Digital Product Placement - Interactive curriculae of TU Ilmenau

From James Bond’s Aston Martin and Rolex to the Cognac bottle on the table – product placement is a well established form of advertising in major movies. Allowing for a targeted and efficient advertising, it provides the possibility to place ads in such context, where other forms of advertising would hardly be accepted and tolerated by the intended target audience. Formerly prohibited as covered advertising (at least in Germany), product placements are now also quite common in TV broadcasts. Classical product placement however, has one big disadvantage for the client: he has to order the advertisement before the actual start of the production. Since advertising campaigns are typically launched within a much shorter time frame, this limits the possible fields of application of product placement dramatically.

With the emergence of digital video editing, product placements may now also be added to existing footage within the post-production process. On the one hand this allows for adding product placements just a few days before the actual broadcast, on the other hand individual content for different distribution channels or broadcasting times may easily be generated.

What about the acceptance of the type of advertising? Will this (sooner or later) replace the classic ads we are used to? What does this mean for advertisers? What about producers and  ad marketers? How do the consumer see this?

In this research seminar students will have the opportunity to investigate into these and many other questions, examine trends and create their own concepts and ideas. The individual research topics and the methods selected will be presented and discussed with other participants.