Exploring Practitioners’ Views on Product Placement: What can Taiwan Learn from the West

Abstract

To improve Taiwan’s media production quality, especially in placement marketing practices, this study explores Western practices and regulations to find what Taiwan can learn from the West. The study first gathered, reviewed, and analyzed past placement marketing studies and literature from Europe and the United States, then conducted in-depth interviews with a scholar who reviews placement marketing violation cases for Taiwan’s competent authority (NCC) and American media professionals who had first-hand experience with placement marketing practices. The interviews revealed how Americans had executed the placements at various levels during the entire production process, from preproduction to postproduction; it also informed that their placement practice is natural and subtle creatively and how Americans combine product placements in the content with on-screen graphic overlays to gather consumer data. The study also exposed a curiously interesting product placement phenomenon with Taiwanese news media and how they get away with the current laws and regulations. Received: 6 January 2024 / Accepted: 19 April 2024 / Published: 5 May 2024