Getting the most out of product placement for your consumer brand
Product placement is a useful tool for consumer businesses to increase awareness of their products by placing it in environments heavily exposed to their target audiences e.g. Ariana Grande wore an outfit from Australian fashion brand Meshki in her music video ‘Seven Rings’. The music video then went on to be viewed 23.6 million times in 24 hours… now THAT is getting the most of out of product placement!
So, when the brand gets it right, the rewards of product placement strategies are well worth the cost, but it can be difficult to hit the spot.
Here are some tips for getting it right:
Target the desired audience – to do this, you need to know the other interests of your consumers. For example, the online fashion brand I Saw It First – who target predominantly the 18 to 30-year-old female consumer – is the Love Island 2019 sponsor. All the female contestants on the show will be wearing the brand’s clothing throughout the series. I Saw It First will gain direct exposure to their target audience, and like last year’s sponsor, Missguided, who saw a 40% increase in site activity during the show, will likely see similar benefits. This is an example of the ‘halo effect’ – which in this case is when the positive effect evoked by the programme/people in it, is associated and translated onto the products they use/wear, making those products more desirable.
It is also worth noting that people are now actively avoiding blatant advertising by paying for entertainment and music streaming subscription services, which is why you may have noticed an increase in product placement within programmes.
Less is more – when faced with multiple options of a similar product, consumers are less likely to complete a purchase. So, if you are designing a product placement plan for a store containing only your brand, the most impact will be made if you simplify the displays so the consumer can easily direct their focus without being overwhelmed by noisy visuals. The real difficulties arise with multi-brand stores e.g. supermarkets, which give consumers many different options of the same product. Although there is not much you can do about the amount of product options on display, there are other ways to help your product stand out. The most common and well known is eye-level buying which places the product in the directly observable space of the consumer drawing their attention and making them more likely to buy these items (but often these desirable spots come at a premium!).
Utilise social media platforms – social media is continually gaining more and more traction in the marketing industry. These platforms reach large audiences on a day-to-day basis (at any hour!) so product placement on these platforms can introduce your brand to new audiences that may otherwise not be accessible. This makes them powerful tools in gaining exposure.
Knolling – also known as Flat Laying, this when objects are organised in parallel and 90-degree angles to create aesthetically pleasing images. For example, laying out the objects needed for a camping trip, or the contents of a rucksack. The idea being that associations between the objects in the image are primed and every object is clearly displayed. Unlike in shops, it is often the case that the more items incorporated, the longer people tend to spend looking at the image – it’s just more interesting!
The main points are that product placement must be strategic, placing the product where it gains maximum exposure but to the right audience and in the right quantity.
Consumer brand management can be difficult, for more of our top tips see ADPR’s Consumer PR 101
If you are looking for further advise in achieving the most out of product placement, call us on +44 (0)1460 241641 today for a chat about how we can help.
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