Product placement is a very powerful marketing strategy used to launch products. It helps to promote products and services by including them in content like movies or TV shows, which can boost the chances of making sales. With so many options, it can feel daunting to choose the best product placement strategy without understanding your true needs.
It’s crucial for companies to grasp the basics of product placement. The end goal is to generate more sales through creative yet strategic decisions. We want to share our top 6 recommendations to help you develop the best plan of action but let’s first go over the basics.
What is the product placement anatomy?
Product placement anatomy refers to the strategic placement of products and services in visual media, including movies, TV shows, and ads. It encompasses a range of factors such as timing, location, frequency, target audience, and more, all aimed at promoting a company’s offerings.
To achieve the best possible outcomes, a company must have a comprehensive understanding of product placement anatomy. This may involve selecting distinctive product packaging design ideas to make its products stand out, or featuring a specific actor to promote its offerings. By utilizing effective product placement strategies, a company can enhance brand awareness, encourage customer loyalty, and even drive sales.
How does it work?
Product placement is the science of strategically placing your products or services to bring the most sales possible for your brand. It’s about consistency, creativity but most importantly patience. And just to be sure, we are talking physical and digital product placement.
It’s also important to select the most appropriate products based on the target audience and the type of media being used. In other words, not all products are good for all mediums. It all starts with your goals – from there you can start brainstorming to find the best strategy.
Understanding the competitive landscape is crucial when planning product placements. Researching what has worked well for similar brands can provide valuable insights and inspiration. To delve deeper into this topic, you need to learn more about product launches and the strategies behind successful product placements. If you’re preparing to launch a new product or service, knowing how to effectively use product placement can make all the difference in its success.
Where can you use product placement?
Product placement is applicable in to types of visual content, including TV shows and movies, video games, music videos, commercials and physical stores. It can also be used in social media campaigns to increase your reach and engagement. The effectiveness of your product placement medium depends entirely on your goal but focus is key.
For instance, product placement in a TV show or movie should be subtle, as it needs to blend in with the plot without distracting from the storyline. On the other hand, product placement in commercials should be bold and direct, as it has just a few seconds to make an impact.
#1 – Explore your product
Exploring your product and how consumers use them is very important. You want to showcase your best features, the one’s most loved by your current customers. It’s also a good idea to mimic as much as possible the environment of your ideal customer. Your strategy will vary based on the product you choose.
For instance, expensive products may require a more subtle approach, while affordable products can be placed with greater boldness and visibility. By understanding your product’s angle, you will need to adapt your entire product placement strategy.
#2 – Play with your target market
Production businesses should always consider who they’re reaching with their product placement. Different audiences need different approaches. For instance, you might want to choose TV to showcase your beauty products but select Facebook ads for your fashion brand.
A good example is when a company places their product in a movie. They could show their shampoo brand while the main actor takes their shower without making the person talk about it. The most important thing is to understand who watches that movie. If the shampoo is for men, we might want to choose a movie loved by men.
#3 – Think product placement strategy
Once you have product and target market fit, it’s time to brainstorm ideas and find the best strategy. You should consider your budget but most importantly where your audience is. If you are targeting the Gen Z crowd, a Tik Tok campaign will most likely be the most effective campaign strategy you can use. Another example would be targeting soccer enthusiasts. The ideal place would be in a soccer game streaming.
Once you have selected your channel, it’s time to write a strategic product placement brief. You should write every single detail of your campaign:
- Target audience
- Product
- Budget
- Marketing KPI’s
- Messaging
- Creative angles
#4 – Get creative
Creativity is infinite but it takes a lot of energy. We recommend that brands take the time to reflect upon their strategy and get more creative during the campaign phase. Once you’ve done the basics, it’s time to get into your messaging and visual design. The first step is to decide what matters in your campaign and remember that focus is key.
We actually recommend brands to have only one message per campaign. For instance, you could decide to show that your shampoo smells good. It’s much easier to create an ad to show one message than showcasing 3 different ones. In reality, people only remember one thing so when you have too many people don’t remember anything.
#5 – Track campaign performance
You should always track the performance of your product placement campaigns. This will help you understand which placements were effective for your future campaigns. We recommend getting as much data as you can such as views, likes, shares and ideally revenue.
It’s not always possible to get all the data you want but it’s worth it to try to get as much as you can. You can generally get more data from online campaigns than traditional advertising. The goal here is to compare in the future the results of your previous campaigns to help you make better decisions.
#6 – Keep an open mind
It’s important to be keep an open mind when it comes to product placement strategies. There are many different approaches that can work for your goals. These approaches also change with time making it essential to continuously stay creative in your approach.
Your creativity can happen at any stage of the product placement process – strategy, channel choice, messaging, product or creative. The role of creativity is crucial because it allows you to find new opportunities for your brand. One of your campaign might work for a certain period of time but will stop working at some point. You have to be prepared.
What’s your strategy?
As we mentioned, product placement is very powerful if done right. It can attract new customers, grow your revenue and improve your brand’s positioning in the market. Your role is to spend the time to create a proper strategy defining your product, target market, channel, messaging and visual. Your success depends on your creativity because marketing is about standing out. If you don’t stand out, people won’t notice you and it’s a bad place to be in. We’re a powerhouse of creativity, don’t hesitate to reach out if you want to grow your brand through better product placement strategies.