The Use of Product Placement in the USA, Sweden, And Switzerland - Literature review Example

Marketing Topic: Marketing Literature Review Grade Marketing Literature Review on Product Placement Introduction The literature review will analyze the development of product placement or advertisement in different countries at different times. This will be as discussed by Mary-Lou Galician a prominent researcher on media trends, in her research on product placement. Also, it will look at product placement in various movies. The literature review will look at the development and use of product placement in the USA, Sweden, and Switzerland. Also, the study analyzes how product placement is utilized in different TV shows and movies in, different countries. Also, the literature review will look at the effects of the product placement on the consumer behavior and how likely are the product placement to change consumers mode of buying a certain commodity. It is crucial for people to know how to use product placement positively (Johnson, 2009). Product placement is the use of diverse types of media to make people conscious of different products and services when they are entertained through watching. Its development dates back upto 1896, when it was used by Lumiere brothers in their short film “washing day in Switzerland” and they advertised soap. It was introduced by Henri Lavancy who was the film director and publicist for the soap company but, it became popular in the 1930’s when the sound movie was introduced. For example, in 1934 in the movie, “It happened One Night,” the star Clarke Gable featured bare chest and sale of men’s shirts reduced; therefore, use of the movie is a strong tool of product placement (Johnson, 2009). It gained popularity with the years, but in 1980’s, it became more successful when the movie “Extra Terrestrial” by Steven Spielberg advertised Reese Pieces and increased its sales by 65%. The 80’s was the turning point of product placement where there was a working partnership between the movies and the commercial sector. According to Mary-Lou, product placement is necessary because moviemakers need money for their movie production; therefore, they will turn to the commercial sector to provide the money and them to provide the services of product placement (Johnson, 2009). Product placement in Sweden developed in the 1990’s when the real first commercial commenced, this was due to strict government regulations on media operations. It has been embraced in the recent past, for example, where TV shows get sponsorship from the commercial sector in SVT. In Kanal 5, the home improvement show “Room Service” was sponsored Marlamastana which is the trading association of painters. To the broadcasters this is a way of decreasing costs. Therefore, all media houses in Sweden are finding it important to use product placement also; the moviemakers are finding it important to advertise in movies which is becoming popular day by day, for example, in the movie “Hamilton” 1998 sponsored by Statoil. Product placement in Seinfeld and other TV shows, in the TV show they use product placement in their episode making them come in a unique way. They have registered success in advertising. Also, in the James Bond movies, product placement has been used to show new car models and gadgets (Johnson, 2009). Product placement can be unethical when it brings negative influence like smoking, use of guns. For example, teens tend to smoke if the influential stars in movies do so. In conclusion, product placement has become popular since its inception in the 1930’s. It is important increasing consumers’ knowledge of products. The product placement is embraced in most parts of the world. Also, product placement is an important tool in today’s business where the movie makers use it as a source of sponsorship while commercial industry view it as a source of publicity and a way to expand their market. The Product Involvement Inventory (PII), developed in 1985 by Zaichkowsky is a good measure at construct development. It has shown various shortcomings namely; criterion validity, usability, discriminant validity and construct validity. These shortcomings are what have led to the invention of the Revised Product Involvement Inventory (RPII). The RPII encompasses the doings of the PII and improve on its shortcomings. It was invented to provide a remedy for four shortcomings found in PII. They are narrow conceptualization of involvement, uncertain discriminant validity, limited criterion validity and difficult and impracticability of use. The PII has been criticized because of its length and vocabulary, doubting its usability outside the university setting. According to Tigert, Ring &King (1976), it is suitable in comparing involvement across diverse sources. When applied to many products, it is likely to tire customers. Zaichkowsky developed five criterion procedures to validate her efforts (365). This has been seen as inadequate by critics Peter &Olson (1987), who argue that brand involvement should be distinguished from product involvement. The PII involve scales which measure a person’s unfavorable or favorable evaluations of an object and not involvement. The inclusion of evaluative terms may confound the measurements of attitude with that of involvement. The PII is presented by Zaichkowsky (1985) as a measure of a single thing, the conceptualized involvement as personal relevance. For a product, to score the overall score intended, the involvement inventory, needs to focus on the important and interesting domains since both are viewed by customers as different not the same. Zaichkowsky combined these two domains instead of looking at them separately. Laurent and Kapferer (1985) contradicted Zaichkowsky by their argument that, for a measure of involvement to be complete, it should take into account multiple dimensions not just one (McQuarrie & Munson, 1992). The RPII is based on two modules namely interest and importance. It argues that there is a requirement to simplify the PII for it to be applicable to the general population outside a university elite setting. After examining the RPII sub- scales interest and importance, the measures of attitude as seen to be more distinct from the measures of interest than personal relevance measures are. The RPII offers some help to researchers looking for the difference between measures of involvement in relation to object and attitude towards the object (McQuarrie & Munson, 1992). RPII measure is compared with PII in predicting outcome of involvement. Attitude is seen clearly as inferior in the prediction of behavioral outcome. Park and Mittal (1985) theory argues that the involvement response to an object by a person may be a function of the interest value it has, the perceived importance, or both. Interest is more predictive than importance and importance affords no increment in prediction. Conclusion The RPII retains the strong points of the PII and works on its limitations, uses simpler words and language. It provides a short measure of involvement with lower reliability than PII, but high criterion validity. It has its limitations in that it is somehow lower than PII although with a high reliability. The weakness is most visible at an individual’s product level. The two approaches while used together are reliable since they complement each other’s weaknesses (McQuarrie & Munson, 1992). References McQuarrie, E. & Munson, M., 1992, ‘A Revised Product Involvement Inventory: Improved Usability and Validity’. Advances in consumer research, Vol.19, no. 1, pp. 108-115. Johnson, F., 2009. Hand book of product placement in mass media.(online) available at :http://www.slideshare.net/fredrik77johansson/product-placement-the-report[Accessed on 19TH November 2011]. Zaichkowsky, J., 1985, ‘Measuring the Involvement Construct’. Journal of Consumer Research, vol. 12, pp. 341-352. Kapferer, J. & Laurent G., 1985. ‘Consumer Profiles: A New Practical Approach to Consumer Involvement’. Journal of Advertising Research, vol.25, no. 6, pp. 48-56. Park, C. & Mittal, B., 1985, A Theory of Involvement in Consumer Behavior: Problems and Issue. Greenwich: JAI Press. Peter, P. and Olson, J., 1987, Consumer Behavior: Marketing Strategy Perspectives, Homewood, IL: Irwin. Tigert, J., Ring, L. and King, W., 1976, Fashion Involvement and Buying Behavior. Chicago, IL: Association for Consumer Research. Read More