Advertising Versus Product Placements: How Consumers Assess the Value of Each

Abstract

Advertising professionals today are facing more challenges than ever before because of the dramatic manner in which the mass media have transformed during the past 50 years. The changing media landscape has led advertisers to seek alternative methods, such as product placement, in order to establish brand contacts that were once dominated by traditional advertising. The purpose of this research is to specifically measure the perceived value product placements hold in consumers' minds and understand how this impacts general attitudes toward this tactic. To this end, an online survey is administered to a sample of research panel participants (n = 1475) to investigate how informative, entertaining, and irritating product placements are to consumers. Data from the survey are used to test a value model.

Acknowledgments

This article was accepted by Claude Martin and James Leigh, previous editors of the Journal of Current Issues & Research in Advertising.

Notes

*The scales were reverse coded: the smaller the value the higher the attribute (informativeness, entertainment, irritation, value, and attitude).

*p < 0.001, n = 1475.

Note. Model fit indices:.

χ² = 714.255 (with 48 degrees of freedom), p < 0.05, GFI = 0.923, CFI = 0.957, RMSEA = 0.09, AIC = 774.25, BIC = 933.147.

*Parameter fixed at 1.00 in maximum likelihood estimation.

**p < 0.001.

*p < 0.001.

*p < 0.001.

*p < 0.001.

Note. All scales were reverse coded: the smaller the value, the higher the attribute (informativeness, entertainment, irritation, value, and attitude).

*p < 0.001; df = 1474.

^a n = 1,475 with 9 respondents not answering.

^b n = 1,475 with 12 respondents not answering.

^c n = 1,475 with 11 respondents not answering.

^d n = 1,475 with 9 respondents not answering.

^e n = 1,475 with 26 respondents not answering.