Product Placement Cry Babies

In today’s Christian Science Monitor, word of the WGA and SAG potential action in the world of Product placement and Branded Entertainment: They are calling for a code of conduct to govern the practice and say they will appeal to the Federal Communications Commission if production studios and networks don’t seriously consider their proposal. The two unions also want a percentage of the additional revenue that this advertising generates as well as healthcare and pension benefits. Of course .. my favorite quotes are the ones I provided .. I am particularly fond of my use of the word ‘shakedown’: These complaints are economically driven on both sides, says Jeff Greenfield, publisher of Branded Entertainment Monthly. In the SAG report, Mr. Greenfield notes that SAG President Alan Rosenberg objected that the growing product-placement practice “too often takes place without any compensation to the very performers that are expected to push those products.” Adds Greenfield, “This is a shakedown by the writers who want a piece of the pie.”