Practitioner research for unpaid product placement issues: Literature review and directions for future research

Abstract

Since traditional advertising is said to be losing its effectiveness, product placement has gained increased attention from both the industry players and scholars. Although the product placement industry is growing year on year, more than 50% of the worldwide value of product placement is still in the form of barter arrangements mainly featuring brand-name product offers. Therefore, practitioners' beliefs need to be examined more closely to better understand the reasons for such cash-free arrangements. However, a significant gap in previous literature exists regarding practitioners' beliefs on this 'unpaid product placement' phenomenon. The contribution of this paper is threefold. Firstly, we propose a possible research framework that should be useful for researchers. Secondly, we provide the unique idea that animation is the best medium for finding the key to developing product placement as a paid-for advertising service. Thirdly, three research directions for future researchers are suggested.

Towards a better understanding of practitioners’ ideas about product placement: an empirical analysis in the Italian context

“…Conversely, the manner in which professionals outside the USA execute product placement decisions has scarcely been investigated thus far (Craig-Lees et al 2008). Therefore, while US placement practitioners tend having considerable global influence, an increasing number of authors argue that research should be conducted not only in the USA but also in other countries (Chang et al 2009;Morikawa and Hosoda 2015). In fact, although most entertainment products-for example, films, TV shows and videogames-are made in the USA, they are often intended for worldwide distribution.…”