With DVRs, and direct delivery of news content, there are more opportunities for consumers to skip paid advertisements. The ability to skip commercials is leading to greater use of embedded placement or branded content.

The new dynamo movie, The Women, uses product placements like there will never be another opportunity for any other type of advertising. For example, when Meg Ryan’s character washes her face, there’s the Dove product. The first product placement was not a visual of a product, but an audio tagline used for product placement. The T-Mobile signature audio tag (ting aling aling)

was heard as Meg Ryan answered her phone in the garden and continued to be heard throughout the movie when the character received a phone call.

But it’s not just the movies where we are seeing increasing use of branded content and product placements. My favorite TV show, Mad Men, has introduced a new type of placement; a factoid appears in the signature Mad Men titling style leading into the (Heineken or Target or Chemistry.com) spot.

Product placement is carried to its most extreme with the Degree antiperspirant placement in Eureka, the sci-fi series about a genius town where geek inventors work in top secret developing new military technology. The new tech stuff is quickly (this season) turned into product (placement?). The latest placement is more like a marriage–they expect us to believe that Degree is a part of these fictitious folks lives?

I’m dubious about the success of the Degree placement. To me it’s not nearly as successful as the old Jack Benny show placement of Carnation Evaporated Canned Milk. One thing is sure I guess there really are no new ideas. We recycle old ones with newer technology–witness the demise of the back fence and the rise of social media.

What’s your take on the increasing use of branded content? Share your thoughts and tell us where you’ve seen branded content.