19 product placements: Are you watching "Midnight Diner" or "Ad Diner"?

"To be honest, I didn't expect the crew to agree to so many requests without any resistance." After watching the Chinese version of " Midnight Diner ", the TV series with the lowest Douban score in history, a brand implanter in the show told Entertainment Capital Theory.

Indeed, in addition to the high imitation of the Japanese version, the lack of grounding and awkward acting, "too many advertisements " has become the main point of complaint. The "Instant Noodles Three Sisters" who appeared in the first episode have become the target of public criticism. When they disagree with something, they eat "Uni-President Old-Style Pickled Cabbage Instant Noodles". Even if the three sisters do not appear, other customers will order instant noodles.

For a time, the voice that "half of the entertainment industry was ruined by a bowl of instant noodles" was heard everywhere.

As a director, Cai Yuexun was miserable. In an interview with Hetun, he said that after the collaboration between "Midnight Diner" and brand implantation, he would make a "Midnight Diner Treaty" when accepting future roles: he would have the final say on how the implantation should be filmed.

"This cooperation between the crew and the advertiser is a bad example for the industry." At this point, Cai Yuexun sighed.

The drama has been criticized, is it really the product placement that is to blame? By comparing the number and duration of implantation of different brands in the previous episodes, Xiaoyu found that the largest amount of implantation in the previous episodes was actually JA cider and Sedrin beer under Budweiser. However, judging from the content of the audience's comments, most people do not object to the product placement of these two types of wine, and some people even did not realize that cider was also product placement.

Data source : Kunpeng Digital Entertainment

It seems that different ways of implantation can bring very different feelings to the audience.

But, does the sponsor prefer the "black and red route" where people will remember you after scolding you, or the "slow-heat route" where people influence you subtly and win your heart? In the minds of directors and product placement planners, what kind of content makes for good product placement? Why is there such a big difference in the "hardness" of the implantation between the part directed by mainland director Hu Hanqing and the part directed by Taiwanese director Cai Yuexun?

With 19 product placements, has "Midnight Diner" become "Advertising Diner"?

In the list of thanks at the end of "Midnight Diner", Xiaoyu found as many as 19 embedded brands, most of which were fast-moving consumer goods that matched the food theme of the show, such as Joyoung kettle, Uni-President Laotan Pickled Cabbage Instant Noodles, Pepsi-Cola , Budweiser Beer, etc. The drama has only 44 episodes, so it is no wonder that some netizens jokingly said that "Midnight Diner" has become "Advertising Diner".

However, different brand owners actually have different advertising planners behind them. Since the drama is controlled by Hualu Baina, most of the brands are represented by companies under Hualu. As for the plot, they were directed by Cai Yuexun and Hu Hanqing respectively (there is a hint in the opening of each story).

However, Director Cai told Entertainment Capital that he actually rejected many unreasonable requests from brands, "I would really go into arguments." During the filming process, some brand owners sent staff to supervise the production, but Director Cai once sternly drove them away: "How could we let them come?"

According to Entertainment Capital Theory, the producers were unable to make a breakthrough with Director Cai, so they arranged a large number of product placements to be filmed by another director, Director Hu. The widely criticized episode "The Three Instant Noodle Sisters" happened to be Director Hu's part. However, some relevant people told Xiaoyu: "Hualu Baina has already signed a firm contract with the brand owner in the early stage. The word-of-mouth, scene placement, and exposure seconds are all clear. They will definitely find a way to complete it."

Next, we will classify the product placement in this drama into different ways, such as prop placement, plot (or scene placement), and dialogue broadcast, and try to use different cases to analyze the product placement effect of this drama.

Which one is the most natural: spoken word, prop placement, or customized plot ?

Dialogue: Even the director couldn't help but criticize the "violence implantation"

Scene 1: The "Instant Noodle Sisters" are taking a bath in the bathhouse. Girl 1 says to Girl 2, "Your face is too dry, you should apply a Weifeng mask."

Scene 2: The canteen owner said to the diners, "There is a new flavor: Laotan Pickled Cabbage and Crab Noodles."

Judging from the content of the drama that has been aired so far, Scene 1 has different ways of implantation, such as oral dialogue and background prop implantation. However, the sisters' bathing scene in episode 2 was criticized by many because there was no foreshadowing in the previous part of the plot and no connection to the subsequent part. The audience did not understand why the three sisters took a bath for no reason, which made the scene feel awkward and abrupt.

As for Scene 2, this unit was changed from the Japanese version of the Three Sisters of Tea and Rice to the Three Sisters of Instant Noodles after being translated into Chinese. The first two episodes seemed to have become a custom-made show specially designed for Unified Instant Noodles, but it did not convey the relationship between food and people, and the naked spoken lines made the audience even more disgusted.

The show's director Cai Yuexun told Entertainment Capital that the original plot of "The Three Instant Noodle Sisters" was to express that three girls did not know how to take care of themselves, so they could only choose the most convenient and hassle-free instant noodles. However, due to excessive oral broadcasting and exposure of the product name, it became eating instant noodles for the purpose of advertising.

He also revealed that a certain brand in the drama insisted on having shots of food cans, so the action of "opening the package" alone took a full 3 seconds of continuous footage, which naturally damaged the drama. In his opinion, good advertising placement should integrate the product into the plot, turn it into a character, and make the product functional in the plot. He strongly opposes violent placement.

An advertising placement expert once told Xiaoyu that the current process of advertising placement in TV dramas is: the producer gives the script or outline to the planning company during the script planning stage, and the planning company then designs new plots and segments for advertising placement based on the plot, character settings, character relationships, and the connection between each plot. However, if the story itself has large loopholes and the characters are not well-established, the advertising placement will inevitably appear more abrupt.

What's more, the way of reading dialogues orally is now gradually being eliminated by advertisers and producers because it is rather stiff. The fancy dialogue readings in " The Debaters " can probably only be viewed from a distance and are difficult to imitate !

Props and background placement: some fit in, some steal the show

Scene 1: " Jiang Xiaobai " sticker on the wall outside the cafeteria.

Scene 2: The quaint "Pepsi clock" decoration in the cafeteria.

Scene 3: Anjuke poster on the wall inside the cafeteria.

This method of "subtly" implanting the content as a background is softer than using dialogues, and is easier for people to accept, but it also involves specific analysis of specific issues. For example, in scenario 1, as a wine, the sticker is pasted on the outer wall of a restaurant, which is quite normal, after all, there must be food and drinks in the restaurant.

The brand that appears in Scene 2 is represented by Yourui Culture. Its chairman Yu Wenhao believes that the different decorations in the cafeteria are all ingeniously designed, but they must all be realistic and reasonable. For example, the restaurant’s freezer must have popular drinks such as Coke, and the Pepsi-Cola wall clock on the wall was also designed by the brand itself, which not only fits the brand’s history of more than a hundred years, but also fits the setting that this "late-night cafeteria" is an old store.

As for Scenario 3, why are real estate agency posters posted on the walls of the restaurant? When the chemical brand Sinoceramic Yongfengyuan appeared on the background wall where Xu Jiao and Liu Haoran were talking, many viewers said that it was "too discordant and too much of a show-stealer."

Customized plot placement: Selling without any prior context

Scene 1: In the "Meteor Garden" unit, a passerby recommends a cushion powder to the bride

Scene 2: One of the three instant noodle sisters sells a kettle to the customer (with a cell phone implanted in it)

Designing a plot specifically to introduce several functions of a product is also a relatively hard method of product placement, but if the placement is good, it will not make the audience feel uncomfortable. Let’s look at a few examples:

In scene 1, the main storyline is that the heroine Luo Jiajia is getting married, and the four boys "F4" who had a crush on her in school want to give her their final blessings, but in this episode a passerby suddenly appears and recommends a cushion powder to her. A bride-to-be should indeed take care of her skin, but who is this passerby? The lack of basic introduction to character relationships gives way to sudden implantation, which greatly affects the smoothness of the plot.

In scene 2, one of the "Three Instant Noodle Sisters" introduces the features of a kettle to the male protagonist, who is a customer. This is done through a spoken line and the camera gives a 360-degree close-up. However, the previous plot did not explain the professional identities of the three girls and the "scumbag" male protagonist. They were just meeting in a tavern in the last second, and they were talking about business in the next second?

No matter how natural the implantation is, the root is still good drama and production

Even though he had created a pretty good product placement idea for his client, Yu Wenhao still admitted: "Once we encounter flaws such as loose plot, weak character conflicts and chaotic editing, we still cannot avoid controversy after the broadcast."

No matter how good the idea of ​​advertising placement is, if there is a problem with the script and production itself, any subsequent actions will magnify the shortcomings and be magnified by the audience. Entertainment Capital Theory believes that the "original sin" of "Midnight Diner" is that it wants to copy Japan's successful works in China, where the culture is different from that of Japan, and it is inevitable that it will be a copycat.

In the view of Entertainment Capital Theory, on the one hand, the Japanese side has strict requirements. Director Cai Yuexun revealed that the original author Abe Yaro had several requirements, such as the scar on the boss's face could not be changed, and the script would also be submitted to the Japanese side for review. On the other hand, the director himself was also quite conflicted about localization and retaining the characteristics of the original work. If he wanted to be down-to-earth, there was no need to buy the copyright of "Midnight Diner", so he wanted to shoot it in a way that was a little detached from reality. If they really filmed a story about a food stall, I guess the audience wouldn't be able to stand Huang Lei wearing a big sweatshirt and shorts.

In addition, it is common to have advertising placements in urban dramas, and it does not constitute the "original sin" of a particular drama. However, for a theme like "Midnight Diner" that advocates "slow life" and focuses on conveying warmth, commercial implantation would be inconsistent if not done carefully.

The drama received negative reviews from the public, and many people blamed it on the product placement of advertisements. In fact, in Xiaoyu’s opinion, the advertising placement techniques of this drama contain both essence and dregs, and the audience’s perceptions vary greatly. In fact, the audience will obviously find that the stories shot by different directors have quite different final effects due to the rhythm, advertising placement, and adjustment of the actors' performances.

If the TV series itself is of high quality and the product placement is relatively "subtle", people will be relatively tolerant of the product placement in the series, and even think that the film company is "good at generating revenue" like "My Love from the Star"; once the series is not good enough, the product placement can easily be attributed to the film company being unscrupulous and "crazy about making money".

For the film producers and financial sponsors, they need to learn how to tell a good story first, and then talk about how to product placement.

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