Consumer Responses to Product Placement in Television Sitcoms: Genre, Sex, and Consumption

Abstract

The paper presents a study of consumer responses to products placed in a sitcom, “Ads R’ Us,” created as a stimulus to ascertain the influence of a television program’s genre and male/female respondents’ sex on responses. Textual analysis is used to analyze sitcoms, a category of programs created in accordance with genre conventions, the structural framework that influences responses to media vehicles. First‐generation feminist reading theory, which challenged the patriarchal assumptions mostly unquestioned in the US until the early 1960s, is used to analyze responses produced by second‐generation respondents, who came of age a generation later, after the women’s liberation movement led to socio‐cultural changes. The study draws from multidisciplinary theory and integrates stimulus‐side/response‐side research to enhance understanding of the text‐context‐consumer relationship. Findings indicate that second‐generation responses to placed products are problematized by the coexistence of patriarchal and feminist perspectives that color male/female readings of sitcoms.

Keywords:

• Product Placement
• Genre
• Sex
• Gender
• Literary Analysis

Notes

Barbara B. Stern is Professor and Chair of the Marketing Department at Rutgers, University, New Jersey. Cristel A. Russell is with the Marketing Department at San Diego State University. Correspondence to: Cristel A. Russell, Marketing Department, 5500 Campanile Drive, College of Business Administration, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA 92182‐8239 USA. Email: [email protected]. The authors thank Dale W. Russell, creator of “Ads R’ Us.”

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Barbara B. Stern

Barbara B. Stern is Professor and Chair of the Marketing Department at Rutgers, University, New Jersey. Cristel A. Russell is with the Marketing Department at San Diego State University. Correspondence to: Cristel A. Russell, Marketing Department, 5500 Campanile Drive, College of Business Administration, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA 92182‐8239 USA. Email: [email protected]. The authors thank Dale W. Russell, creator of “Ads R’ Us.”