Product Placement Assignment #5

What do you think? Discuss product placement in TV shows and movies as an effective/ineffective means of advertising, especially to teenagers.

I believe that product placement is a very effective tool that advertisers use to appeal to the mass audience, because it is imposible to avoid. It is a well known fact that people cannot go one sitcom, radio talkshow, video game reel, without having to see a product inserted in the content. Advertisment has advanced so much that it no longer just airs over the brief breaks between the shows, but within the very faucet of the show itself. Consumers of media have no control of what they view within the show as they did during the breaks when they could just go into the next room and make themselves a sandwich.
Not only is product placement hard for consumers to avoid, but it is playing off our values as Americans. The values being played on vary with the product. products placed in the right celebrities hands makes us as consumers tremble with a desire to possess the product that we see, because it gives us the false sense of being just like them. Material Comfort, and conformity are the two values that I believe many teens value the most; advertisers draw in many uninformed teens by playing off on those values. Me, like most teens think of commercials as another way for adults to control what we want, and who we're suppose to be; product placement is just a natural method of appealing to teens. Teens don't want to hear ads that wish to convince them to buy a certain product. What product placement does that the latter doesn't is that it doesn't try to push teens into buying anything directly, no; it takes a round about approach and it plays off on many teens fear of not fitting in, and wanting to be in on the latest trends, as well as emulating their favorite celebrities. Teens become persuaded not by convincing ad techniques but by their own wrong doing in getting sucked into a product based on the touch and go emotional appeal of the product. I do not believe that teens are inept at understanding that there is such thing as product placement, but I do believe that teens must be even more analytic when dealing with what advertisers dish out.