Exploring the Prevalence and Execution of Brand Placements in Hong Kong Prime Time Television Programs

Product placement involves the planned integration of branded products into media content with the aim of influencing audiences. A majority of product placement research tend to be focused on understanding its impact on consumer behavior variables such as brand recall, attitudes, and purchase intentions (Chan 2012). Less research, however, examines the nature of placement execution, and those which do are outdated and are focused mainly on western contexts such as the US. This study utilizes and extends the framework developed by La Ferle and Edwards (2006) to document and explore the execution of product placement in Hong Kong. Specifically it examines 1) the prevalence of brand appearances; 2) the characteristics of programs with brand appearances; 3) features of placed brands/products; 4) modality of brand appearances; 5) extent of character interaction with placed products; and 6) general characteristics of placement context. An extensive content analysis of five weeks of prime-time programming on three free-on-air television channels in Hong Kong was conducted. A coding protocol was developed with items adapted from earlier studies (Ferraro and Avery 2000; La Ferle and Edwards 2006; Smit, van Reijmersdal and Neijens 2009) and a few items added specifically for the current study. In the 225 hours of prime time television programming, 1225 brand appearances were identified. It is equivalent to about one brand appearance in every 11 minutes of programming. The results provide valuable insights to communication scholars and brand practitioners with regards to brand placement strategies.