Screenist: The (R)evolution of Product Placement

Admit it. We all hate ads, right? We bump into one on tv, and leave the room right away and grab a beer. True. Most of us are “banner-blind” when browsing the net, and we even skip the 30-second spots before videos, if those are not banned altogether. But then what’s the proper way to approach the  average consumer, and make them even grateful for the chance of  learning about a new product? The key lies in product placement –  something that is already so much more than what it used to be.  

Let’s just take a look at the history  of Product Placement. It’s not a 20th-century idea, and it’s not even  linked to motion picture: when Jules Verne published the novel Around  the World in Eighty Days in 1873, shipping companies were lobbying to be  mentioned in the story, whereas the first Hollywood-movie with a  Hershey-bar was Wings in 1927. In the beginning, during the era of  silent movies in the 1920s, the logos of certain products or later the  products themselves appeared in the background solely to make the story  more realistic, to make spectators believe that whatever they see on the  screen is true. 

“This whole thing is happening right here, right now,  and she is using the exact same washing gel you do” – this was the  message these flashes sent. This was the era of passive product  placements with not much of a business-mind behind the logos and the  products in the background. It didn’t take too long to notice  that drinks and cigarettes linked to Hollywood-stars are the most  attractive items for spectators, and those few-second-long flashes  definitely shape consumer attitude a great deal. By the beginning of the  60’s, a complete industry was built around product placement. First the  aim was simply to enhance brand recognition by showing the item as  often as possible, but the next step was already about the conscious  integration of the product into the storyline: the item is an integral  part of the script at this stage, it can even be the essence of  character, like Omega watches in James Bond-movies, or a bottle of  Tuborg in our Danish comedy Olsen-band. 

By the beginning of the 2000’s, it became clear that not only the product but the brand could also be integrated into the story,  which led to a number of hilarious scenes as it’s obvious that this  type of image building does not always sit well with the artistic  concept. Movies like The Internship, celebrating the corporate culture  of Google received plenty of rotten tomatoes, whereas Red Bull’s famous  Project Stratos was a huge success. Nowadays an agency behind a top-notch  production is pleased if the production team and the brand manage to  co-operate in such a way that the brand and the product linked to the  brand is woven into the storyline in a creative way, while the  spectator-consumer is happy to get high-quality, value-driven, exciting  content. Something they have a great time watching, reading, something  they can relate to. We are talking a huge market: in the  US, companies spend 67 billion dollars on advertisement every year.  According to a survey by PQ Media, the product placement-market grew by  13.7 percent in 2017. 

These numbers are expanding rapidly: in 2012,  companies spent 4.75 billion dollars on product placement, while this number is expected to reach 11.44 billion by 2019. And what about efficiency? A 2017  survey interviewed Americans only to find out that 77 percent of them  know what product placement is, and 80 percent of those asked are  influenced by it in one way or the other.  Sounds good, right? The only problem  is that the highest level of product placement – as that’s what we are  talking about here – is only available for the lucky few: you need a  professional sales-team, a creative team, and tons of money to make it  work. No wonder that only some 3 percent of YouTube-vloggers make decent  money in the 4 or even 5 figure range: content creators on a budget  have no chance to work with a team of this caliber, thus they obviously  make less money as a result.

At least that’s how it used to be: Screenist makes high quality, premium product placement available for basically anybody. 

The cool thing about  Screenist is not just the fact that it transforms a viewer into a  consumer, offering them the gift of impulse-purchases in the online  world where it was previously an unknown concept, but it also opens new  gates for advertisers: information based on big data show them the best  conversion, and the video ads bidding system based on blockchain takes  the consumer to the webshop offering the most for the given product  placement.

This revolutionary change previously  unknown to the world of advertisement not only has the chance to make  product placement more cost-efficient but thanks to the better  conversion, may also reach a wider audience. This way, it’s easy to  introduce a given product even to YouTube or Instagram users – and all  they need to do is click to purchase the object of their dreams, even as  an impulse.

This is how an idea – merely serving to  make the content appear more realistic – turns into the world’s coolest  online store… and perhaps the best part is that it’s available for  anyone, and you don’t even need billions of dollars for that. 

Check us out here!