The Meaning of ‘Product Placement’: an Interpretive Exploration of Consumers’ Experiences of Television Programme Product Placement in the United Kingdom and Thailand

Product placement and television programmes could be considered as sites of meaning. The very richness of these meanings, including consumers, television programmes and placed brands are interrelated in a network of meaning construction, and transfer. This research study uses an interpretive approach to qualitative data to explore television product placement from the subjective perspective of young consumers in the UK and Thailand. Findings suggest that consumers bring to product placement, along with the media brands are embedded in, a network of meanings that they can interpret, engage with and respond to. There is also some evidence that consumers do not engage with embedded brands in the obviously contrived setting of promotion, but in a far more powerfully suggestive way in an entertainment environment, which has been chosen by consumers for viewing because it concords with their identities.

Citation:

Rungpaka Amy Tiwsakul (2009) ,"The Meaning of ‘Product Placement’: an Interpretive Exploration of Consumers’ Experiences of Television Programme Product Placement in the United Kingdom and Thailand", in NA - Advances in Consumer Research Volume 36, eds. Ann L. McGill and Sharon Shavitt, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 925-925.