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The Product Well Placed: The Relative Impact of

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 The Product Well Placed
The Relative Impact of Placement and
Audience Characteristics on Placement Recall

Etienne Bressoud
Université Paris 8
Vincennes Saint-Denis,
France
ebressoud@univ-paris8.fr
The relative impact of placement and audience characteristics on product placement
recall is assessed with survey data from 3,532 individuals who viewed a DVD movie
rental the previous day. Eleven American movies were selected and the executional
characteristics of 88 placements therein were coded.

Jean-Marc Lehu
Université Paris 1
Panthéon Sorbonne,
France
jmlehu@orange.fr
Cristel Antonia
Russell
University of Auckland,
New Zealand
c.russell@auckland.ac.nz
  Viewing the movie on a large screen emerged as the most important factor
on recall: in addition to its main effect, it increases the positive impact of visual
characteristics of the placement. Another key finding is the detrimental effect of
multiple simultaneous placements: Not only do they reduce placement recall, they
eliminate the otherwise positive impact of a placement’s level of plot integration and
auditory mention.
INTRODUCTION The extant research suggests that memory for
The last two decades have witnessed an exponen- products placed in a movie should be a function
tial increase in the academic literature on product not just of the executional characteristics of the
placements and their effects on consumers. Since placement but of audience characteristics (Lehu
Israek D. Nebenzahl and Eugene Secunda’s 1993 and Bressoud, 2008). Although previous research
article in the International Journal of Advertising and has identified many placement variables as having
Siva K. Balasubramanian’s Journal of Advertising an impact on the recall of placed brands (Balas-

article on hybrid advertising in 1994, no fewer than
45 scientific articles on product placement have
appeared in the leading marketing and advertis-
ing journals, including 10 in 2009 alone (Proquest,
2010). Some research has focused on consumers’
attitudes toward the practice of product place-
ment, but most has addressed the cognitive and
persuasive implications of product placements by
investigating their impact on memory and brand
attitudes.
The most widely used measure of product-place-
ment effectiveness is memory—specifically explicit
memory, a common indicator in both industry
(Karrh, Brittain McKee, and Pardun, 2003; Russell
and Belch, 2005) and academic studies (Babin and
Carder, 1996; Delattre and Colovic, 2009; Gupta
and Gould, 2007; Yang and Roskso-Ewoldsen,
2007).
ubramanian, Karrh, and Patwardhan, 2006), little
research to date has integrated those with charac-
teristics of the viewer and his or her viewing envi-
ronment in a single model. In fact, in their review
of the state of academic research on product place-
ment, Balasubramanian et al. (2006) discuss the
need for research that integrates the impact of exe-
cutional and individual-level characteristics.
Furthermore, the external validity of previous
academic research on product placement is lim-
ited owing to the methodology, stimuli, or samples
used—limitations often readily acknowledged by
the researchers (Babin and Carder, 1996; Avery and
Ferraro, 2000). Because of the need to ensure that
viewers are exposed to the stimuli, studies often
relied on non-naturalistic forced viewing condi-
tions (Yang and Roskos-Ewoldsen, 2007). This also
creates artificial viewing conditions that do not rep-
licate the real-world environment, however, and

374  JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH  December 2010 DOI: 10.2501/S0021849910091622


The last two decades have witnessed an exponential
increase in the academic literature on product
placements and their effects on consumers.
cannot allow an unbiased baseline assess-
ment of the extent to which product place-
ments are recalled.
In addition, the stimuli used are usually
either made-up (Russell, 2002) or edited
and often shortened (Pechmann and Shih,
1999; Yang and Roskos-Ewoldsen, 2007),
hence not replicating a real experience
and probably leading to greater memory
results than would exposure to a full
program or movie in a natural viewing
environment.
Finally, the studies rarely rely on real
consumer samples, instead drawing
overwhelmingly from a college student
population (Gupta and Gould, 2007). This
research attempts to address some of the
limitations of previous research by offer-
ing a field study wherein real consumers
are asked about real placements in real
movies after viewing a movie in a real
setting.
The research focuses on product place-
ments in film and their impact on viewers’
explicit memory. Drawing from previous
research, the theoretical model incorpo-
rates executional characteristics of the
product placements in the film and char-
acteristics of the consumers and their
viewing environment. The synergy of a
stimulus-side analysis of placements in a
range of films and a large-scale response-
side investigation of viewers’ day-after
spontaneous recall of placements pro-
vides a novel and insightful assessment
of product placement effectiveness in a
real viewing environment and of the rela-
tive impact  of placement and audience
characteristics.
As such, the findings contribute to the
growing literature on product placements’
impact on consumers.
THEORETICAL MODEL
The theoretical model integrates several
characteristics of the placements outlined
in previous research that should impact
how they are processed and thus their
memorability. It also takes into account
characteristics linked to the consumer and
the viewing environment that also are
likely to affect the viewers’ recollection of
the placements and that may interact with
placement characteristics.
Placement Characteristics
Previous research has indicated that a
placement’s prominence has a positive
impact on the recall of the placed brand
(Gupta and Lord, 1998; Brennan, Dubas,
and Babin, 1999; d’Astous and Chartier,
2000). There are several variables that
can affect prominence and, therefore, are
expected to benefit recall. They include the
following:
• The duration of a placement’s exposure
on the screen contributes to its level of
prominence and thus is expected to pro-
vide greater opportunity for processing,
resulting in enhanced memory (Auty
and Lewis, 2004; Babin and Carder,
1996; Gupta and Lord, 1998; Lehu, 2005;
Russell, 1998).
• The size of a product or logo on the
screen increases its salience (Alba and
Chattopadhyay, 1986; Auty and Lewis,
December 2010  JOURNAL
The Product Well Placed
2004; Babin and Carder, 1996; Gupta and
Lord, 1998; Russell, 1998).
• The location of the placement on the
screen also is important, in particular if
the brand appears in the central quad-
rant or on the periphery of the screen.
For instance, on a nine-quadrant shared
screen, placements in the central quad-
rant get more attention (Lehu, 2005)—a
finding that supports comparable learn-
ings about the central location of data in
a print document (Umanath, Scamell,
and Das, 1990).
Each of these variables is thereby
expected to have a positive impact on
recall, per the first three hypotheses:
H1.1 The total duration of exposure
of the placement is positively
related to recall.
H1.2 A central placement on the
screen is positively related to
recall.
H1.3 The amount of the screen taken
up by the brand is positively
related to recall.
Research also has identified percep-
tual dimensions of placements that affect
the way they are processed and, in turn,
whether they will be noticed and recalled
(Russell, 2002). For instance, audiovisual
media, like film, present information on
two sensory channels, audio and visual
(Geiger, 1993). When examining cognitive
processes, distinguishing among purely
visual, purely auditory, and audiovisual
information is important because the
memory encoding and storage of external
stimuli are a direct function of their char-
acteristics (Bettman, 1979).
A long tradition in cognitive psychology
has determined that the nature of the stimu-
lus information affects the type of encoding
OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH  375
The Product Well Placed
in memory. In Imagery and Verbal Processes,
his 1971 book of how incoming stimulus
information is transformed and elaborated
within the organism, Alan Paivio distin-
guished between imaginal and verbal cod-
ing processes. When analyzing the memory
and storage associated with each code, he
identified imagery as a “parallel-processing
system,” whereas verbal processes were
assumed to specialize in “serial process-
ing.” Hence, visual images and verbal units
involve different memory codes.
The most noteworthy finding from
Paivio’s research concerns a coding-redun-
dancy hypothesis, which states that “mem-
ory increases directly with the number of
alternative memory codes available for
an item.” Thus, information that relies on
more than one processing code is remem-
bered better than that relying on one code
only. In the context of audiovisual media,
Paivio’s findings suggest that information
that is presented both visually and audi-
torily would be better remembered than
information that is carried in one modality
only. Therefore, auditory mentions should
increase recall.
H1.4 A verbal mention of a placement
improves recall such that place-
ments that are audiovisual are
better recalled than placements
that are only visual.
Another important characteristic of
placements in audiovisual media is their
level of semantic meaning or the degree of
meaningfulness to the overall story (Rus-
sell, 1998). Indeed, memory is influenced
by depth of processing, and more-elabo-
rate, extensive processing facilitates the
subsequent recall of information.
According to the levels-of-processing
view of working memory, stimuli ordinar-
ily are processed through a series of stages
of analysis (Craik and Lockhart, 1972).
The more stages used in the analysis of
376  JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH  December 2010
Previous research has indicated that a placement’s
prominence has a positive impact on the recall of
the placed brand.
any stimulus, the deeper is the process-
ing of that stimulus. Cognitive psycholo-
gists studying children’s processing of
television programming have shown that
central information is better recalled than
incidental information because it is more
meaningful to the show (e.g., Rolandelli,
Wright, Huston, and Eakins, 1991).
Because semantic processing relies on an
aspect of meaning rather than mere super-
ficial aspects of the event, it is viewed as
deeper than non-semantic processing and
thus produces better memory. Therefore,
as found in previous research on prod-
uct-placement recall (Russell, 2002), it is
expected that the level of integration of the
placement to the plot of the story would
induce deeper processing and thus help
recall.
H1.5 A high level of plot integration
improves recall.
Because previous research has focused
mainly on shortened or edited stimuli,
it has not taken into account the impact
of a placement’s serial position within a
full-length feature film. Research on pri-
macy and recency effects has shown that
whereas in immediate tests both primacy
and recency effects occurred, only primacy
remained after a delay (Terry, 2005).
Field research investigating the serial
position of commercials demonstrated that
to maximize brand recall, it is better to place
a commercial at the beginning of a commer-
cial break rather than at its end (Pieters and
Bijmolt, 1997). A primacy effect was also
found in a recent study of products in a
game show, with greater unaided recall for
those products that appeared earlier in the
program (Gupta and Gould, 2007). There-
fore, a primacy effect is expected with ear-
lier placements leading to better recall than
later placements.
H1.6 The earlier a placement occurs in
a movie, the better the recall.
Finally, cognitive psychologists (Craik,
Govoni, Naveh-Benjamin, and Anderson,
1996) and many researchers since (e.g.,
Chowdhury, Finn, and Olsen, 2007) have
shown that divided attention at encoding
creates interference and hinders memory
(Fernandes and Moscovitch, 2000). One
important source of divided attention is
the presence of multiple stimuli, which
can distract from processing each one indi-
vidually. Distraction, in fact, is an impor-
tant potential hindrance to a placement’s
ability to attract the viewer’s attention and
thereby may decrease attention recall of
each placement.
The model, therefore, also incorporates
whether the placement is unique at its
time or whether other brands are showing
simultaneously on the screen at the time of
the placement.
H1.7 A placement that simultane-
ously appears with other brands
leads to lower recall than a
placement that is unique on the
screen at its time.
This issue of divided attention due
to multiple simultaneous placements

also is expected to be detrimental to
other characteristics of the placement,
in particular those variables that were
placement-unique and would command
attention either because they are seman-
tically connected to the story or because
they benefit from dual coding (Craik and
Lockhart, 1972; Rolandelli et al., 1991; Rus-
sell, 1998).
When placements for multiple brands
occur, the benefit of being integrated to
the plot or being communicated in two
modalities may be lower, because simul-
taneous placements compete for attention.
In other words, interactions between plot
integration and unique/multiple place-
ments and between verbal mention and
unique/multiple placements are expected.
Specifically, placements that are cen-
tral to the story are expected to be better
remembered if they do not simultaneously
appear with other placements than if they
compete with others.
H1.8 The positive effect of the level
of plot integration on recall
is lower for multiple than for
unique placements.
In a similar manner, placements that are
communicated both visually and verbally
are expected to be better remembered if
they do not appear simultaneously with
other placements.
H1.9 The positive effect of the verbal
mention of the brand placed on
recall is lower for multiple than
for unique placements.
Audience Characteristics
The second set of hypotheses integrates
those viewer and viewing characteristics
that may affect exposure conditions to
the movie and, in turn, affect the recall
of placements in the film (Lehu and Bres-
soud, 2008).
Whenever viewers watch a film at
home, it is important to take into account
previous exposure to the film (at a theater
for instance). This characteristic has not
fully been accounted for in previous prod-
uct-placement research. The different life-
cycles of movies, however, represent an
important issue from both conceptual and
managerial perspectives when measur-
ing product placements’ impact. Indeed,
intense competition in the film market—
due to the number of available screens and
the comparative monopolization by a few
blockbusters (Krider and Weinberg, 1998;
Silver and McDonnell, 2007)—makes it
difficult for movie production companies
to ensure a relevant distribution for all its
products.
Movies, in fact, have a number of dif-
ferent lifecycles: some are produced and
postponed; others skip theatrical distri-
bution entirely and move to immediate
home-video distribution period. Some
researchers even have demonstrated that
promoting early video releases helps max-
imize profits (Lehmann and Weinberg,
2000).
In this study, the major-release movies
that the research team considered ben-
efited from a theatrical distribution before
their release on DVD and/or through a
video-on-demand service (Gomery, 2003),
thus allowing the opportunity to assess
the effect of previous exposure at the thea-
tre. In cognitive-psychology literature, the
positive impact of repeated exposures on
familiarity for (and thus recollection of)
stimuli is well-established (e.g., Yonelinas,
2002). And previous exposure to a movie
is expected to act as a priming device for
recognizing the brands placed within it
and thus to facilitate the recall of place-
ments (Auty and Lewis, 2004).
H2.1 Previous exposure to a movie
increases recall of product place-
ments in the movie.
December 2010  JOURNAL
The Product Well Placed
In addition to prior exposure to the film,
the actual viewing conditions also may
affect the impact of the movie and the
likelihood of recall of the brands placed
within it. In particular, viewing conditions
at home vary: some viewers enjoy movies
on a large screen; others may take in the
same offering on a low-definition 24-inch
screen.
Given the relationship between promi-
nence and recall addressed earlier, it is
expected that the absolute size of the
screen would affect memory for the brands
placed in the film. The viewing conditions
also can affect the prominence (and thus
the processing) of visual placements—a
difference that becomes even more critical
on large screens (Balasubramanian et al.,
2006).
Perception theories justify this point:
perception is activated by sensorial stim-
uli detection (Darpy and Volle, 2007). The
taller a stimulus, the more it is detected
(Filser, 1993). The absolute size of a place-
ment grows with the screen size. There-
fore, it is expected that viewing a movie on
a large screen should lead to greater recall
of brands placed in the movie.
H2.2 Viewing a movie on a large
screen increases recall of prod-
uct placements in the movie.
Viewing a movie on a large screen
should further increase the impact of
placements that take a large portion of
the screen (Balasubramanian et al., 2006).
Therefore, it is expected that viewing
a movie on a large screen should lead
to greater recall of brands placed in the
movie in general. It also should, however,
benefit especially those brands whose on-
screen presence dominates a large part of
the viewing surface. In other words, an
interaction is expected between the size of
the screen surface and the recall of brands
prominently displayed on that screen.
OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH  377
The Product Well Placed
H2.3 The positive effect of the amount
of the screen taken up by the
brand on recall is greater for a
large screen than for a TV screen.
Finally, viewers’ attitudes toward the
movie also is expected to have a positive
impact on the recall of placed brands. The
extant advertising research on context
effects of advertising messages cannot
readily be applied to product placement
since, unlike ads that accompany a pro-
gram or movie, placements are an integral
component of the video product (Balasub-
ramanian et al., 2006).
Some previous findings are pertinent,
however, and suggest that brand recall
should benefit directly from positive
viewer reactions. In particular, studies
have found that when viewers appreciate
a context, the recall of brands advertised
in that context increases (De Pelsmacker,
Geuens, and Anckaert, 2002; Tavassoli,
Schultz, and Fitzsimons, 1995).
There is some prior evidence of this effect
within product-placement research. In the
movie context, attitude toward a movie was
shown to be significantly and positively
related to the salience of placements in the
movie in which they appeared (Johnstone
and Dodd, 2000). Furthermore, a recent
study showed that brands placed in liked
programs were the most recalled and gen-
erated the greatest positive change in brand
attitudes and behavioral reactions (van
Reijmersdal, 2009). Along the same line, a
study of placements in video-games found
that recall was positively affected by view-
ers’ reactions to the game (Nelson, 2002).
Based on this literature, it is expected
that the more positive viewers are toward
a movie, the better they will remember
placements in that movie (see Figure 1).
H2.4 The more positive viewers are
toward a movie, the greater the
recall of placements in the movie.
378  JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH  December 2010
Placement variables:
Cumulative Exposure (H1.1)
Central Location (H1.2)
Brand Screen Surface (H1.3)
Verbal Mention (H1.4)
Level of Integration (H1.5)
Timing in Film (H1.6)
Multiple (vs. Unique) Placement (H1.7)
Multiple × Integration (H1.8)
Multiple × Verbal Mention (H1.9)
Audience variables:
Prior Exposure (H2.1)
Large (vs. TV) Screen (H2.2)
Large × Brand Screen Surface (H2.3)
Attitude toward Movie (H2.4)
Figure 1  Conceptual Model
METHODOLOGY
Placement Side: Sample of Movies
The data collection took place in France.
It focused on 11 American movies: “Men
in Black II”; “Minority Report”; “Ana-
lyze That”; ‘The Banger Sisters”; “Fashion
Victim­”; “Austin Powers in Goldmember”;
“Johnny English”; “Intolerable Cruelty”;
“Mr. Deeds”; “Hardball”; and “Paycheck.”
These movies were selected primarily
because the placements within them were
easily and clearly recognizable. All the
brand placements identified and used in
the research were strictly isolated, occur-
ring only once in the movie, thus making
it undoubtedly possible to link recall to
a specific placement and its executional
characteristics.
Two additional criteria were used
to select the movies: they were new
DVD releases during the data collection
process, hence providing an opportunity
+
+
+
+
+
–
– Spontaneous
– Day after
Recall of the
–
Placement
+
+
+
+
to collect data from a large number of
DVD renters, and they were successful
movies (or at least expected to be for video
rental), hence ensuring that many cop-
ies were available, facilitating the data
collection.
Furthermore, the focus on American
movies is justified as they represent 55
percent of the 2003 French DVD market
share in volume, and 69 percent in value
(C. N. C., 2005). The large sample provides
variance in types of placements.
Coding of Placement-Side Measures
Across all the movies, 88 placements were
identified and coded.
The placements provided a range of cat-
egories, the most frequent being brands
of electronics (N = 17), cars (N = 9), and
alcohol (N = 9). Product category variables
were added to the model as controls (see
Table 1).

Because auditory placements could not
be coded for all the variables in the model
(prominence, location on screen, etc.), only
those placements that were visual or audio­
visual in nature were taken into account.
Each placement was coded for the total
duration of exposure of the placement (in
seconds) and the amount of the screen
space taken up by the brand (the surface
area of the brand name or logo divided
by the surface area of the screen—a met-
ric captured by measuring the length of
the projection of the extremities of the
brand name or logo on a horizontal plane.)
Dichotomous variables were created to
capture whether the placement appeared
in the central quadrant of the screen (Lehu,
2005), whether the placement was verbally
mentioned, and whether the placement
was unique at its time.
The level of integration of the placement
was double-coded on a scale from 1 (low)
to 5 (high) based on previous research
(Russell, 2002).
Audience-Side: Sample of Respondents
Data were collected from 3,532 French
consumers (51.4 percent males) who com-
pleted questionnaires at a video store upon
returning a DVD rented the day before.
The sample matched the sociodemo-
graphic profile of DVD renters in France
(C. N. C., 2005), representing a cross-
section­ of socioeconomic groups and ages
(27 percent 15–24; 25 percent 25–34; 36 per-
cent 35–49; 12 percent beyond 50).
The data-collection process took place
from January 2003 to February 2005 focus-
ing on the selected “just-released” DVDs.
The questionnaire was systematically pre-
sented to every renter of one of the DVDs
studied in the research. Participants were
screened on the basis that they had rented
and, indeed, viewed the DVD the day
before. They were also screened to ensure
that they participated in the study only
once, thus ensuring unique responses.
Participants had chosen their movies
freely. Response rate was extremely high,
with only six persons refusing to answer
the questionnaire. This may be owing to
the small size and proximity of the video
clubs and the appeal and personal rel-
evance of the research topic. The question-
naires were completed inside the video
stores, where the presence of the store
manager and other renters allowed a natu-
ral contact when the renters returned their
DVDs. In addition, the questionnaire was
short enough to require just a few minutes
of time to complete.
Audience-Side Measures and Dependent
Variable
The questionnaire began with a series of
questions about the movie experience.
Attitude toward the movie viewed was
measured by asking participants to rate
the movie on a scale from 0 (“dislike”) to
20 (“absolute like”). They were then asked
whether they had watched the DVD on a
TV screen or on a large, home, cinema-like
screen. Previous viewing of the movie was
measured with a dichotomous question
(“Had you previously seen this movie?”
yes/no). The questionnaire concluded
with the brand recall measure—a spon-
taneous day-after-recall of brand place-
ments, as all participants had viewed
the DVD the day before. A first question
inquired whether, when viewing the film,
the respondent had noticed any brands on
the screen. If the answer was positive, they
were then asked to list all those brands
that they recalled.
EMPIRICAL FINDINGS
Descriptive Statistics: Placement Side
The 88 placements in the sampled mov-
ies provided variance in terms of execu-
tional variables. As found in previous
research, the majority (N = 78) was visual,
and 10 were audio and visual (Avery and
Ferraro, 2000). Twenty-five appeared in
December 2010  JOURNAL
The Product Well Placed
conjunction with another placement (i.e.,
were not unique). Eighteen were located in
the central quadrant of the screen. The dif-
ferent placements also provided variance
in terms of cumulative exposure, which
ranged from 0.34 to 40.28 seconds, with a
mean of 5.94 (SD = 7.06), level of integra-
tion (M = 2.48, SD = 1.54), and screen sur-
face (M = 3.23 percent, SD = 8.12 percent).
Finally, 27 placements occurred within the
first 30 minutes of the movie; 40 occurred
between the 30th minute and the one-hour
mark; and 21 ran after the first hour of the
movie.
Descriptive Statistics: Audience Side
With 3,532 video viewers, the sample of
this study is much larger than previous
academic studies. Fifteen percent of the
participants (N = 522) indicated that they
previously had seen the movie. Some 16.6
percent (N = 587) of the participants had
viewed the movie on a large screen in
a home-cinema environment. Attitudes
toward the movie were generally positive
(M = 12.13) and provided adequate vari-
ance (SD = 4.04) to test a range of evalu-
ations and their relationship to recall of
brands placed within them.
Descriptive Statistics: Placement Recall
Recall rates for placements ranged from
a low of 0 percent to a high of 30.67 per-
cent, with an average rate of 4.4 percent.
The highest spontaneous day-after-recall
was for a “got milk?” placement in “The
Banger Sisters”—a 24-second, centrally
located, visual, and unique placement.
There was variation across movies, from
a low overall placement recall of 1.99 per-
cent (“Analyze That”) to a high of 10.56
percent (“Hardball”). There also were var-
iations in recall across placements within
movies: “Hardball,” for instance, included
a Nike placement that a quarter of viewers
recalled, but other placements (Pepsi) had
no recall at all.
OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH  379
The Product Well Placed

The range of overall statistics signals

Table 1
that, despite an overall low explicit mem-
ory for placements in movies, substantial Logistic Regression Results
improvement in recall can be achieved Hypothesis Variable Khi² (Wald) Significance Beta
with the correct combination of placement Placement Variables
and audience characteristics, as per the H1.1 Cumulative Exposure 846.12 <0.01 0.53
proposed model.
H1.2 Central Location 199.48 <0.01 0.42

Model Testing H1.3 Brand Screen Surface 226.29 <0.01 0.23

Data were tabulated so that each obser- H1.4 Verbal Mention* 327.56 <0.01 –0.65
vation corresponded to a viewer’s recall
H1.5 Level of Integration 686.34 <0.01 0.49
(or not) of a specific placement, thus
H1.6 Timing in Film 243.50 <0.01 –0.21
resulting in 29,359 observations. The
dichotomous-recall variable then was H1.7 Multiple Placement (vs. Unique) 25.41 <0.01 –0.47
logistically regressed on the set of place- H1.8 Multiple Placement × Integration 182.17 <0.01 –0.72
ment characteristic­ variables and the set
H1.9 Multiple Placement × Verbal Mention* 104.76 <0.01 –1.26
of viewer variables using a weighted log
analysis. Weights were used to balance Audience Variables
the  number of recalled and nonrecalled H2.1 Previous Exposure 1800.60 <0.01 1.17
placements (1,294 and 28,065, respec- H2.2 Large Screen (vs. TV Screen) 2622.76 <0.01 1.29
tively) and to strengthen the model’s
H2.3 Large Screen × Brand Screen Surface 10.27 <0.01 0.08
explainability­ of the spontaneous-recall
dependent­ variable. Quantitative vari- H2.4 Attitude toward Movie 299.74 <0.01 0.22
ables were standardized to compare their
Control Variables (product category)
relative effect on recall. Variance inflation Clothing 317.49 <0.01 0.93
factors ranged from 1.003 to 1.056, indi-
Media 246.04 <0.01 0.85
cating the independence of quantitative
variables (McClave, Benson, and Sincich, Beauty 36.35 <0.01 0.5
2005). Food 15.93 <0.01 0.23
A logistic-regression analysis included
Car 9.30 <0.01 0.12
simple-effect and interaction-effect
Alcohol 2.99 0.08 0.08
hypotheses. The interaction hypotheses
were tested by including the independ- Beverages (non alcoholic) 0.67 0.41 0.04
ent variable, the moderator variable, and Web – reference category for the controls 3079.66 — 0
their interaction (Baron and Kenny, 1986;
Health 7.75 0.01 –0.3
Chumpitaz and Vanhamme, 2003). To
account for potential product category Accessories 78.31 <0.01 –0.64
effects, product category variables were Retail 78.30 <0.01 –0.64
included as controls. Electronics 199.14 <0.01 –0.65
Air 159.11 <0.01 –2.13
FINDINGS
As shown in Table 1, the logistic regression Restaurants 594.86 <0.01 –2.65
results reveal that all the placement execu- Hotels 0 0.99 –19.44
tion variables and the viewer characteris-
Real Estate 0 0.99 –20.01
tics are statistically significant (p < 0.05)
Financial 0 0.99 –20.51
and the beta coefficients in the expected
direction (See Table 1). * Reverse coding

380  JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH  December 2010

 The Product Well Placed

All moderation effect hypotheses also The placement characteristic of great- a large screen (H2.3) and indicated by the
are supported, with all interaction terms est magnitude is whether the placement significant screen surface X large screen
statistically significant (p < 0.05) and in is verbally mentioned (H1.4). As predicted interaction. And the positive effect of level
the expected direction—results that are by H1.9, however, this positive effect can- of integration on recall is cancelled out
clear when the relative impact of the cels out if other brands appear at the same if other brands appear at the same time
variables on recall, the coefficients, in time, as denoted by the significant and (H1.8), as denoted by the significant and

order of magnitude, are graphed (See negative interaction between multiple negative interaction between multiple
placement and verbal mention. This sug- placement and level of integration.
Figure­2).
gests that, to ensure attention to a place- One clear finding is that multiple place-
Observation of the coefficients—applied
ment, a verbal mention must accompany ments damage recall through the direct
on standardized variables—reveals that
a placement that is visually unique at the effect (H1.7) reflected by the negative coef-
the most important characteristics in pre-
time of the mention. ficient for the multiple placement variable.
dicting placement recall are related to the
Other placement characteristics hypoth- Moreover, it also reduces the otherwise
viewing conditions, namely viewing the
esized to improve recall are (in order of positive impact of key variables identified
film on a large screen (H2.2) and previous magnitude): cumulative exposure (H1.1), in previous research (Russell, 2002): verbal
exposure (H2.1). The large-screen effect level of integration (H1.5), central loca- mentions and level of integration.
also boosts the impact of brand screen sur- tion (H1.2), brand screen surface (H1.3) To illustrate the interaction effects, the
face (H2.3). These results stress the impor- as timing in film, with earlier placements authors conducted slope analysis to com-
tance of accounting for the motivations and yielding better recall than later ones pare the effects between conditions for the
viewing context related to the audience in (H1.6). The effect of brand screen surface dummy variables. The analysis indicates
assessing product-placement recall. is boosted when the movie is viewed on that the relationship between the level of
plot integration has a stronger effect on
recall when a placement is unique than
1.5
Audience Characteristics when there are multiple simultaneous
1.2 placements (b = 0.49 vs. –0.23) (H1.8).
Placement Characteristics
0.9 In fact, the authors additionally note
0.6 that the benefit of the level of integration
essentially disappears when there are
0.3
multiple simultaneous placements. The
0 effect of the verbal mention of the placed
–0.3 brand on recall is lower for multiple than
–0.6 for unique placements (b = –0.65 vs. –1.91;
H1.9).
–0.9
Finally, the relationship between the
–1.2 amount of the screen taken up by the
Multiple Placement × Verbal Mention
Multiple Placement × Integration
Multiple Placement (vs. Unique)
Timing in Film
Large Screen × Brand Screen Surface
Attitude toward Movie
Brand Screen Surface
Central Location
Level of Integration
Cumulative Exposure
Verbal Mention
Previous Exposure

brand and recall is stronger when viewed

Projection Screen (vs. TV Screen)

–1.5
on a large screen than on a TV screen (b =
0.31 vs. 0.23; H2.3).

DISCUSSION
Data collected from a large sample of
movie viewers provide important insights
into the variables that positively or nega-
tively affect the day-after recall of prod-
ucts placed in a movie.
Figure 2  Relative Impact of Placement and Audience Overall, empirical support is found
Characteristics on Recall for the predicted impact of all placement

December 2010  JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH  381

The Product Well Placed
and audience characteristics and all the
predicted interactions. The largest effects
are, in magnitude, the positive large-
screen effect and the negative multiple-
placement­ effect. Multiple simultaneous
placements not only reduce the recall of
the placements but reduce and even elimi-
nate the otherwise positive impact of level
of plot integration and auditory mentions
on recall.
The fact that distraction—in the form of
multiple placements appearing simultane-
ously—greatly hinders recall, not only as
a main effect but in its interactions with
other placement characteristics (level of
plot integration and audio mention), is
important: Such multiple movie place-
ments are common, occurring in 28.4 per-
cent of the cases in this movie sample, and
will likely continue to proliferate. In fact,
this finding suggests that clutter is a more
important issue in product placement
than in traditional advertising messages
(Hammer, Riebe, and Kennedy, 2009). This
also suggests that practitioners incorpo-
rate clauses about single, noncompeting
appearances in their product-placement
contracts.
The largest effect on recall is viewing
the movie at home on a large, cinema-like
screen and, in addition to the main effect,
such engagement also increases the posi-
tive impact of the amount of the screen
taken up by the brand. As large-screen
home television viewing increases, this
finding implies that really small prod-
uct placements could benefit from being
viewed on larger screens. Of course, it
also suggests a potential opposite effect
as consumers shift some of their viewing
to devices with smaller screens, such as
mobile phones, iPods, or laptop comput-
ers, a question that remains open to future
research.
A novel finding in this research is a
primacy effect, whereby recall is bet-
ter for placements that appear earlier in
382  JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH  December 2010
The placement characteristic of greatest magnitude
is whether the placement is verbally mentioned.
the movie. This is in line with previous
research conducted on the order of com-
mercials in a commercial break (Pieters
and Bijmolt, 1997) or the order of products
placed in a game show (Gupta and Gould,
2007). It suggests to product-placement
practitioners that, when given the option,
an earlier appearance is preferable to a
later one.
Finally, the study substantiates previ-
ous research related to the positive impact
of visual prominence in terms of overall
duration of exposure of the placement, the
central location of the placement, and the
amount of screen taken up by the place-
ment. The placement’s level of integration
to the plot also benefited recall, as did a
placement’s auditory mention, in line with
previous dual-coding hypotheses (Paivio,
1971). Overall, these findings reinforce
the recommendation that placement prac-
titioners maximize the opportunities to
incorporate their placements into the sto-
rylines and dialogues to enhance recall.
An additional finding of this research is
how prior exposure can play a large part
in influencing recall. A direct implica-
tion of this strong effect is that product-
placement­ practitioners should invest in
placing their brands in the movie previews
and the movies. In this fashion, exposure
to the placement in the movie essentially
becomes a second exposure, hence maxi-
mizing recall.
This field study contributes to the
growing body of literature on product-
placement effects. Unlike many studies
conducted in a controlled environment,
this research emphasizes external valid-
ity with data collected from real viewers
having seen real movies in their natural
environment. As such, the study is able
to identify the natural baseline of recall of
product placements in film.
The finding that, overall, few placements
are recalled echoes recent calls for research
that brings empirical evidence beyond
“home-run” placements, those that yield
spectacular performances (Balasubrama-
nian et al., 2006), such as the 1982 atten-
tion-getting Reese’s Pieces placement in
“E. T.” (Russell and Belch, 2005).
In the end, this study finds that product
placements in film typically are visual in
nature and brief, resulting in generally low
levels of explicit recall. Because of its focus
on full-length movies, the study also is able
to identify previously ignored dynamics
of product placement, in particular the
impact of a placement’s serial position,
with evidence of a primacy effect simi-
lar to that found in advertising research
(Pieters and Bijmolt, 1997) and evidence of
a divided attention effect whereby place-
ments suffer from simultaneous appear-
ance with another placement. Of course,
the emphasis on external validity also
brings in limitations. Unlike controlled
experiments, the research procedures did
not allow control over the viewing envi-
ronment, and the use of real movies did
not allow control over the actual stimuli.
The focus on an explicit-memory meas-
ure is in line with many practitioners’
current views for evaluating placement
performance. It also represents a limita-
tion, however, because not all memory
retrieval requires that consumers think
back to a prior-exposure episode in an
attempt to retrieve information from mem-
ory associated with that episode (Schacter,
1987). Less-salient placements that may
not be explicitly remembered may be
processed implicitly and could affect

The findings that, overall, few placements are
recalled echoes recent calls for research that brings
empirical evidence beyond “home-run” placements.
consumers without a deliberate attempt to
recollect the previously encoded informa-
tion (Schacter, 1987; van Reijmersdal, Nei-
jens, and Smit, 2009). Previous research on
divided attention suggests that this may
be especially important for those multiple
placements that were competing for atten-
tion (Shapiro and Krishnan, 2001).
Similarly, previous research has shown
that successful performance on explicit-
memory measures does not always result
in successful attitude change: in previous
studies, some prominent placements were
found to be better recalled but have either
no impact on persuasion (Russell, 2002) or
even a detrimental impact on persuasion
(Cowley and Baron, 2008; van Reijmersdal,
2009). Notwithstanding these limitations,
this research is novel in that it incorporates
into the same model both characteristics of
the placement and characteristics of the
individual and of the viewing context and
identifies the latter as the most impactful.
The findings of how placement and
audience variables relate to recall yield
clear managerial implications. The
amount of time and money consumers
spend on home entertainment is on the
rise (Ericsson, 2010), and this study shows
that advertisers will have greater chances
to have their brand placements noticed
when the film is watched on a large screen.
Brand placements tend to proliferate on
screens (Newell, Salmon, and Chang,
2006), even to the point of being con-
demned as an unethical covert marketing
technique (Rotfeld, 2008).
To succeed using product place-
ment with efficiency and effectiveness,
practitioners have to be increasingly cau-
tious about the conditions and the details
of the placement of the brand. In particu-
lar, this research demonstrates the growing
need to incorporate placement character-
istics in contractual agreements and in
the development of placement-valuation
tools (Balasubramanian et al., 2006; Rus-
sell and Belch, 2005) and emphasizes the
importance of following up to ensure the
respect of contractual obligations, not only
during the filming but during the editing
phases.  Appearance on Prime-Time Television.” Journal
Etienne Bressoud is an associate marketing professor
at Université Paris 8 (Vincennes Saint-Denis).
His research focuses on consumer behavior. He
is interested in studying consumers’ processing
of product placement and in improving the use
of consumer observation in marketing research.
Specialized in quantitative methods, he authored a
book on descriptive statistics and several publications
in international reviews.
Jean-Marc Lehu is an associate marketing professor at
Université Paris 1 (Panthéon-Sorbonne). His research
mainly focuses on brand strategy and associated
marketing communications. He published several
papers and books about product placement, brand
rejuvenation, and brand loyalty. He is also director of
internal and external marketing communications at
Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne University.
Cristel Antonia Russell is a professor of marketing
at University of Auckland. She authored many
publications addressing how product placements
affect consumers’ attention, attitudes, and behaviors.
She has received funding for her research from
December 2010  JOURNAL
The Product Well Placed
the Marketing Science Institute for her research on
the placement industry and from the United States
National Institute of Health for her work on the
impact on youths of embedded alcohol messages in
entertainment content.
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