Product Placement Law – Opportunities for Brands

I was reading one of Stan Lee’s most excellent posts today on how the UK has just introduced a product placement law.

I left a comment but as is so often the case with me I feel inspired to leave a comment but then decide that the comment could be turned into an actual blog post (rather than clog up Stan’s comments section with 500 words or so).

Stan writes that the “logo only has to appear for 3 seconds at the start and end of a show” and that “it has to appear in a corner of the screen and be the same size as any network logo or watermark”.

No doubt we all agree this is pretty lame and a complete waste of tax payers money. I shudder to think how much they spent on this exercise while they cut public services in the UK following the GFC.

For me, I think the real winner are the products/brands. I think there is a real opportunity for brands to leverage this. Why even pretend to hide in shows anymore?

Imagine this …

Logo shows up at the start of the show and the brand uses is social channels, or maybe even buys paid space before or during the show, to alert fans/customers that the product will be in the show and that they are running a competition around when people see the product placement. Product bingo if you like.

This situation would strengthen ties with existing fans/customers and would probably end up attracting more as they tweeted or facebook status updated their spotting of the product. It could create a hell of a lot of buzz and engagement.

I can see that opportunity for products but do you think his will take away the focus on the show as people look more intently for the product placement instead of paying attention to the content?

Or can you see other opportunities for the brands?