Product placement

Some advertising slogans and jingles are unforgettable. You’ll have difficulty finding a British person over 30 who can’t finish the following (try asking):

• And all because the lady loves… Milk Tray (Cadbury’s)

• Have a break, have a … Kit-Kat

• A hazelnut in every bite… Topic

I know I can. But I grew up with the “in-your-face” advertisements. The “buy this because it tastes good, will make you feel good, will get you friends” type of advertisements. Nowadays, companies still write slogans – and good ones, too – but another advertising tool has become more popular with big companies over the past four or five years: product placement.

It’s no longer enough to tell people that a product is good. Companies think they can prove it by getting the stars to touch, use, wear and even destroy their products. Sarah Jessica Parker sitting at a Mac (as Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City), Meg Ryan using AOL (You’ve Got Mail) and Tom Hanks standing in a FedEx plane when it crashes (Castaway) — which proves the old saying “there’s no such thing as bad publicity” — are just three examples of successful product placement.

Here, we take a look at the vocabulary used in this area of advertising.

Deborah Capras