Is product placement the way to a Millennial’s heart?

Imagine you are the head of the Communication department of a brand. It can be any brand, your target just has to be Millennials (people born in the 1980-2000 timeframe). You have done your research, and come to the conclusion that to reach your target, you have to go off the beaten path.

The solution to this equation lies in 3 words: Instagram, YouTube, and Netflix. To reach a target, brands have to be where this target is and in the case of Millennials, they are on social media liking and sharing pictures, on YouTube watching all kinds of videos and on Netflix watching Stranger Things and The Crown. You may be wondering what all of this has to do with advertising, and the answer is simple: advertisers use these channels for product placement opportunities.

What is product placement?

Product placement is a marketing technique in which a brand or a product is, in exchange for a fee, deliberately incorporated into a work (a movie, a TV show, a music video, a YouTube video, etc.) with the aim of promoting said brand or product. Advertisers have been using product placement in movies and television for decades, but it wasn’t until recently that their focus shifted towards channels that are more suited to Millennials.

Beats by Dre's aggressive product placement strategy

Between 2013 and 2015, Beats by Dre headphones and accessories were featured in music videos by Lady Gaga, Nicki Minaj, Coldplay, Ariana Grande, and many others artists in the music industry. To give you an exact number, in 2014, Beats by Dre products appeared in 38 music videos, totaling 2.4 billion views on YouTube. Through this product placement strategy, Beats by Dre’s goals were to build a successful brand image, differentiate itself from its competitors and achieve Top of Mind Awareness (meaning being the first brand that comes to mind when thinking of a particular industry or category of products and in this case, audio products). Aspiration is also a key notion in product placement, especially when targeting Millennials. Younger consumers relate to celebrities and influencers and might aspire to be like them and seeing them use the Beats by Dre headphones might lead them to buy the very same product, in an attempt to connect with them on a deeper level. This phenomenon mostly occurs on social platforms like Instagram and YouTube where digital influencers with millions of followers share pictures and videos of them using or wearing products brands sometimes pay them to advertise. Remember that beauty blogger you saw on Instagram the other day promoting some new tea that changed her life? Chances are she has not even tried it. She just added a little product placement to one of her posts, in exchange for a generous fee.

Netflix’s Stranger Things and Kellogg Co.’s Eggo waffles

With Millennials’ overall lack of interest in traditional TV and the rise of streaming services like Netflix and Hulu, advertisers are faced with an opportunity to adapt and change the audiovisual landscape. Streaming services do not run traditional commercials. As an alternative, brands are asking for an increase in product placement in shows that appear on streaming services, considering it an opportunity to gain notoriety and grab the attention of notoriously hard-to-reach Millennials. Let’s take the example of Netflix’s Stranger Things and its placement of Kellogg Co.’s Eggo waffles. How many people had heard of these waffles before they appeared on the show? After their appearance, they became more talked about than brands that had appeared on TV during the Super Bowl (and these brands are usually talked about A LOT). On the other side of this business deal, show creators support the idea, as using real-world products adds a feeling of realism and authenticity to a story.

Targeting Millennials is no easy task. Their media consumption habits differ from other generations and advertisers have to adapt to reach them. Using product placement might be a solution, as it seems to satisfy everyone. Brands advertise their products, movie producers and show creators add money to their budget and authenticity to their productions, and Youtubers and other digital influencers earn thousands of dollars by posting pictures and videos. However, the interests of a key playor seem to have been forgotten in this narrative. What does the consumer gain from product placement? In an era where people change the channel when a commercial comes on and use Adblock, wouldn’t product placement feel like forcing advertising onto a generation who is openly rejecting it?

Loussiné Sarkissian