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Full Text
Jean-Marc Lehu
Kogan Page, London; 2007; 266pp; £25; hardback;
ISBN 0 7494 4940 3
With technology-empowered consumers increasingly able to skip television ads, brand owners are turning more and more attention towards product placement as an alternative means of connecting with their target audiences. In this book, Jean-Marc Lehu provides a detailed account of product placement and its role within the contemporary entertainment business. In Part 1 of the book, Lehu outlines the origins of and reasons for product placement; in Part 2, he describes the advantages and methods of the use of product placement; in Part 3, the focus turns to branded entertainment in all its forms; while in Part 4, the area covered is brand integration. The book is solidly researched and well constructed.
The introductory chapter offers a succinct definition of product placement as 'the location or, more accurately, the integration of a product or a brand into a film or televised series'. Lehu broadens out the scope of his analysis by noting that it is also possible to find commercial insertions within other cultural vehicles such as songs or novels, and that these are examples of what he terms branded entertainment. From the opening page of the book, the author acknowledges that product placement can be a controversial practice, liked by some and loathed by others--'For some, seeing brands everywhere is a source of irritation. Other people derive amusement from spotting them. There are those who blank them out as little more than part of the consumer backdrop of life'. Lehu acknowledges too that product placement tends often to be associated only with the James...