Shameless OLN Product Placements

homeycheese

You mean 3 hours of "Bob in the buff" isn't meaningful and good for mankind?

My intent was to bring about a discussion on "product placement." It's an insidious and disingenuine form of maketing that is more and more abused, greatly distracts from real commercials, distorts fact from opinion (like the previous comment on the "tire" story) and cons the viewer. It's this eras form of subliminal advertising, taken to a more overt and abusive level.

All that being said, it appears many are willing to put up with this stuff in order to get 20 minutes of Paul and Phil per hour.

I'd like to see how many viewers acutally catch this stuff nowadays and realize they are being "conned."

rejobako

Your point is well-taken, although I'm not as convinced that product-placement ads are any more abused than they always have been. I think they're just more subtle and sophisticated.

strummer_fan

I don't have OLN and have only been able to watch the packaged three hour segment that one can download from the OLN website, (using the URL shortening technique that WILMAR13 posted in another thread.)

I've mostly been following the stages live on cyclingnews.com, eurosport, and occasionally catching Sean Kelly's live audio on Eurosport. The only problem is the NINE hour time difference to California.

I have literally been listening to the audio at 5:30AM!

aye. this is a great edition of the tour.

SuperTiger18

If you understand anything about marketing you would realize that product placement is the future of marketing. With TIVO and other Digital Recording methods that allow views to skip commercials advertisers have little choice but to use product placement. I should also point out that the product placement is effective, as you apparently noticed the products.

How does placing a "LiveSTRONG laptop" on the desk distort fact from opinion? How does product placement take away from the real commercials? If anything it enchances the consumer's awareness that a product exists. When the commerical does air the consumer is more likely to pay attention after having been exposed to the product through effective product placement.

On a side note...I think you are off base with your remarks about knowing the business side of the equation. OLN and cycling in general have a very limited viewship in the United States. Compared with Golf, Football, Baseball, Basketball, and Soccor...cycling does not have the fan base, nor the advertising sponsorships that those sports have. To get exposure (via OLN's coverage of cycling) and develop the fan base in the United States it is certainly necessary for OLN to take what money it can from potential sponsors. That being said...the product placement is an additional means for generating revenue and keeping the broadcast on air.

homeycheese

oh i understand the business very well and you make my point in your 2nd paragraph. when frankie andrieu does a piece on bike technology that is presented as part of the "story" and in fact it promotes the bontrager 'buzz kills" that are currently on sell at Trek bike shops,then it's not about building a fan base for cycling, it's about selling products, whatever they may be...it's shameless and dishonest...the

Despite the limited access to on air coverage in the US, don't confuse OLN with "cycling"...while I'm grateful for the last few years to have the chance to watch le tour, don't for one minute think some noble experiment is going on...they all want to catch the next "X-Games" trend ahead of its time and milk the current trend on its way down...

SuperTiger18

No kidding. Why do you think they are doing the product placement? To make money. To capitolize on the opportunity that the current TDF ratings present.

Now I am completely confused. You dismissed another member's post regarding the advertisements and if I am not mistaken the segments on new products. You restated your post was only to discuss the product placement on the set. Which is it that irks you...the laptop on the desk or the segments about new products?

Second...the actual segments about a product are not considered "product placement" in the marketing sense of the word. On the same note how can you be so sure that those segments are not intended to be informative for new viewers and people new to cycling? Viewers may not know what technology exists and the show is providing that information. How could they pass along that information without showing a specific brand, make, model...etc?

To follow your line of thinking I guess shows on Discovery and National Geographic or Food TV for that matter are not designed to inform people but to sell steaks, trips to Africa, and the services of plastic surgeons.

I didn't confuse OLN with cycling. OLN is a medium for sports fans to watch sports that may or may not be viewed as mainstream with the US sports viewing audience. Cycling is a pretty solid sport in the U.S. from a recreational standpoint, but not from a competitive standpoint as it is in Europe.

rejobako

homey: whereas I sympathize with some of what you say, I confess I remain perplexed at your zeal on this topic. Television stations exist not to provide balanced coverage of news and sporting events, but . . . to make money? The horror!

What seems particularly "shameless and dishonest" to you has been par for the course in the television industry since, well, forever. As I said earlier, I will acknowledge that the methods are more subtle, but I certainly don't see a reason to target OLN or Discovery for doing something that is a ubiquitous phenomenon out in "the vast wasteland" of modern media.

House

homey appears to be another crusade-type. You know the person that latches onto something unimportant or something that will never change, with absolute zeal for a few weeks or a month and then moves on to the next thing.

homeycheese

no crusade...look at my original post...the tenor you note is against those who want to make personal attacks and not debate the merits of the original subject...i contend the product placements are not good for the "sport" of cycling (the reason this forum exists) but great for very superficial and somewhat temporary business interests...none of which I as a capitalist object to...there is a connection between the saturation of these type of marketing efforts and turning off viewership, for those of us in the US, think "american Idol"...and that great "sucking" sound is OLN and others wringing every last drop out of the LA phenomenom and I can bet the crass marketing will have a negative impact on the casual/cross over viewer the advertisers are courting....I'm not excited about the lack of coverage post LA and what we are seeing are the tell-tale signs of that...while it may be acceptable to others, I don't have to like it....it's JMHO

SuperTiger18

How would the placement of a LIVESTRONG laptop have a negative impact on the sport? Most casual observers pay little attention to product placement. I would also ask how the informative sessions by Frankie A. about different cycling products is bad for the sport? Is your contention that those products were only made available to capitalize on the cycling uptick as a result of Armstrong's success? Or are you saying that it is bad because a few companies have taken it upon themselves to market a product to the correct audience?

What evidence do you have that suggests in-programming product segments will turn off the casual/cross over observer. I would believe quite the opposite. Most casual observers of the TdF are fairly new to cycling and/or have some interest in the technology behind the equipment that Lance's uses on the roads of France. I hardly believe that viewers are changing the channel because of product placement and the capitalization of Lance's marketability. On the contrary...most of the OLN viewers are casual fans who watch cycling for three weeks out of the year because of Lance. If using that to market to them is wrong for the sport than explain to me one instance where a sport didn't make its market focus the superstar of the hour, week, month, year or decade?

ATM

TV viewers are smarter than many people think.

rejobako

While I agree there may be a point of diminishing return, I also suspect that many "casual crossover" viewers would soon turn the channel if the reason they tuned in -- to follow Armstrong's progress -- was not the focus of the coverage.

It would be great if we could shackle the typical American sports fan in front of a television and force them to watch the most exciting stages of the TdF, and during commercials give them a primer on race tactics, history, and the other personalities involved. I would bet you that a significant percentage of these people would become hooked on cycling in general, and wouldn't need a hero-figure like Armstrong as a catalyst to casually follow the sport.

But that's not going to happen. The only way OLN can maintain viewership in the meantime is to beat the "Armstrong phenomenon" like a drum, because they know as well as anyone that once he's gone, interest in televised cycling here in the states is going to plummet. All the rest of us can hope for is that enough of a nucleus of genuine cycling fans will have been established to convince the mean old television marketers to continue to offer some cycling for us to watch in the future. And if that means shameless product placement and having to listen to Al Trautwig some more, I'll be happy so long as they pepper the coverage with a few snippets of actual racing.