Product Placement in Music Videos

A growing trend in the music industry today is product placement in music videos.  This past February, Britney Spears released a music video for her single “Hold it Against Me.”  She was reportedly paid $500,000 for the placement of goods in her video.  Some featured brands include: Her very own perfume (Radiance), Sony, Plentyoffish.com and Make Up Forever cosmetics.

Britney is not the only pop artist taking advantage of gaining some extra cash for product placement in music videos.  Travie McCoy was paid to feature a Mini Cooper in his video, “Billionaire.”  According to the NYTimes, “The money is often used to offset the video’s cost, which is usually shared by the artist and label.”

Lady Gaga is another pop icon who features products in her music videos.  One of Lady Gaga’s more famous music videos, “Telephone,” featuring Beyonce, had a number of different brands featured.  Some trademark names in this video include: Diet Coke, Virgin Moblie, Wonderbread, Miracle Whip, Polaroid Chevrolet and HP.  Most of the placements in this video were unpaid; however, some of the brands do have a partnership with Gaga.

Below is the video of Lady Gaga’s, “Telephone.”  How many product placements can you spot?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVBsypHzF3U&ob=av3e

 Fun fact: There is also something called product displacement.  Product displacement occurs when companies do not wish to associate their brand with someone else’s product.

Now that you have a little insight into the ad world within music videos, be on the look out! We guarantee you will notice it a lot more then you did before!

• Categories: Brand Success, Campaigns, entertainment, Gone Viral, Guerrilla Marketing, music
• Tags: ads, advertising, campaigns, celebrities, music, music videos, product placement