the effectiveness of product placement with a focus on the factors affecting its effectiveness. The practical part is based on the analysis of music videos and interviews in focus group. Conclusion should bring confirm or refute the hypothesis, that there is a likelihood of changes in audience perceptions and attitude towards the brand after seeing a video, which contains product placement. Also, the aim is to determine whether this discovery may even affect consumer behavior.

Cette recherche part des profondes modifications de l’espace sociétal cristallisées par la crise économique et sociale de 2008 dans nos sociétés occidentales. L’objectif de cette étude est d’inscrire la crise de la publicité et des marques dans une mutation sociétale plus profonde, avec une remise en cause du modèle capitaliste de consommation de masse. Dans un contexte de crises, nous sommes en droit de nous interroger sur l’avenir de la marque : va-t-elle évoluer vers un modèle alternatif correspondant davantage aux mutations sociétales en cours ? Notre réflexion s’inscrit dans le champ des sciences de l’information et de la communication en étudiant l’évolution du concept de marque d’un point de vue sociosémiotique, c’est-à-dire en considérant le contexte économique et social comme un cadre primaire analytique au sens de Goffman. Il s’agit de partir d’occurrences concrètes de communication (alter-marque, insertions de produits et de marques dans la série The Big Bang Theory, webséries de marque, publicité native dans le Huffington Post) pour mieux comprendre la société qui constitue leur espace de mutation. Nos travaux mettent en évidence la capacité de la marque à s’extraire du cadre commercial à travers des procédés d’insertion ou de mimétisme médiatique. En mettant en perspective des concepts issus des recherches en sciences de l’information et de la communication contemporaines avec les interprétations de certains experts en stratégie des marques, nous avançons l’hypothèse d’un nouvel ordre de la marque, médiatique et culturel. En effet, la marque mute progressivement vers un modèle culturel et médiatique pour répondre à sa « crise de sens » (Semprini, 2005), notamment en instaurant un imaginaire de marque davantage ancré dans la culture médiatique du public. McLuhan (1967) affirmait dans les années 60 que le médium était le message : aujourd’hui, la marque ne tend-elle pas à devenir elle aussi un média et faire sens en tant que tel dans l’espace public ? / This research emanates from the deep the social changes that our Western societies faced in a context of economic and social crisis, which peaked in 2008. The objective of this study is to demonstrate how the media and brand crisis is part of a deeper social mutation and question the capitalist model of mass consumption. In this context of crisis, we can question the future of brand marketing: is it going to evolve towards an alternative model, more in line with current social changes? Through our study of the evolution of the brand concept from a socio-semiotics angle, we will consider the economic and social environment from the analytical primary framework as defined by Goffman. Therefore, our research is firmly anchored in the field of information and communication sciences. We focus on specific communication occurrences (alter-brand, brand placements in The Big Bang Theory series, brand webseries, native advertising in The Huffington Post) in order to better understand the society that constitutes their environment of transformation. Our research highlights the capacity of the brand to extricate itself from a commercial aspect through insertion or media imitation processes. By focusing on concepts emerging from research in contemporary information and communication sciences, and by putting in perspective experts’ interpretations of brand strategy, we explore the hypothesis of the emergence of a new order of media and cultural brand. Indeed, the brand gradually shifts towards a cultural and media model in order to respond to its “meaning crisis” (Semprini, 2005), in particular by establishing an imaginary around the brand, more anchored in media culture. McLuhan (1967) suggested in the sixties that the medium was the message: today, the brand seems to tend to become a media and establish itself as an integral part of the public sphere

This thesis deals with product placement in Czech music videos. The aim of this thesis is to define the principle, position and application of product placement in Czech music videos and then submit recommendations and suggestions for effec-tive use of this form of promotion in practice. The thesis uses quantitative ques-tionnaire survey and qualitative methods of eye-tracking research and in-depth interviews.

Product placement has long been a popular advertising tool that is still heavily used in today’s market. Therefore, this thesis adds a new construct to the field of product placement, namely language barriers, to see if that can have an impact on consumers’ ability to perceive product placement, in terms of brand recall. Moreover, this study also explores alternative constructs, such as brand attitude, to examine if they have an influence on consumers’ ability to recall brands when viewing SVoD entertainment content containing product placement. Furthermore, the Tripartite Typology of Product Placement conducted by Russell (1998) was applied as the main theory throughout this thesis as a foundation of the product placement-concepts. Additionally, the aforementioned research topics were explored via 14 semi-structured interviews with Swedish consumers, where all participants were within the age group that are the largest consumers of SVoD content. After the data was collected and analyzed, the results yielded that language barriers have a negative impact on brand recall, in terms of verbal placement, and no impact in terms of visual placements. Moreover, some other factorsthat also impacted the participants’ ability to recall the placed products included brand attitude, personal interests and perception of brands.

Though research has shown that social context influences behavior, research on product placement is yet to incorporate such effects. This is a very significant research gap since product placements are often consumed as part of a shared viewing experience. To address this gap, this dissertation examines social contextual influences on consumer behavior associated with the coviewing of product placements. Two aspects of social context were examined in a 2 (group composition: friends versus strangers) x 2 (coviewing context: interactive versus passive) experimental design. Data were collected during a laboratory experiment in which participants in dyads first viewed a 22-minute Seinfeld sitcom episode and then completed an online survey, designed to collect data on the variables in this study. Since the data were hierarchical in nature, i.e., individuals nested in groups, multilevel modeling was used to analyze the data. Results showed that friends recalled significantly more placed brands than did strangers. Friends also held significantly stronger, more positive attitudes toward the audiovisual, very prominently placed brand, Gore-Tex. However, there was no significant difference between interactive and passive coviewers on recall of and attitudes toward placed brands. Results suggest that the impact of individual-level variables on brand recall and on attitude toward placed brands did not significantly depend on social context. The exceptions were for the effects of: (1) brand familiarity on attitude toward Gore-Tex, which was stronger for strangers than friends, and (2) parasocial attachment on attitude toward the visual only, very subtly placed brand, Coca-Cola, which was stronger for interactive than passive coviewers. The results hold implications for marketing theory, methodology, and practice. Results suggest that to the extent marketers can create, encourage, and maintain social contexts that favor friendship effects, they stand to benefit with desired outcomes. Results also suggest that interaction during coviewing may not cause a significant enhancement in or decrement to recall of and attitude toward placed brands. This study is the stepping stone for research on social contextual influences in product placement research. There is still much to be done on research in this area, particularly since social contextual influences are expected to play a major role in the future of marketing.

The so-called family-viewing hour, the eight to nine o’clock hour of prime time, is one of the most watched hours of television by both adults and children. Advertisers, of course, favor shows that draw large audiences so their product presentations or commercials are witnessed by masses of people. Now, because of videocassette recorders and other similar control devices, viewers are eliminating commercials from their viewing experience1 and advertisers are clamoring for new ways to get their products into the mind of the consumer.2 To counteract this commercial avoidance by consumers, advertisers are embedding products within television programming thereby hindering the viewer’s ability to eliminate commercials or product promotions. The result is that products that are normally not viewed become part of the viewing experience. This study revealed that the family-viewing hour is laden with product placements that include a variety of different types of products and brands.

Advertisement is funding a lot of the digital landscape we interact with on a day-to-day basis. As our digital landscape evolve and the field of Cross Reality is maturing, it is of value to examine its compatibility with this mean of monetization. With the perspective of three major stakeholders in mind (advertisers, developers and end-users) this study examines the impact of two different sets of advertisements, one set from a variety of brands and one set from a single brand, in a Virtual Reality experience. A user study is conducted with data being collected through a questionnairesupported interview as well as the advertisement software within the virtual experience. The results show very little impact on the user experience in general, however the data suggests a significant advantage for a variety of advertisement in terms of subconsciously reaching the user. / Reklam finanansierar stora delar av det digitala landskap vi interagerar med dagligen. Allt eftersom tekniken utvecklas och området Cross Reality mognar, är det av värde att undersöka dess kompabilitet med denna typ av finansiering. Ur perspektivet av tre huvudintressenter (annonsörer, utvecklare och slutanvändare), undersöker denna studie inverkan från två olika uppsättningar av reklam. Den ena uppsättningen består av reklam från en variation av varumärken och den andra uppsättningen består av reklam från ett enskilt varumärke. En användarstudie genomförs med data som insamlas via en enkät-stöttad intervju samt genom mjukvaran som levererar reklamen inom den virtuella upplevelsen. Resultaten visar väldigt liten inverkan på den generella användarupplevelsen, dock antyder datan att det finns en signifikant fördel för en variation av reklam när det gäller aspekten att undermedvetet nå användarna.