Product Placement Bibliometric Study: Generic Journals Versus Specific-Communication Journals

Abstract

Media fragmentation represents new challenges for product placement strategies to become an increasingly effective way to reach consumers and non-users. In this frame, this paper has been developed with three main objectives: (i) to carry on a performance analysis to measure the visibility/impact of the scientific product in product placement (most cited authors, journals, and themes), (ii) to visually present the scientific structure by topics of research in product placement as well as its evolution to identify future research lines, and (iii) to compare both objectives in generic journals and specific communication ones. To this end, the resources in the Web of Science Citation Index were used. Scimat software was applied on a sample of 694 indexed papers from 1992 to 2021 containing “product placement” with 8,521 global citations (176 of the papers were indexed in communication journals with 3,190 citations). Our results show that MEMORY is a key motor theme—the future of research tends to new themes in the communication field (i.e., ATTITUDES/BEHAVIORS or VIRTUAL). Three industries have been key: alcohol, tobacco, and food. This research adds value to previous analysis as long as we have included: (i) a multidisciplinary approach; (ii) an unfolded analysis focusing strictly on communication journals; and (iii) a longitudinal analysis to compare different periods showing dynamic scientific maps.

Consumer ethics: An extensive bibliometric review (1995–2021)

“…The size of the spheres is related to the number of documents associated with each keyword and the citations' number, and the thickness of the connection between the two spheres is proportional to the co‐occurrence of both (Nova‐Reyes et al, 2020). In this sense, and following Vila and Küster (2021), the simple center algorithm was chosen to create a scientific map. To do this, the keywords of the documents were previously classified.…”

“…For example, a high value indicates that a keyword usually co‐occurs with the same keyword, even if the keyword presents low frequency. This paper uses the equivalence index as a determinant of similarity to standardize a bibliometric network (Vila & Küster, 2021).…”

“…This database is one of the most important repositories of scientific publications in the areas of science, social sciences and arts and humanities with more than 18,000 high‐impact journals (Baier Fuentes et al, 2018). The WoS database has been used in previous recent works (for example, Montero‐Díaz et al, 2018; Rodríguez‐López et al, 2020; Vila & Küster, 2020, 2021), because it is considered the most relevant repository of scientific publications in different fields as social sciences (Baier Fuentes et al, 2018). Additionally, the WoS database has the oldest temporal coverage (from 1900) and the total number of records exceeds 90 million (Moral‐Muñoz et al, 2020).…”

Notes From the Editors: 60 Years Young and a Work in Progress

“…Consumers as external stakeholders take the forefront again in "Product Placement Bibliometric Study: Generic Journals Versus Specific-Communication Journals" by Vila-López and Kuster-Boluda (2023). This bibliometric investigation (a comprehensive literature review that synthesizes themes in research production and innovation over extended time periods) delivers rare insights into product placement scholarship, especially within high ranked communication anchored journals.…”

“…Vila-López and Kuster-Boluda (2023) augment previous IJBC conversations with a longitudinal and far-reaching data set, innovative methods, and meaningful discoveries about product persuasion messages for consumers on a global platform. These authors derive interdisciplinary citation metrics within a research topic category; namely, product placement communications which form the core of advertising strategies.…”