If you were paying attention in Mr. Wong's class last semester, you'll remember that he talked about Seinfeld quite a bit. One episode he brought up a few times was called "The Junior Mint." The episode includes a scene in which Jerry and Kramer visit a hospital to watch a live surgery demonstration. In the viewing gallery, Kramer starts eating Junior Mints, which he offers to Jerry. Jerry refuses the candy, but Kramer insists that he take one. Growing angry, Jerry slaps the Junior Mint out of Kramer's hand, and the camera follows it as it falls below to the operating table into....You can guess where. The humor of the situation helps to distract from the blatant use of Madison and Vine advertising. This episode's use of Junior Mints as the center of one of the plot lines makes it as much of an episode of Seinfeld as a cleverly-disguised advertisement. Brands & Films, a blog about product placement, writes of the episode: "It included all three types of product placement: the name of the brand was mentioned several times, the product was visible for a few seconds, and one of the main characters has even eaten the candies."
I haven't seen many episodes of Seinfeld, but I'm pretty amazed that there hasn't been more product placement like this. Think about it: the show aired for almost ten years, it had 180 episodes, and it earned a cult following - between 76 and 108 million people watched the show's finale! It was a perfect medium for advertising. If a product (like Junior Mints) appeared on Seinfeld, millions would not only see it but also develop a positive association with it.
Speaking of cult followings, what about the car in Ferris Bueller's Day Off? An entire scene is devoted to showing off the 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California. While Cameron talks about the car, the camera switches between shots of the tires, headlights, and it even settles on the Ferrari logo for a moment. The scene below isn't far from a two-minute Ferrari commercial. This is where target audiences come into play. Assuming the target demographic of Ferris Bueller is teenage boys and young men, this use of product placement makes total sense. What did teenagers in the '80s like more than MTV and sports cars? The image of two teenage boys stealing a shiny red Ferrari just screams, "You're a teenage boy - buy a Ferrari!"
Madison and Vine advertising allows companies to reach consumers through entertainment as much as possible. If you think about it, the only thing stopping advertisers from airing ads during T.V. shows is the shows themselves. Between programs, viewers are bombarded with advertisements, but then the ads have to stop so the program can resume. Product placement allows advertisers to overcome this inconvenience. Rather than buying airtime during commercial breaks, Junior Mints can slip in a reference to their product in an episode of Seinfeld. The same goes for movies, which contain no ads at all. Ferrari need not create a new ad campaign when they can simply make an appearance in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Desperate to compete with other advertisers, companies have transformed T.V. and movies from entertainment to another medium for advertising products.
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