CAN YOU AFFORD TO NOT GIVE UP THAT SPOT?
For the price of one national primetime:30 TV spot, a brand can have a comprehensive product placement for a year. You heard that right. With very rare exceptions by brand category, a company can work with a product placement agency with both agency retainer and product needs covered. The exceptions? Big ticket categories like automotive, where storage and product costs are higher and competition fierce. And for giving up that one spot? The brand will receive more impact, more engagement, more return on investment and more social and PR savviness than that single :30 or package of :10s.
A robust Product Placement program will always - ALWAYS - deliver a higher CPM often more than 10x what that single ad cost. In this blog post Hollywood Branded discusses the benefits and costs of a product placement program, and why brands should encourage their media agencies to give up that one spot.
Proof Is In The Costs
We aren't talking regional advertising or super localized spots that are only a few hundred dollars. What we are saying is prime time national ad spots. And if you are a national advertiser, no matter WHAT you are buying nationally, you can give up one of those spots to become embedded in the content of your consumer's favored TV, SVOD and film productions.
Thirty seconds of advertising in the championship game of the 2015 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament on CBS cost $1.55 million to reach 21.2 million viewers, with a CPM of $73.11. You get a very targeted audience for that price tag, and some hoopla and extra attention that isn't quite up to that which the Super Bowl delivers.
But that's way more than the cost of a typical Product Placement program.
That same audience reach would cost you $579,250 in commercial time on Hulu for standard run-of-site in-stream video ads, with a CPM of $35.
But that's not even what we are saying a brand needs to pay.
If you look at one of the most expensive commercial spots in recent years, it would be the reported cost for a :30 second spot for The Walking Dead, at $400,000, with an averaged audience of 16.55 million between the premiere and finale. - and a CPM of $24.16 per Ad Age's article on "What Media Costs".
And again, that's way more than the cost of a typical Product Placement program.
CBS' "The Big Bang Theory" is the network's top performers, and most expensive comedies to advertise on, with a :30 second cpot selling for $344,827 to reach 16.7 million viewers at a CPM of $20.64.
Even that is not what a typical Product Placement program costs.
It is reported that the cost of a :30 second commercial in prime time broadcast TV - which means ABC, CBS, CW, FOX, NBC - was $112,000 this last year.
And that... is much closer to what a Product Placement program will likely cost, and for consumer packaged goods brands that fee may even include product and associated shipping fees. Good logo, decent product and an adept agency?
Projected audience results WELL OVER 50 million people.
And a CPM well under $2.50.
TV's Most Expensive Shows
To truly understand the picture, here is a quick breakdown on exactly what shows cost what according to a Variety survey and other sources:
- “Sunday Night Football” (NBC, Sunday): 2015: $637,330 2014: $623,445
- “Empire” (Fox, Wednesday): 2015: $521,794 2014: $138,200
- “The Walking Dead”* (AMC, Sunday): 2015: $502,500 $2014: $413,695
- “Thursday Night Football” (CBS, Thursday) 2015: $462,622 2014: $492,000
- “Fear The Walking Dead”* (AMC, Sunday) 2015: $395,000
- “Monday Night Football” (ESPN, Monday) 2015: $388,176 2014: $397,898
- “The Big Bang Theory” (CBS, Monday) 2015: $289,621 2014: $327,885
- “The Big Bang Theory” (CBS, Thursday) 2015: $266,163 2014: $322,891
- “Modern Family” (ABC, Wednesday) 2015: $236,296 2014: $226,935
- “The Voice” (NBC, Monday) 2015: 234,371 2014: $262,041
- “How To Get Away With Murder” (ABC, Thursday) 2015: $229.794 2015:$164,938
- “The Voice” (NBC, Tuesday) 2015: $219,461 2014: $254,485
- “Scandal” (ABC, Thursday) 2015: $207,255 2014: $217,423
- “Better Call Saul”* (AMC, Monday) 2016: $200,000
- “The X-Files” (Fox, Monday) 2016: $195,893
- “Blindspot” (NBC, Monday) 2015: $190,216
- “The Blacklist” (NBC, Thursday) 2015: $180,618 2014: $200,166
- “The Catch” (ABC, Thursday) 2016: $167,566
- “Life In Pieces” (CBS, Monday) 2015: $163,377
- “Grey’s Anatomy” (ABC, Thursday) 2015: $160,415 2014: $159,411
- “Once Upon A Time” (ABC, Sunday) 2015: $159,160 2014: $145,582
- “Gotham” (Fox, Monday) 2015:$158,547 2014: $192,111
- “Supergirl” (CBS, Monday) 2015: $157,592
- “black-ish” (ABC. Wednesday) 2015:$155,928 2014: $131,160
- “The Simpsons” (Fox, Sunday) 2015: $155,727 2014: $205,885
*Price is for a package of ads that run across multiple airings of an episode - which means these are LOWER than "rack rate" single ad runs.
And a year's Product Placement Program? Still cheaper than the last show on the list. It's not easy - and it has it's challenges but consumers are truly more engaged with Product Placement and they do purchase what they see their favorite characters using, leading to higher sales. And we expect from the survey results linked above, higher sales than just what that one commercial alone would result in.
Still Wondering?
Is Product Placement right for your brand? Watch this video to learn more about how this marketing practice works, what brand categories it works for, and the results brand marketers see!
