5 ms·

There is already plenty of product placement on Netflix. The smoking is notorious, for example. They cram in cigarettes wherever they can, often to the detrime

• sverhagen 7y ago
  Which makes me wonder, internationally, if there aren't countries that would make them do that for their territory? I think in the Netherlands pretty much all kinds of tobacco advertising is banned, even the very creative ones (like opening a chain of bars named similar to one tobacco brand). And I just found a (Dutch language) site weakly referencing European rules around disclosure of product placement (though, in the context of television, that may be Netflix's loophole).
  • alecco 7y ago
    In Europe some Netflix programs start with a warning that it contains placed advertisements. But it's rare.
• fulafel 7y ago
  Even bigger issue (measured in future loss of life years and ethics[1]): cars, there's so much driving. For environmental reasons we should heavily discourage that. [1] smoking mostly is self inflicted harm, GW kills others
  • saagarjha 7y ago
    Smoking commonly harms other people too, of course.
    • fulafel 7y ago
      Yep, hence "mostly". And car heavy culture of course has other death effects besides GW, like local pollution caused deaths, rainforest destruction from biofuels production, accidents, sedentary lifestyle, car suburbia environments, disposessed status of the carless (weighted toward women and children), etc.
  • IshKebab 7y ago
    Cough White Collar.
    • fulafel 7y ago
      In US TV series the people in cars tend to be white collar / upper middle class people. This is depicting supposedly relatable people who have choice and who never make a number out of it. So it's propagating a deletorious attitude. Around my parts the white collar people tend to drive more than working class employees, because they get big houses away from the city where they work, and go to their cabins or whatnot every weekend, and are more likely to buy fuel-wasteful cars like SUVs. While non-white collar people more often go without a car at all or at least use it sparingly. Generally it's not like you couldn't choose a low carbon lifestyle if you worked in arts, blue collar industry, public sector jobs etc.
      • IshKebab 7y ago
        Erm I was referring to the White Collar TV series which featured endless awkward product placements for a car.
• fergie 7y ago
  Not sure if its region dependent, but my Netflix shows a warning about product placement at the beginning of the show. I have to say that it was a bit of an eye-opener- a lot of these ads are not obviously product-placement at all. The one that shocked me the most was an episode of "Friends from College" where the main characters went up the Napa valley for some wine tasting and then stopped into McDonalds on the way back- it was such a sharp, natural and realistic storyline that I would have never assumed that it was product placement. It dealt with "McDonalds-shame" in very sophisticated way that you wouldn't think McDonalds was capable of, and actually made me feel (as somebody who has been wine tasting in Napa and tries to avoid Mickey Ds) that a fast food burger is "allowed".
  • john_minsk 7y ago
    If you liked the effect of eye-opening I strongly advise to try "The greatest movie ever sold" documentary. It has such a nice setup and product placement will never be the same after you see this one.
  • heavenlyblue 7y ago
    To be fair, I would do that McDonald’s thing without having ever seen that ad. They may simply know their market well enough to know that people who tend to do McDonald’s take it as a “different kind of food”.
• anticensor 7y ago
  Product placement is done since the beginnings of cinema and television.
• jimmaswell 7y ago
  You actually want movies you're watching to have a distracting overlay taking you out of the moment? Before the start of the movie or something would be a lot better.
  • the_duke 7y ago
    That's exactly the reason why I want it during the scene. Both to create awareness that you are being manipulated by this scene, and to discourage product placement in general.
    • jimmaswell 7y ago
      I feel like most people don't care enough to want movies hampered like this.
• TeMPOraL 7y ago
  > I really wish there were laws mandating a very obvious " this scene was sponsored by X" overlay. I'd want that too. I'd love to get my hands on even one list of all product placements in a given show; it would be trivial to make a userscript that overlays such data over a Netflix stream, as an artistic project. I suspect there's a strong point to be driven there.
• hutzlibu 7y ago
  About smoking, I never suspected that can actually be true, but I remember a Jet Li movie .. where he as the main character had to smoke a cigarette in one scene, which looked so artificial and unvoluntarily, where you could see he clearly did not wanted it, but was forced to. (and shame on him, as he does not seem to need to to this anymore) And about product placement in general: it seems to be a bigger buisness, than I suspected: https://blog.hollywoodbranded.com/how-much-does-product-placement-cost https://blog.hollywoodbranded.com/how-much-does-product-plac...
• LocalH 7y ago
  >I really wish there were laws mandating a very obvious " this scene was sponsored by X" overlay. I don't think an in-vision in-scene notice should be required, as that is very intrusive to the viewer. However, I would support a requirement of full transparency, and I do believe they already notify people of product placement per episode (or am I thinking YouTube? I know I've seen recent notifications somewhere). Alternately, I would support in-vision in-scene overlays if a subscriber could disable them. I can understand why it would be desirable to be enabled by default, but as an adult viewer who is quite capable of making my own purchasing decisions, I should have the right to consume media without that type of quasi-condescending warning invading my enjoyment of a given piece of media.
  • TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
    > as an adult viewer who is quite capable of making my own purchasing decisions Is there anyone who isn’t susceptible to the psychological trickery in advertising? I woulda once said something similar, but looking back as the years pass, I can see that was a delusion.
    • ses1984 7y ago
      My dad is 65 years old and still thinks he is immune to advertising, but he literally reads email ads and deal sites, and users those to inform his decisions. I am pretty sure he thinks an ad has never convinced him to buy a product he didn't already want, therfore he is immune to it. If you define influence to be whatever you want, of course you can say you are not influenced by ads.
• manmal 7y ago
  So you want even better visibility for advertisers? Whenever a cigarette is lit, the overlay should also clarify that it’s a Marlboro?
• SamuelAdams 7y ago
  Plus all the Apple branded things too. It's especially interesting because only "good characters" can use Apple's devices on screens [1]. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22434315 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22434315
  • intopieces 7y ago
    This is not true, as pointed out by the top comment.