How to embed irresistible advertisements in movies and TV series?

Nowadays, product placement in film and television dramas has become one of the most popular marketing methods for brands. However, as attention becomes increasingly scarce, it is becoming increasingly difficult for brand owners to maintain brand attention. Product placement is no longer just a matter of showing a product’s face. Improper placement can backfire and even lead to consumer disgust.

So, in the post-product placement era, how can brands gain consumers’ favor through product placement and then occupy consumers’ minds?

01. Hello, Li Huanying became popular and many brands placed their products on the screen

Movies have the ability to spread content explosively and are an excellent marketing tool.

Since last year, the film industry has been criticized for a while, and the film product placement market has also encountered a bottleneck. However, this year the trend has improved. It can even be said that this year's Spring Festival movies are a bit "powerful".

There are many excellent movies in this year's Spring Festival, including the series movie "Detective Chinatown 3", the domestic high-energy animation "New Gods: Nezha Reborn", the suspenseful 3D blockbuster "Assassination of Novelist", and the tear-jerking "Hello, Li Huanying".

"Hello, Li Huanying" became the biggest dark horse in this year's Spring Festival movie season, with amazing box office! As of now, the box office has exceeded 4.8 billion, and this is the 12th film in Chinese film history to have a box office of over 3 billion.

In addition to its unstoppable box office, "Hello, Li Huanying" also has a high Douban score of 8.2 points, which has been recognized and supported by the majority of netizens.

The story of "Hello, Li Huanying" takes place in the 1980s. It tells the story of the heroine Jia Xiaoling who, after experiencing the grief of "the child wants to support his parents but the parents are no longer there", accidentally travels through time and space back to 1981 and meets her young parents, thus unfolding a family story with laughter and tears. The film incorporates many long-lost treasure brands, which evokes many memories of those born in the 1970s and 1980s.

"Xinghai" TV

After Jia Ling traveled through time, the first thing she did to make her mother happy was to grab a TV, making her mother the first person in the factory to own a TV. Thirty years ago, televisions were a hot commodity that could not be bought even with money. Many people even had to use connections to get a "television ticket". The television used in the film was the "Xinghai" brand television produced by Hefei Radio Factory No. 2.

"Warrior" sports shoes

The scene where Shen Teng pretended to fall during the rehearsal is still hilarious even if you watch it now. Here you can also see that Shen Teng is wearing "Hui Li" sneakers.

"Hui Li" is the oldest tire brand in China. After the reform and opening up, Hui Li was incorporated into the Shanghai Rubber Shoes Company. The trademark was registered as a brand of sports shoes on April 4, 1935. This brand has also set off a small "retro trend" in recent years and has become a "trendy item" among many niche youth circles.

"Phoenix" 28 bicycle

Shen Teng once said in an interview that he had played some pretentious roles, but he had never played a role as pretentious as Shen Guanglin. The reason why people pushed a bicycle all day long even though they didn't know how to ride one was because owning a 28-inch bicycle was a way of showing off in the 1980s.

For a time, "Hello, Li Huanying" made a lot of money. High box office means large traffic. In addition to the film and television groups that made real money, the brands that got on the express train also undoubtedly benefited.

However, when it comes to brand marketing placement, popularity does not equal attention.

Overall, most of the brands appearing in "Hello, Li Huanying" are there to fit the scenario, and the possibility of making a profit through advertising is basically zero.

So, how does advertising placement enhance brand value through content and channels?

02. Integrated product placement makes the audience unable to refuse

Traditional advertising placement and mindless repetition always make people irritated and annoyed. It not only affects the brand's reputation, but also creates a bad impression on the audience.

So, what are the more advanced product placements?

That is to allow the audience to be subtly and silently implanted with advertisements while watching the TV series, and perfectly integrated with the plot. This is the advanced implantation method.

This reminds me of the TV series "Snail House" which has been very popular for more than ten years. This TV series can be regarded as a classic in TV product placement. It started with the heroine Haizao who fell in love with Haagen-Dazs ice cream.

The product placement slogan of Haagen-Dazs is:

"Seaweed is immune to all kinds of high-end consumption, except ice cream and chocolate. This temptation is like fur and diamonds to a noble lady, and it is irresistible..."

This advertisement is presented in the form of narration, which not only introduces Haizao's simple and frugal life in the "snail house period", contrasting it with her luxurious life as a "mistress" in the future, but also highlights the deliciousness and temptation of Haagen-Dazs ice cream. It is telling consumers that although Haagen-Dazs is more expensive, the happiness it brings to consumers is endless.

This section integrates the brand, product and plot together, which not only promotes the development of the plot, but also lays a wonderful foreshadowing for the follow-up of the entire TV series. When the audience watches the TV series and experiences the emotions of the characters in the drama, they will have a deep memory of the brand.

In addition to this classic successful product placement for Haagen-Dazs, another product placement in the TV series "Home Sweet Home" made the Land Rover Range Rover popular across the country.

Let’s first take a look at the slogan of this product placement advertisement:

"All men who drive and have blood in their veins want to own a Land Rover. After being cooped up in the city for a long time, they all hope to grow up on the grassland like a wild horse with a mane blowing in the wind. Land Rover is a man's legs, the wind blowing in the wind! I have always dreamed that one day, I can drive it to Tibet..."

As we all know, as a high-end off-road vehicle brand, Land Rover's main target consumers are successful people like Song Siming in the play, who have a strong interest in outdoor adventures and the spirit of conquering the world.

This piece of product placement, through Song Siming telling Hai Zao about the car, shows off his own identity and strength while vividly displaying the brand spirit of the characteristics of the Land Rover car.

Unconsciously, as the plot develops, advertisements are cleverly inserted into the film, subtly planting the brand deeply in the hearts of the audience. I have to say, this wave of integrated product placement that is fully connected with the plot is amazing!

Hard advertising has been eliminated by the times. If you want to win more people's hearts, it is very important to recognize the compatibility between the brand and the film and television subject matter when choosing the implantation method.

03. Scenario-based implantation is more profound

Of course, ensuring a high degree of fit between the brand and the drama is only the first step in brand implantation in the post-implantation era. It is more important to abandon simple "plot implantation" and complete the communication of product concepts from the perspective of "scenario implantation".

Take Yu Nifang as an example.

The plot implantation of Yu Nifang has always followed the development of the story. As early as in "Princess Agents" in 2017, Yu Nifang deeply integrated into the content and promoted the development of the plot by implanting products in scenes of gift-giving and intelligence exchange. With the exquisite product packaging and the dialogue between the protagonist, the beauty and skin care effects of the product are highlighted indirectly.

Starting from "The Legend of Qin: Ming Yue Xin", Yu Nifang upgraded the plot implantation. In addition to regular scene implantation, the upgrade adds a "brand store promotion" implantation mode, which displays products in sales scenarios and cooperates with oral broadcasts to deeply promote the functional features of products.

In "The Legend of Fuyao", Yu Nifang continued the "plot + oral broadcast" model in "The Legend of Qin". The first placement of Yu Nifang was in the first 16 episodes when Ya Lanzhu entered "Yun Nifang". The shop owner introduced her to the Yu Nifang beauty lotion, which is famous all over the world, and carefully taught her the beauty secrets.

Through the oral introduction of the proprietress, the efficacy, raw materials and usage of Yu Nifang products were explained one by one. The product’s beauty-enhancing function is used as a selling point, and the product is promoted to be applied twice a day, morning and evening, combined with plot placement.

The story of Taiyuan Country's superior water quality and abundant fine mud is used as a prelude to introduce the naturalness of the product's materials, thus highlighting the product's natural beauty-enhancing effect. At the same time, the brand concept of Yu Nifang, "the utmost purity, the right way to achieve beauty", is also conveyed through the plot interpretation.

The biggest benefit of TV drama placement is the display of consumption scenarios and the communication of brand concepts.

In the subsequent episodes of "The Legend of Fuyao", Yu Nifang demonstrated the consumption scenario of Yu Nifang products through the scene where Tang Zhirong applied it on her face before serving Zhangsun Wuji.

The entire picture is full of beauty, and it also invisibly transforms consumers' love for the drama into attention for the product, narrowing the distance between the audience and the brand and increasing the brand's reputation.

Not only that, in "The Legend of Fuyao", Yu Nifang also upgraded the "plot + oral broadcast" model. In the later plot of "The Legend of Fuyao", Fuyao was poisoned, and Zong Yue used the Geya Rose from the Geya Desert to detoxify her. Geya Rose is natural and rare, and is one of the raw materials for the unique formula of Yu Nifang Beauty Lotion, thus bringing out the same product as Yu Nifang Geya Rose.

The original novel of "The Legend of Fuyao" introduces: The Geya Desert is located in the west of the mainland, bordering the Moro tribe in the Western Regions, and the two countries are separated by the Geya Desert. There is no such medicinal ingredient as Geya Rose. The rose sleeping mask produced by YUNIFANG contains "desert rose".

Therefore, Yu Nifang linked the "Desert Rose" contained in its products with the Geya Desert, created the Geya Rose, and set up the "Geya Rose" plot. By bundling the product with the main storyline, the brand impression is deepened while enhancing the "halo effect" of the product.

At present, in the face of changes in consumer behavior habits, brands are changing their marketing strategies and adopting a method that is more acceptable to young people to occupy their minds and even drive their behavior. But it is important to remember that no single marketing method is universally successful. The only good solution is to find the one that suits you best at different stages.

04. Conclusion

For brands, the era of ignoring the integrity and reasonable development of drama content and blindly pursuing overexposure is over, and the importance of soft implantation must be put on the agenda. Brand owners also need to understand that the rationality of the implantation method can improve the brand's impression. After gaining favorability, the brand effect can be expanded through linkage marketing of off-series series. This is the closed-loop link that drama marketing should perfect.

In short, as long as the advertising placement is clever and innovative, the audience will definitely buy it.

Author: Brand Observer

Source: Brand Observer