Can you spot the product placement?

I worked on a renovation reality show, where Rona (the Home Depot of Canada) was the main big big sponsor. Man, they had a contract for 2 1/2 minutes of logo air time per episode, so the hosts got into the habit of "holding the logo towards the camera" when using tools. Though the producers kept getting feedback from Rona that the logos looked too "placed" and not natural, yet they were complaining that they weren't getting enough air time... what a world...

Thought talking about Rona was out of the question.
 
The Windows phone integration has been so astonishingly clunky it staggers the mind. I think the twenty-minute Hawaii Five-O exposition was the worst I've seen.

 
Erik Olson said:
The Windows phone integration has been so astonishingly clunky it staggers the mind. I think the twenty-minute Hawaii Five-O exposition was the worst I've seen.

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It's happened on several shows.

In Bones, they have embarrassing Toyota commercials.

I can only imagine what the writers of these shows feel like.
 
It's getting really, really bad. Forced, unnatural dialog about crap they're trying to sell. I've seen several network prime time dramas, and one or two sit-coms, with some really blatant placement of minivans and SUVs. It's annoying. Very, very annoying.
 
Then there's Chuck and Subways. Man they always eat subways on that show, and often comment on the sandwich... ugh... mind you they find a funny way to do it, but still...
 
Wow. That was beyond pathetic. It takes product placement to a whole new (unacceptable) level. But I guess it's bound to happen when advertising dollars pays for everything we see on tv.
 
Cheerios might get into more trouble now that they have those actors spewing the health claim.

"Based on claims made on your product's label, we have determined that your Cheerios Toasted Whole Grain Oat Cereal is promoted for conditions that cause it to be a drug," the FDA said in a letter to General Mills which was posted on the federal agency's website Tuesday.
Cheerios labels claim that eating the cereal can help lower bad cholesterol, a risk factor for coronary heart disease, by four per cent in six weeks.
Citing a clinical study, the product labels also claim that eating two servings a day of Cheerios helps to reduce bad cholesterol when eaten as part of a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol, the FDA letter says.
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http://www.canada.com/health/Popular+Cheerios+cereal+drug/1591926/story.html
 
Yeah, the prodigious use of Chevy on H-50 is irritating. What's funny is that they seemed to be very iPhone-centric at the top of the season. I guess they place on a block of eps or even ep by ep now. As an aside, I wonder if Dad has wifi in his Chevrolet Suburban?

 
Erik Olson said:
Yeah, the prodigious use of Chevy on H-50 is irritating. What's funny is that they seemed to be very iPhone-centric at the top of the season. I guess they place on a block of eps or even ep by ep now. As an aside, I wonder if Dad has wifi in his Chevrolet Suburban?
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Well, I haven't seen them say "hey, in this 2010 Chevy Camaro, we . . . "

I don't think just having the cars in the show is so bad. It's when characters overtly make a sales pitch. Like I said, I've seen them do it with Toyota in Bones.
 
If someone told me to "bing" something, I would thump it, expecting it to make the noise a tuning fork would make if you hit it on something. I laughed the first time I heard "google" as a verb, too, though.
 
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