苏州大学本科生毕业设计(论文)
Confronted with the fragmentation of media and their audiences on the one hand (Deloitte, 2005) and with the rise of electronic video devices allowing viewers to skip commercials (O'Neill and Barrett, 2004) on the other, advertisers are increasingly seeking to re-establish the link between products and their consumers. As brand placement in movies seems to be well accepted (O'Reilly et al., 2005), sometimes less expensive than a 30-second TV spot and also more effective (Jaffe, 2005), this communication technique is becoming more frequently used. Ways of placing the brand may differ, but the main purpose of obtaining brand recall and improving brand image remains (Lehu, 2007). That is why Chief Inspector Clouseau drove a Smart car in The Pink Panther.
Movies are not the only medium used for brand or product placement. Some can be found in television series or shows, theatre plays, songs, videogames, novels… (Kretchmer, 2004; Moser et al., 2004). The primary reason remains the same: generating complementary income for the author, the medium or the production on the one hand, while offering an opportunity of branded
entertainment to the advertiser (Russell and Belch, 2005). Car makers were among the first to use the technique because of the potentially very large audience for a low cost (Parrish, 1976). Moreover the same movie can now be seen in theatres, on DVD, cable/satellite TV, syndication and reruns. Besides, building a fake car would be too costly for a production and somehow could appear too obvious to the audience (Moseret al., 2004).
2.2. Modalities and effectiveness of a product placement
Research into product placement usually focuses on effectiveness or spectators' acceptance of this hybrid technique. Nevertheless, most research in this field explains and gauges effectiveness by the way the placement is made, meaning that most of the results show how the characteristics of the brand placement affect its effectiveness (effects from the placement). Balasubramanian et al. (2006) identify several measures of effectiveness: brand typicality/incidence, placement recognition, brand salience, placement recall, brand portrayal rating, identification with brand/imitation, brand attitude, purchase intention, brand choice, and brand usage behavior. Three placement modalities are usually distinguished: prominence,
32
苏州大学本科生毕业设计(论文)
audiovisual and plot insertion. Prominent placements occur when the product is made highly visible by the virtue of the size and/or position on the screen or its centrality to the action in the scene (Gupta and Lord, 1998). The audiovisual characteristic refers to the appearance of the brand on the screen and/or to the brand being mentioned in a dialogue (Russell, 2002). Finally, plot insertion refers to the degree to which the brand is integrated into the story itself (Russell, 1998). Such research contributes to a better understanding of product placement effectiveness (Vollmers and Mizerski, 1994; Russell, 2002; Karrh et al., 2003; Bressoud and Lehu, 2007b), and more specifically brand communication effectiveness.
Several researchers have worked on placement effectiveness, and still do, either in movie theatres (Ong and Meri, 1994) or in TV program, including series (Stern and Russell, 2004). However, even if they recognized that a movie placement has a first life in theatres and a second life in the home (Vollmers and Mizerski 1994), little research has focused on this topic (Brée, 1996). Research into product placement concentrates on placement conditions which can be partly controlled by the advertiser.
2.3. Research objective
Because the link between a spectator's conditions of exposure and brand placement effectiveness cannot be controlled, less research focuses on this relationship. But a spectator's attitude influences such effectiveness (Johnstone and Dodd, 2000; Fontaine, 2002), and the advertiser could have chosen the movie on the basis of the attitude the story was supposed to generate. This primary analysis leads us to one goal: exploring the influence of the spectator's attitude on the effectiveness of a second life brand placement in a film on DVD watched in the home. This goal is achieved by explaining the effectiveness of the brand placement in terms of the spectator's attitude while watching the movie during this second viewing; the effectiveness is analyzed using an experiment with DVD viewers.
3. Hypotheses
33
苏州大学本科生毕业设计(论文)
The extent of spontaneous day-after recall (SDAR) in terms of number of brand placements seen on screen and remembered is used in this research as the measure of brand placement effectiveness. In determining this, the role of the consumer becomes pregnant, discussing how many brands a consumer should remember, given the conditions pertaining when he or she was exposed to the movie. The advertiser's objective is obviously to make sure that the consumer recalls the specific brand and that he or she does so regardless of the modalities of the brand placement.
Four hypotheses have been formulated to link brand placement and the consumer who has been exposed to this communication technique. The first two hypotheses focus on this aspect, before and during the exposure to the movie. The last two hypotheses concentrate on the spectator's attitude towards the movie before and after viewing the movie in which brands are placed.
3.1. Second life of the placement
Among the respondents, some may have seen the movie previously, in cinemas. （Johnstone and Dodd 2000) First test the hypothesis that SDAR might be higher if viewers were watching the movie for the second time. Unfortunately, they conclude that prior exposure has too little impact upon brand salience level to support this hypothesis. Their hypothesis is tested on a sample of 53 viewers. The present research employs a sample of 3532 viewers. A brand placement has several lives (Brée, 1996) which interact through the many viewings of the movie. Consequently:
Hypothesis 1a. The extent of brand placement SDAR on DVD viewing is favorably influenced by a first viewing of the movie at the cinema.
Consistent with this first hypothesis that links TV and theater, and the wish to focus on the TV second viewing, the difference of size of a TV screen, smaller than that of a theatre screen, must be considered. Two of the three modalities of product placement, plot integration and audiovisual remain the same whether the movie is shown on a theatre screen or on a TV screen. However, the third modality, prominence, may be drastically changed, given the difference in absolute screen size. Depending on the size of the screen, the product placement may appear less
34
苏州大学本科生毕业设计(论文)
prominent on TV than on a cinema screen. Of course, the relative size of the placement in the movie scene always remains proportionally the same. In a cinema all the spectators are seeing the movie on a large screen, but this is not the case when it is viewed at home. However, pre-tests informed us that a certain number of viewers use video widescreen projection instead of a traditional TV set. This is not a problem if the size of the placement has no impact on its recall. Nevertheless, several researchers insist on the role of placement prominence (Gupta and Lord, 1998; Brennan et al., 1999; d'Astous and Chartier, 2000). They demonstrate that the more prominent the placement, the greater the impact. Thus the size of the placement in relation to the size of the screen – which is part of the placement prominence definition – influences the placement recall. This led us to question whether the absolute size of the placement could play the same role: that is, whether the larger the screen on which the respondents have been watching the movie, and thus the bigger the brand placement's appearance, would, via this prominence, result in better recognition and recall. Consequently:
Hypothesis 1b. Watching the movie at home, on a large home cinema screen, improves the extent of brand placement SDAR.
3.2. Spectator's attitude towards the movie
The two following hypotheses concern the choice of the movie and its appreciation.
Some movie viewers choose their movie (in movie theatres or on DVD) because of the film's director (Ainslie et al., 2003). Those movie fans may be more interested than the average in the direction, the set and/or the acting, their supposedly higher attention could lead to a greater degree of SDAR for brand placements. The purpose of this hypothesis is not to analyze the impact of the director's contingent fame on the SDAR. All the selected movies could be considered as successful in their domestic market, but the fame of the director was obviously very different from one film to another. So the goal is just to identify the possible impact of the movie director, whoever he or she was. Based on a direct effect due to vigilance:
Hypothesis 2a. Choosing a DVD movie because of the director improves the
35