1950s and 2000s Television Connection?

Believe it or not, product placement is still alive and well in television shows today. Product placement not only exists in drama but, reality and even some dramedy shows like “Survivor” and “Desperate Housewives” . If you really think about it, most product placements seem way too obvious today. Shows that include product placement like to think that they’re not shamelessly showcasing a product, but it’s a little hard to follow a story when they’re “causally” explaining the features of a latest cell phone or a brand-new Kia! In recent episodes of “Survivor” and “Desperate Housewives”, these exact things occurred. The “Survivor” episode showed, in full screen, a recording of a message from each of the contestant’s family members on a new Samsung phone. The “Desperate Housewives” episode showed a brand-new Lexus and Kia slowly driving down the street. Also, not surprisingly, the new “Knight Rider” series premise is a walking (or driving) product placement. The premise revolves around a talking Ford Mustang! Wonder who their sponsor is?
The modern product placement phenomenon is also reminiscent, in some ways, to the in-your-face sponsorship of the 1950s. Most shows at that time were sponsored by cigarettes companies, like Phillip Morris. Commercial blocks for shows like “I Love Lucy” featured talking heads explaining the features of a new product. This type of commercial is hilariously parodied in “I Love Lucy” through the “Vitameatagamin” episode. This type of sponsorship reflected the idea that television was a new medium in the 1950s. Network executives had to make some sort of profit out of the industry in order to stay on the air and sponsorship from big companies provided the cash flow they needed. I think that a decline of money and resources in the television industry is the same reason we’re seeing this resurgence of in-your-face product placement today. Viewers are currently engaged in a kind of capricious give-and-take between the online and television worlds. The economy is tanking and more and more people are getting their news and entertainment from the Internet. This change is something that the television world must find a way to weather and still stay in business, hence product placement. Product placement is annoying, especially “in-your-face product placement, but if it’s necessary for networks to stay afloat, then it’s something we’ll all have to endure.