Forget Product Placement; Get Ready For Product Anti-Placement
from the sneaky-bastards dept
By now you're certainly familiar with the concept of product placement, and the fact that it's been growing and growing and growing these days. Well, how about a counter-clockwise twist on the concept? ChurchHatesTucker points us to the rumors making the rounds that some luxury brand companies are experimenting with product anti-placement. That is, they're sending their competitors' products to celebrities who they think will create a negative association with the brand. The example used in the article is that rather infamous reality TV star Snooki:Allegedly, the anxious folks at these various luxury houses are all aggressively gifting our gal Snookums with free bags. No surprise, right? But here's the shocker: They are not sending her their own bags. They are sending her each other's bags! Competitors' bags!As CHT notes, one of these days, this is going to create quite the fascinating trademark question. If Louis Vuitton is sending out Prada purses to anti-celebrities, could you make an argument for trademark infringement? I wouldn't put it past one of the luxury brands to try to come up with a novel legal theory to try...
Call it what you will -- "preemptive product placement"? "unbranding"? -- either way, it's brilliant, and it makes total sense. As much as one might adore Miss Snickerdoodle, her ability to inspire dress-alikes among her fans is questionable. The bottom line? Nobody in fashion wants to co-brand with Snooki.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: anti-product placement, luxury brands, product placement, snooki
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
I wouldn't be surprised if the Methodist Church sent her to Scientology as part of their own 'unbranding' effort.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Wow
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Typos Are Not Funny
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Who would notice?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Who would notice?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Who would notice?
It's quite possible to be a fan of Jersey Shore (or whichever) and find Snooki to be contemptible. Similarly, a lot of people read tabloids, at least partly, to keep up on bad news about celebs they dislike.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Who would notice?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Who would notice?
This.
The target market reads all the gossip rags and follows that type of stuff.... This is a brilliant strategy!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Who would notice?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Limited To Fashion
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I'm not sure
I suspect this has little negative impact.
Although if a competitors product is truly inferior you could probably get some interesting results by sending around their product and then follow up with your product some weeks later. Get those reactions going around.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: I'm not sure
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Imagine: angry moviegoers leaving a terrible movie, images of a crappy actor drinking Pepsi in their head,looking for a Coke machine...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
new income for anti-celebrities
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
All makes sense now
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I like the BMW 635i and if Mercedes were to gift the 635i to say....Ryan Seacrest. I would still drool over the 635i.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I like this.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
This is stupid
This could have the reverse intention.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
and we need a novel legal anti SLAPP theory that can fine these people huge sums of money if they decide to clog up our courts with such nonsense.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
That's not Product Placement
Nowadays everything seems to be product placement. I wait for somebody to claim a tv commercial as product placement.
But the concept is funny anyway. On the downside one spend money on competitor's products, which will get attention. And we know, only bad news are good news. One is shooting oneself in the foot here.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
4chan?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
And BMW!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: And BMW!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]