I am honestly baffled by that creature we call the consumer. I really am. And, believe me, it is embarrassing to say so, considering the encyclopaedic volume of research we have at our disposal. For one thing, we know for a fact that consumers take a very cynical view of advertising, and yet a recent piece of research shows that they actually trust owned channels. Not only that. It appears that the same consumer who – supposedly – runs a mile at the mere whiff of commercialised content on YouTube is in fact running to join the queue for the latest James Bond movie.
This is probably the consumer at their most bewildering: Bond movies are perhaps the longest commercial break in history. But if all the research that tells us that people hate advertising were true, then those movies would have actually represented the longest toilet break ever. Instead, they are record-breaking blockbusters with the gravitational pull of a black hole.
Ever since our favourite spy stepped into his Aston Martin, brands have been so enthusiastic – and so often deliberate – at displaying their logos on celluloid, that it is quite surprising they haven’t managed to squeeze into costume dramas and historical documentaries. Indeed, in franchises such as Bond movies, product placement is not just evident it is practically dancing naked and winking at you.
For marketing purists, this is often not so much heavy-handed as it is self-defeating. It is one thing to have good old James change cars but when it is the entire manufacturer’s name-plates that are on display, you’d be forgiven for thinking it could trigger a backlash against the brand. Not to mention the franchise itself.
But no. While natural brand association should beat the hell out of blatant product placement, our consumer seems to think otherwise. Media buffs might smirk and pat themselves on the back at how brute exposure will always triumph over the niceties of carefully-crafted brand building and symbiotic partnerships. But the truth is that the consumer, while being infuriatingly unpredictable, is not buying the placed product. They are buying what their carefully-crafted brand buys.
Ramsey Naja is CCO at JWT MEA