Product Placement in Movies: The Effect of Prominence and Mode on Audience Recall

A promotional strategy of growing interest is the placement of branded products in movies. An experiment compared the recall effectiveness of common product-placement strategies with each other and with advertising. Prominent placements elicited higher recall than did advertisements, which, in turn, outperformed subtle placements. The explicit mention of a product in the audio script (without a visual depiction) led to better recall than a subtle visual placement (without audio reinforcement). However, the addition of a complementary audio message did not significantly enhance the recall of a product that already enjoyed prominent visual display.