Product placement in Hollywood blockbusters:
brand recognition and attitude towards the practice
A case study on product placement attitudes among international students
Bachelor thesis within Business Administration
Authors: Frederic Köllisch
Vili Nurminen Kiril Tiavin
Bachelor thesis in Business Administration
Title: Product placement in Hollywood blockbusters: brand recognition and attitude towards the practice
Author: Frederic Köllisch, Vili Nurminen, Kiri Tiavin
Tutor: Johan Larsson
Date: 2015-05-11
Subject terms: Product placement, marketing, brand recognition, attitude, movie
Abstract
Background: Advertising channels in today's marketplace are becoming more limited with the development of ad-free sources of entertainment. The phenomenon of product placements is therefore becoming one of the most important sources for advertising in media. Especially film productions have turned into a canvas for companies to display their brands upon.
Purpose: The purpose of this thesis was to investigate the case of product placements in Hollywood blockbuster movies. In particular, brand recognition and audience's ac-ceptance of a brand’s presence in movies were examined.
Method: A mixed method approach was applied in order to fulfill the purpose of this thesis and answer research questions. A questionnaire in the form of a handout and focus group discussions were used to collect quantitative and qualitative data from audiences consisting of international students. The questionnaires were handed out after the movies had been shown in a setting resembling that of a movie theater, meaning that respondents were not aware of the study beforehand and were therefore not biased. The focus group discussions gave us information needed in answering the second research question and getting more insights of the practice.
Conclusions: Our research showed that product placements in movies lead to brand recognition, and audience’s acceptance of a brand’s presence is influenced by congru-ency of product placement in movies. This outcome resulted from the combination of four determining factors: movie genre, execution factors, appropriateness in the movie setting and brand characteristics.
Acknowledgements
We would like to use this opportunity to thank everyone that contributed to our thesis in one way or another.
First and foremost, we would like to thank our tutor Mr. Johan Larsson, for being readily available to provide feedback and guidance for this thesis. This also goes for the other groups in our tutoring session who both challenged and supported our work.
We would also like to thank the organizers of the Movie Night who gave us the chance to show movies relevant to our research. Their responsiveness and collaboration contrib-uted a great deal to this thesis.
Last but not least, we would like to express our gratitude to all participants from both questionnaire and focus group sessions.
Table of Contents
1
Introduction ... 1
1.1 Background ... 1 1.2 Problem discussion ... 2 1.3 Purpose ... 4 1.4 Research questions ... 42
Product placement ... 5
2.1 Promotional nature of product placement ... 5
2.1.1 Product categories ... 6
2.1.2 Advantages and disadvantages of product placement ... 6
2.2 Conceptual model ... 7
2.2.1 Brand recognition ... 8
2.3 Attitude towards product placement practice ... 9
2.3.1 Attitude towards commercials ... 9
2.3.2 Ethicality ... 10
2.4 Audience ... 11
2.5 Execution factors ... 12
2.6 Movie characteristics ... 13
2.7 Perceived fit of product placements ... 15
3
Method ... 17
3.1 Research philosophy ... 17
3.2 Research design ... 17
3.3 Research approach ... 17
3.4 Data collection ... 18
3.4.1 Primary and secondary data ... 18
3.4.2 Quantitative data collection ... 19
3.4.3 Qualitative data collection ... 20
3.5 Movie selection criteria ... 21
3.6 Data analysis and manipulation ... 23
3.6.1 Questionnaire ... 23
3.6.2 Focus group ... 24
3.7 Credibility of the collected data ... 24
4
Empirical findings ... 26
4.1 Questionnaire ... 26 4.1.1 Audience ... 26 4.1.2 Brand recognition ... 28 4.1.3 Statistical findings ... 30 4.2 Focus group ... 33 4.2.1 Movie genres ... 344.2.2 Appropriateness and fit of the placement ... 35
4.2.3 Attitude towards product placements ... 38
5
Analysis... 40
5.1 Brand Recognition ... 40
5.1.1 Audience ... 40
5.1.2 Placement ... 41
5.1.4 Execution factors ... 43
5.1.5 Hierarchy of execution factors ... 45
5.2 Acceptability of product placement ... 45
5.2.1 Movie characteristics ... 45
5.2.2 Appropriateness and execution factors ... 46
5.2.3 Brand characteristics ... 48
5.2.4 Overall congruency of the placement ... 48
6
Conclusions & Discussion ... 50
6.1 Conclusions ... 50 6.2 Discussion ... 51 6.2.1 Practical implications ... 51 6.2.2 Limitations ... 52 6.2.3 Future research ... 52
List of references ... 54
Online references ... 61 Legal source ... 62Appendices ... 63
Appendix A – Search characteristics ... 63
Appendix B - Questionnaire ... 64
Appendix C – Focus Group Guide ... 65
Appendix B1 - Nationalities ... 66
Appendix B2 - Moviegoing frequency ... 66
Appendix D1 – Descriptive statistics Q3 & Q6 ... 67
Appendix D2 – Descriptive statistics Q2 & Q6 ... 67
Appendix B3 – Product category ... 68
Table of figures
Table 1: Movie clips and brands portrayed ... 21Table 2: Movie performance selection criteria ... 22
Table 3: Product placement categories ... 24
Table 4: Bivariate analysis for Q3 and Q6 ... 31
Table 5: Bivariate analysis for Q2 and Q6 ... 32
Table 6: Bivariate analysis for Q6 and Q7 ... 33
Table 7: Product placement categories ... 44
Figure 1: Product placement triad ... 8
Figure 2: Brand Recognition Model ... 9
Figure 3: Attitude towards advertisements in general ... 27
Figure 4: Liking of the movies ... 27
Figure 5: Brand categories spotted ... 29
Figure 6: Acceptance of branded content ... 30
1
Introduction
The purpose of the following chapter is to provide the reader with the required general information regarding product placements that is needed for understanding the phenom-enon. In this chapter the reader will be presented with a brief background to the matter, the problem discussion leading to the purpose of this thesis and research questions.
1.1
Background
For marketers and companies across the world, finding and designing marketing tools that offer creative ways to portray their brands is an important part of businesses’ promo-tional endeavors. Well established, big multinapromo-tional companies spend great amounts of effort and money into conventional promotional methods such as print advertisements, TV-commercials and Internet ads to inform potential customers about their brands and products. As the competition becomes more fierce and competitive advantages more dif-ficult to acquire, companies are feeling the need not only to attract consumers through purchase inducing promotional activities but also by making their brand a part of potential customers consideration sets (Shapiro, Macinnis & Heckler, 1997). In order to do so, companies have realized the need for integrated marketing communications (IMC) and the power of consideration sets by placing their brands into popular films and TV shows in order to create further brand awareness (Balasubramanian, Karrh & Patwardhan, 2006). The inception of product placement as we know the phenomenon today can be traced back to the year 1982 when E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, a family friendly science fiction movie included a scene portraying the American chocolate specialty, Reese’s Pieces (Newell, Salmon & Chang, 2006). From then on, product and brand placements have become a regularly used tool in marketing, complementing the more conventional pro-motion methods and platforms such as TV-adverts and print. Even though consumers are likely to mention movies and TV-series as the main platforms for product placements, it is worth mentioning that in the modern digital environment marketers are no longer bound to these familiar carriers as brand placements are increasingly more present in video games, other interactive platforms and even in comic books (Kotler & Armstrong, 2012). In one of the most fundamental marketing concepts, the marketing mix and the four P’s, product, price, promotion and place, product placements fall under the category of pro-motion. In Kotler’s promotional mix the closest fitting category is advertising, although placements and adverts differ significantly both in modality and subtlety. Therefore, the end result of merging advertising and entertainment should be called branded entertain-ment rather than advertising (Kotler & Armstrong, 2012).
Product placements serve various purposes for both movie producers as well as marketers of companies that seek after placing their brands on the silver screen. From the production company’s perspective, the clearest incentive for brand inclusions is the monetary aspect or other form of consideration that product placements offer. For example, in the film Minority Report, the fifteen biggest companies that had included their brands into the movie paid over $25 million for the inclusion of one of their products, covering 25% of the movie’s budget (Segrave, 2004). Another aspect of including brands in films is the matter of added realism – movie producers often want to portray the world as realistic as possible, hence real world brands are one feature contributing to that factor (Nelson & McLeod, 2005). The practice of including and accepting brand placements in a film is then beneficial for both the production budget as well as audience’s immersion. From a marketer’s perspective the practice is not as versatile as the production side’s. Therefore, the companies that decide to use product placement as a marketing technique use it to complement other marketing vehicles in promoting consumers’ rate of brand recognition and positive attitude towards the brand (Soba & Aydin, 2013).
The grown usage of various types of brand inclusions in motion pictures as well as other media platforms has also increased the interest of marketing researchers towards the phe-nomenon. A significant number of previous studies have focused on two variables: brand recognition and overall audience acceptance or the attitude towards brand placements in movies (Gould, Gupta & Grabner-Kräuter, 2000; McKechnie & Zhou, 2003; Lee, Sung & Choi, 2011). This research is mostly useful for production companies and marketers as in providing general understanding about the public’s perception on brand inclusions, consequently being helpful while planning the implementation of product placements as a marketing strategy.
1.2
Problem discussion
Why is it of importance to investigate problems regarding the practice of placing brands and products into motion pictures and television series? Even though product placements are used differently and with different anticipated outcomes compared to traditional ad-vertisements, brand placements and their usage are a growing trend in the film industry (Russell & Belch, 2005; Wiles & Danielova, 2009). It can be argued that product place-ments will gain even more footing in marketing at the expense of commercials as more people have access to online streaming services such as Netflix or timeshift devices that allow skipping over commercial breaks shown during regular programming. In order to gain better knowledge on audience’s perceptions and placement acceptance, marketers need scientific research that helps in maximizing the desired outcomes derived from the brand’s inclusion in entertainment content, while minimizing the risk of inducing annoy-ance or repelling potential customers with ineptly implemented placement activities. In general, from an average moviegoer’s perspective, product placements are understood as paid inclusions of brands functioning as a form of advertising. In this paper the authors
discuss the diverse usage of product placements and its effects on audiences brand recog-nition. Unlike many other promotional methods, brand placements serve a much more defined role in advertising strategy for established products, because it serves as a rein-forcement tool rather than brand awareness creation (DeLorme & Reid, 1999; Karrh, McKee & Pardun, 2003). Therefore, it is of interest whether the tools are used effectively in order to maximize their desired effects on brand recognition without bringing forth disturbance for the audience.
Because of this, product placements and its effects on moviegoers have been studied on various occasions. One of the most studied matters is the causality between brand famil-iarity and brand recognition (Brennan & Babin, 2004; Yang & Roskos-Ewoldsen, 2007) as well as the general attitude towards brand placements among consumers. However, recent studies have not been conducted in a fully natural setting, i.e. where the moviegoers see the motion picture at a movie theater or other occasion where the audience’s full focus is on the movie, and that they were not made aware that they were subjects of a research experiment.
In their framework for future research regarding placements Balasubramanian, Karrh and Patwardhan (2006) identify a need for comparative studies, especially between different types of placements, i.e. if the portrayed brands are integrated into the plot or if they serve a purely visual non-integrated role as so called background placements. Therefore, the connection between the placements’ plot connection and on-screen prominence is also touched upon in this paper.
Another phenomenon that has not yet been investigated in previous studies is the congru-ency-acceptance factor. Simply put, the congrucongru-ency-acceptance factor relates to the con-nection between audience’s acceptance of a placement presence and the brands connec-tion to the movie’s setting. For example, in the sci-fi blockbuster Transformers: Dark of the Moon the movie had 71 on-screen brands, consequently receiving heavy criticism as well as the award for worst product placement in Brandchannel’s annual product place-ment awards due to blatancy and portrayal of brands without any apparent connection to the movie’s plot (Sauer, 2015). On the other hand, tasteful inclusions of branded products in movies can bring forth positive and wanted attention for the product. For example, brand placements in the 2014 thriller movie Gone Girl received appraisal for its tasteful inclusion of luxury bed manufacturer Savoir, increasing the company’s web site traffic by twenty percent (Sauer, 2015). These kinds of findings raise questions on if the taste-fulness of brand placements could be one of the factors why some audiences have nega-tive attitudes towards product placements and if so, would their level of acceptance be higher if those placements were implemented in a more fitting way.
In this thesis the authors investigate above mentioned research gaps by linking them to Hollywood blockbuster movies. By Hollywood blockbusters the authors refer to Shone’s (2004, p.28) definition of a Hollywood blockbuster being “a high-budget production aimed at mass markets, with associated merchandising” or smaller Hollywood films in-cluding famous movie stars that have grossed exceptionally high in comparison to their
initial budget (Ganeri & Bergan, 2006). Hollywood blockbusters are of special interest mainly due to their global reach and the ability of attracting viewers from different cul-tural backgrounds. This special nature of Hollywood blockbusters gives marketing spe-cialists of multinational companies an attractive vehicle for product placements.
1.3
Purpose
The purpose of this thesis is to investigate if product placements in Hollywood block-buster movies induce brand recognition and whether audience's acceptance of a brand’s presence is dependent on the congruency of the placement.
1.4
Research questions
Firstly, this thesis focuses on whether product placements embedded in Hollywood Blockbuster movies lead to brand recognition by the viewer; if yes, then what types of placements are spotted most often.
Secondly, the authors are investigating if audience’s acceptance of brand presence is in-fluenced by congruency of the placement. By the word "congruency" the authors refer to the concept of perceived fit between product, movie and message characteristics (Bal-asubramanian, Karrh & Patwardhan, 2006).
RQ1: Do product placements embedded in Hollywood blockbuster movies lead to brand recognition. If so, what factors contribute to brand recognition? RQ2: Is audience’s acceptance of brand presence influenced by congruency of
2
Product placement
The purpose of this chapter is to discuss product placement from a theoretical perspec-tive. In addition, the conceptual model developed by the authors is presented that guides the reader through the theoretical framework. At the end of this section, an overview of the whole chapter is provided.
2.1
Promotional nature of product placement
Throughout the establishment of modern society and the construction of a competitive business environment advertising and product promotion are as prevalent as ever. Differ-entiation of products by enterprises becomes more important as the multitude of compa-nies offering products and services increases. In advertising and product promotion it is not only important to differentiate products in the minds of consumers, but also to create brand awareness, and to establish or strengthen relationships with consumers (Kotler & Armstrong, 2012). Unlike traditional marketing communication, such as advertising, a large and growing form of unconventional marketing communication is product place-ment in movies (Hackley, Tiwsakul & Preuss, 2008).
In academic literature, different definitions for product placement have been formulated. Several definitions of product placement are: “placing a brand in media content to affect consumer behavior” (Kit & P‘ng, 2014), “the purposeful incorporation of commercial content into non-commercial settings” (Ginosar & Levi-Faur, 2010), “a paid product mes-sage aimed at influencing movie (or television) audiences via the planned and unobtrusive entry of a branded product into a movie (or television program)” (Balasubramanian, 1994). The definitions given by these authors differ mainly due to the fact that the con-tents discussed by them are essentially different. However, product placement definitions are similar to some extent, especially concerning the deliberate placement of brands/prod-ucts into movies.
For the purpose of this thesis the authors define product placement as the intentionally integrated inclusion of a brand in a movie that had not necessarily been paid for by the brand company. There are some disputes about the use of the terms product placement and brand placement, due to the fact that the brand is the most important aspect of the placement. An example of this could be if a bottle of water is placed in a movie without the brand visible it is still a product, however it is not regarded as product placement (d‘Astous & Berrada, 2011). Therefore, it is prevalent in literature to use the terms prod-uct placement and brand placement interchangeably (Nelson & McLeod, 2005; Bal-asubramanian, Karrh & Patwardhan, 2006; Yang & Roskos-Ewoldsen, 2007).
2.1.1 Product categories
Because of their promotional nature, product placements can be linked to general adver-tising theory. In conventional marketing, adveradver-tising strategies can be roughly divided into two main categories – informational and transformational. The informational strategy is often used with products or brands linked to negative motivations such as aversion of a problem or dealing with an already existing problem (Percy & Rossiter, 1992). Usual product categories that make use of informational strategies include common household products such as detergents, medicine and industrial products. Advertisements for these products tend to focus on the problem solving properties of the specific product and pro-vide facts to target the audience rather than persuading them with emotionally laden con-tent as in transformational ads.
Often, the products that are shown in movies and TV programs have transformational qualities where, according to Percy and Rossiter (1992), the products are “positive and drive enhancement” and the consumption is driven by motivation to increase social status. Some examples of product categories with such qualities, mentioned by Percy and Ros-siter (1992) in their category matrix, include sodas, alcoholic beverages, cosmetics, fash-ion, cars, electronics and sometimes corporate images. Moreover, as the brand in the movie plays a secondary role compared to ads, most placements do not include explicit information about the brand even if it proves to be meaningful and valuable to the plot (Balasubramanian, Karrh, & Patwardhan, 2006).
2.1.2 Advantages and disadvantages of product placement
The pros and cons of product placement can be applied to different media vehicles of exposure. According to Law (2009), media vehicle is a specific subcategory of general media types, such as a specific television program, single film production or magazine issue.
In this case, discussion is based mainly on the advantages and disadvantages of product placement in movies due to our topic and research questions. In comparison with one of the most common types of advertising, television commercials, product placement can be “a cost-effective method for reaching target customers” (Williams, Petrosky, Hernandez & Page, 2011) considering some of the following factors. Firstly, product placement has become one of the best suitable strategies for television advertising due to existence of technologies that enable consumers to skip commercials (Segrave, 2004). Secondly, the global box office revenue for movies around the world has increased by 4% from 2012-2013 reaching a total of $35.9 billion in revenue (MPAA, 2012-2013). Not only have cinema admissions all around the world been increasing for the last years, but also advertisements have basically been eliminated in the home environment. At this point watching a movie in the cinema or elsewhere could be the most effective place for a company to display and promote its product, at least in terms of rate of exposure.
Additionally, celebrity endorsements are quite common in accordance with brand place-ments and, according to Avery and Ferraro (2000), establish a strong positive connection between product and consumer. Since the demographics of movie attendees are easily understood, product placements can be specifically targeted towards different consumer groups (Nebenzahl & Secunda, 1993). Furthermore, consumers’ attitudes towards prod-uct placements are generally positive; according to Gupta, Balasubramanian & Klassen (2000), this is due to the increase of realism that product placements bring to the movie. Finally, movies stay around for decades after they are produced giving consumers the chance to watch them over and over again. Therefore product placements have one of the longest lifespans of any advertisement type (Brennan, Dubas & Babin, 1999).
According to DeLorme and Reid (1999), product placement has some disadvantages due to limited control of the process by advertisers and marketers. Variables such as release date, success of the movie, portrayal of the product in the movie and the possibility of scenes with the product getting removed from the movie cause uncertainty. If problems occur within these scenarios, the product placement’s intended outcome could be nega-tively influenced. Further downsides to product placement discussed by Williams et al. (2011) are the possibility of there being negative character association in the movie, e.g. if the character using the product has done something bad, the product might be viewed in a negative light. The final matter of disadvantages discussed in the previously men-tioned article is the issue of ethics in product placement. In this regard, although product placements are generally accepted as discussed earlier, too many product placements in the movie or morally questionable products can cause negative effects.
2.2
Conceptual model
In order to organize existing theories related to product placement practice the conceptual model has been created by the authors (See Figure 1). The model is intended to guide the reader through a number of theories and their connections. From now on, the theories presented are to be connected to this model.
Figure 1: Product placement triad
Source: own
The model consists of three parts, namely product placement, movie and audience char-acteristics. Each node is connected to the other two nodes, where each link means a rela-tion between corresponding units. However, the links on the figure do not show to what extent the nodes are bound, thus they rather serve as a visual representation.
2.2.1 Brand recognition
There is a number of measures available for practitioners to assess the effectiveness of brand placement. According to Balasubramanian, Karrh and Patwardhan (2006), the ef-fects of product placement can be arranged in compliance with three broad categories, namely cognition, affect and conation. The most popular memory-related measures used to gauge effects on a cognitive level (Balasubramanian, Karrh & Patwardhan, 2006) are brand recognition and brand recall (Gould, Gupta & Grabner-Krauter, 2000; Russell & Belch, 2005; Yang & Roskos-Ewoldsen, 2007).
It is important to define the terms brand recognition and brand recall so as not to confuse these concepts with each other (Van Der Waldt, Du Preez, & Williams, 2008). Brand recognition means the ability of a consumer to recognize a product and identify its name in a movie after being exposed to visual and audio cues for a reasonable time. Brand recall on the other hand is a consumer’s ability to remember a product name when thinking of a product category in which the product cue acts in accordance with the consumers’ need fulfilment. Therefore, in compliance with our purpose, brand recognition is the measure
Figure 2: Brand Recognition Model
Source: own
In order to show what influences brand recognition in movies, the authors developed a model based on the concepts of brand awareness and brand recognition (See Figure 2). Brand awareness, in general, can be considered as a prerequisite for brand recognition to take place. In the context of product placements in movies, four factors are needed to induce brand recognition among the audience. The elements of an audience’s individual characteristics, placement’s product category, movie genre and execution factors of the placement itself are used to determine whether brand recognition can be achieved in prod-uct placement.
2.3
Attitude towards product placement practice
According to Reijmersdal, Neijens and Smit (2009), consumer beliefs and attitudes in regards of advertising and promotions influence reactions towards product placement. The ethicality of the products portrayed in the movie may have an impact on acceptability of the brand placement as a practice.
2.3.1 Attitude towards commercials
In their article, Mehta and Purvis (1995) determined that in general, advertisements and commercials have a greater effect on those who like them, consequently, making them more easily persuaded by the advertisement. The authors found that consumers that had the tendency of having a positive attitude towards advertising claimed that advertisements generally helped them to remain informed about new products and developments in the market. The individuals who had the best rate of advertisement recall were also inclined to have an increased interest in buying the product portrayed in the commercial (Mehta & Purvis, 1995).
believed that products do not perform as well as in the advertisement. Only about 15% of consumers questioned, felt that brands that are advertised are better than non-advertised brands.
Further research on consumer attitudes towards advertising implements different varia-bles and goes into more depth about the topic. A model constructed by Eze and Lee (2012) portrays that attitudes towards advertising are determined by six independent variables. Regarding two of these variables, consumer manipulation and social integration, a sig-nificant relation to product placements in movies can be established. Product placements are often regarded as manipulative because they are not always noticed in movies and seen as hidden. However, in terms of advertisements consumer manipulation means omit-ting important information or being intentionally misleading (Eze & Lee, 2012).
According to Eze and Lee (2012), social integration refers to lifestyle imagery and more significantly, associated prestige of products in advertising. Product placements are often connected to celebrities in movies, therefore the associated status of the product is in-creased. Consumer manipulation and social integration affect attitudes towards advertise-ments, either negatively or positively shaping consumers opinions. Additionally stated by Eze and Lee (2012), consumer manipulation had a negative correlation to consumer atti-tudes, whereas social integration was found to be insignificant in their research.
2.3.2 Ethicality
One aspect that is crucial to the acceptability of product placement by an audience has to do with underlying ethical problems of brand placement practices. Even though there are legal limitations to the usage of product placements in both North America and the Euro-pean Union, the regulations in the USA are far more vague and less defined compared to the European ones (Hudson S., Hudson D. & Peloza, 2007). For example, unlike in the US, in the European Union, the audience needs to be explicitly informed of the existence of product placements presented on TV (AVMS Directive 2010/13/EU).
When discussing the acceptability of product placements in movies, several authors con-nect acceptability to the ethicality of product placements (Gupta & Gould, 1997; Brennan, Rosenberger & Hementera, 2004). According to Gupta and Gould (1997), the controversy of product placements can be related to deception and persuasion: the “glamour of Hol-lywood” can cause consumers to develop irrational positive opinions about the product, whereas the “hidden but paid” (Balasubramanian, 1994) aspect of product placement can be seen as deceptive. This idea is supported by the research done by Hudson S., Hudson D. and Peloza (2007) where the majority of participants noted that ethically charged prod-ucts, such as junk food or sugary beverages are both deceptive and unfitting to any movie that has a chance to be viewed by children.
Research conducted by Sung and Gregorio (2008) determined that consumers generally feel neutral towards product placements in movies. They used a Likert scale in which the
in movies. However, the placement of morally questionable products in movies was deemed unacceptable in multiple cases.
Although the portrayal of ethically charged products in movies such as alcohol, cigarettes and guns has a lower acceptability than other goods, they are not deemed extremely un-acceptable (Gupta & Gould, 1997; Brennan, Rosenberger & Hementera, 2004). In both articles, research conducted showed that guns, cigarettes and alcohol are less accepted as product placements, however on a scale of one to three, with three being acceptable these morally questionable products still achieved an average score of two. These findings could be explained by the continuing increase of advertising and promotional messages throughout media platforms.
2.4
Audience
The general views on product placements and their acceptance have been investigated by researchers on different audiences around the globe. Some patterns were specific to de-mographics including nationality, ethnicity, gender, age and related lifestyle factors, such as moviegoing frequency.
The differences in attitudes towards product placement among people of different nation-alities were found to be insignificant (DeLorme & Reid, 1999; McKechnie & Zhou, 2003) and are mostly positive (Sung & Gregorio, 2008). Furthermore, acceptance of ethically-charged products portrayed in movies varies between consumers in different countries. Research conducted among consumers in the USA, Singapore and Australia showed that product placements in general were accepted more in the USA than in Singapore and Australia (Brennan, Rosenberger & Hementera 2004; Karrh, Frith & Callison 2001). As many of the prevalent studies have been conducted among American moviegoers (Karrh, McKee, & Pardun, 2003; Karniouchina, Uslay & Erenburg, 2011), questions re-garding generalizability with non-American audiences can occur. However, the most no-table differences found in international researches are in what the audiences perceive as paid brand inclusions, where Americans seem to be more aware and more capable of spotting deliberate brand placements (McKechnie & Zhou, 2003). The reason for this has not yet been studied but it can be hypothesized that this difference is due to the films’ American origin and the Americans’ high awareness of the brands portrayed in those films.
In terms of ethnicity, some ethnic groups show more positive behavior in terms of atti-tudes towards product placement than others (Sung & Gregorio, 2010). However the re-search conducted by these authors shows only minimal differences in the previous men-tioned occurrences, and can be disregarded due to lack of further findings.
With regard to consumers’ gender, the differences in attitude and behavior towards prod-uct placement display some contradictory information. Sung and Gregorio (2010) found that females have a slightly more positive attitude towards product placements than men,
however males show more engaging behavior towards product placements. By engaging behavior the authors meant that men watch and consume more movies than women in general.
As for age of consumers, growing up in a society with advertising as a norm, consumers are more “savvy” when it comes to marketing techniques (Hackley, Tiwsakul & Preuss, 2008), and younger audiences even expect the use of product placement, accepting it al-most unconditionally (Brennan, Rosenberger & Hementera, 2004). In their study, De-Lorme and Reid (1999) found that regardless of age, consumers were aware of seeing and recognizing brands in movies, however the interpretations of product placement practice differed among age groups. For younger moviegoers brand placements were a part of the movie viewing experience, whereas older viewers were more susceptible and resistant to this practice. Nevertheless, this holds true not only for consumers of different ages, but also for consumers of different backgrounds, given that the product portrayed is not mor-ally questionable (Sung & Gregorio, 2008).
When it comes to the link between moviegoing frequency and product placements ac-ceptance, there are some conflicting theories. On the one hand, it was found that consum-ers who frequently watch movies find product placements more acceptable than those which watch movies less frequently, this also being the case specifically for ethically questionable products (Gupta & Gould, 1997; Gould, Gupta & Grabner-Kräuter, 2000; Karrh, Frith & Callison, 2001). On the other hand, findings indicated that there was no significant difference in acceptance of product placements in relation to moviegoing fre-quency (DeLorme & Reid, 1999), although US consumers were affected more than Chi-nese consumers in this case (McKechnie & Zhou, 2003).
2.5
Execution factors
The execution factors refer to the way that brands can be executed in the given media, such as movie, television show, song or video game. Each of these media types have a set of distinctive variables or ways to integrate brands into the context of the particular media. When it comes to product placement, it is almost implicitly tied in with a practice of placing brands within a movie (Karrh, McKee, & Pardun, 2003; Homer, 2009; Wiles & Danielova, 2009).
As this thesis is dedicated to the research of the concept of product placement in movies, specifically Hollywood films, the term media is respectively associated with movies. Movies in particular have two executive cues to encode the placements, namely visual and audio cues. Theoretically, these two means of encoding together with other variables lead to virtually unlimited amount of executive combinations. According to D’Astous and Chartier (2000), there are six categories of how products are placed in films in relation to brand recognition: subtlety, length and integration of the product placement as well as
personal judgement, product awareness and verbal cues in the movie. However, in prac-tice the most prevalent dimensions used in movies are plot connection (Russell, 2002) and prominence (Russell & Belch, 2005; Redondo & Holbrook, 2008).
Plot connection is dependent on the degree of product integration in the storyline (Kuhn, Hume and Love, 2010). The plot connection is usually represented from the lowest level of integration, for instance seeing the brand in the background, to the highest level when the product is used by the main character (Yang & Roskos-Ewoldsen, 2007). In their studies, authors found that brand recognition was higher when the product was used by the main character and/or intrinsic to the story than when it was placed in the background. In general, blatantly shown prominent placements received a higher rate of brand recog-nition than the more subtle brand placements (Gillespie, Joireman & Muehling, 2012). Research conducted by Verhellen, Dens and Pelsmacker (2015) shows a positive corre-lation of plot connection and perceived fit of product placements. This correcorre-lation signif-icantly enhances brand attitude in a positive way. Furthermore, plot connection of unfa-miliar brands is significantly higher with prominent brand placements than with subtle placements, whereas the opposite is the case in regards to familiar brands. In addition, familiarity with the brand portrayed allows the audience to quickly understand and clarify “complex meanings in program content” (Balasubramanian, Karrh & Patwardhan, 2006) Placement prominence is in turn associated with the size and visibility (Russell & Belch, 2005), subtle versus obvious representation (Homer, 2009) of the placement on screen. Repetition is another important factor that is related to placement prominence. In her re-search, Homer (2009) found that for subtle placements repetition had no significant ef-fects on consumer attitude, whereas for obvious placements the correlation between rep-etition and consumer attitude was found to be negative.
In their research, Lehu and Bressoud (2008) investigated which brands led to higher re-call, examining people in a natural setting in so called “spontaneous day-after recall” along two dimensions, namely prominence and plot-connection. The authors found that prominent and plot-connected placements were recalled the most, followed by prominent but not plot-connected, non-prominent and plot-connected, and the least recalled were neither prominent nor plot-connected placements.
2.6
Movie characteristics
In regards to the acceptance of product or brand placements in certain movie genres there is a significant difference. Not all genres are equal candidates for brand placements to be successful. In the study of Karniouchina, Uslay and Erenburg (2011) they found that brands placed in deeply emotion-laden films, such as dramas tend to be viewed as disrup-tive and annoying for movie-viewing experience. Therefore, the authors conclude that drama as a movie genre is not the best candidate for embedding the brands, as these pair-ings resulted in incongruency.
However, even though brand placements in the drama genre were considered as disrup-tive and irritating by some viewers, another study on movie genre’s effect on brand recog-nition showed that placements embedded in drama films created a much higher brand recognition rate compared to other movie types (Park & Berger, 2010). In their research about movie genre’s effect in brand recognition, the authors state that the required in-volvement from the audience can also create differences between brand recognition rates in different genres. By audience involvement, Park and Berger (2010) refer to the level of concentration required from the audience to follow the plot and course of action in the movie.
In the article by Sung and Gregorio (2008) the appropriateness of product placement was measured in a variety of different movie genres. Product placement was determined to be significantly appropriate in the genres comedy and action, whereas it was deemed inap-propriate in genres such as historical, political, science-fiction/fantasy and animated. In the case where the genre is serious and non-fiction the placement is seen as inappropriate because it cannot be integrated into the plot effectively. Whereas, in the case of animated movies, its relation to children and the targeting of advertisement to children makes it particularly inappropriate. In past studies it has been proven that audiences tend to have a much more negative overall opinion towards placements in animated movies due to the fact that many of them are perceived as children’s movies (Sung & Gregorio 2008). A study conducted by Redondo and Holbrook (2008) researched the correlations between different genres of movies and different types of products. Depending on the product cat-egory of the brand inclusion, the outcome of placement’s perceived fit by the audience may vary. For example, alcoholic drinks have a positive correlation to movies in the drama genre, whereas alcohol-free drinks are positively correlated to action/adventure movies. There also seems to be some differentiation between preferred product categories in television productions and motion pictures. Wilson and Till (2011) state that in TV shows the most popular product categories for brand placements include media and en-tertainment products, services, philanthropic and educational organizations, whereas in motion pictures the trends in included product categories consist of more transformational products, such as cars, alcoholic beverages as well as big cable networks. Therefore, the popularity of cable networks’ presence in movies can be partially explained by their en-gagement in the movie’s production and distribution. A notable example of this is the connection between the production company 20th Century Fox and its parent Fox
Net-works.
Additionally, there seems to be some connection between viewer’s movie preferences and their level of brand placement acceptance. Studies that have specifically concentrated on background placements with little to no plot connection and short on-screen times have found that likeability of movie genre has a greater effect on audience’s acceptance of placements and even had a negative overall impact on viewers’ brand attitudes (Redker, Gibson & Zimmerman, 2013). Therefore, background placements can create
more disturbance than prominent and plot-connected brands if one has a negative attitude towards the movie’s genre.
Another factor to consider when discussing attitudes towards product placements in mov-ies is the likeability of the program. According to Cowley and Barron (2008), viewers which exhibit a high liking towards the program shown are more conscious of product placements within. This may alienate the viewer from the perceived reality created by the movie or television show. Therefore, increased attention caused by a liking of the media watched could have negative effects on attitudes towards product placements. However, research conducted by Lehu and Bressoud (2008) shows that higher movie likeability led to higher recall of product placements. Since movie liking could negatively affect con-sumers’ perception of the product placement, but can also lead to increased brand recall, the overall influence of the product placement could be positive.
Further research conducted by Johnstone and Dodd (2000) related likeability of a movie with brand salience for different product placements, which the authors define as “the prominence or level of activation of the brand in memory”. The results of this study showed that brand salience increased for some brands, however not for other brands. Therefore, although this study was somewhat inconclusive in this matter, liking of movies was still deemed a significant variable for raising brand salience. A study conducted by Norris, Colman and Aleixo (2003) additionally supports this evidence, showing that atti-tudes toward advertisements, brands and buying intentions correlate to movie likeability. Consumers which felt positively towards the program watched were also prone to a pos-itive change in brand attitudes after viewing the product placement (Reijmersdal, Smit & Neijens, 2010).
2.7
Perceived fit of product placements
Many studies showed the importance of congruency between placements and the carrier i.e. the movie the brand is embedded in (Balasubramanian, Karrh & Patwardhan, 2006). The concept of fit is particularly important when one wants to measure the possible cor-relation between the perceived fit of the placement experienced by the audience and their level of acceptance for that placement in specific. In their article about audience response to product placement, Balasubramanian, Karrh and Pawardhan (2006), proposed that there is a general pattern for incongruent placements that yield a higher level of brand recall than those that are less congruent with the plot. In addition, the authors suggested that placements with high congruency create higher affective results than incongruent brand placements. These propositions are further elaborated and discussed in the works of Reijmersdal (2009), where the author stated that while incongruent placements in fact do yield higher levels of brand recall, they also have a negative effect on the audience’s attitudes towards that placement if they feel that the placement is obvious or “a deliberate selling attempt”.
A notable characteristic affecting audience’s opinion and perceived fit of brand ments is that the audiences tend to be tolerable of brand inclusions if the number of place-ments in a movie is not overwhelming and especially when the brands add to the film’s realism (Hudson S., Hudson D. & Peloza, 2007; Hackley, Tiwsakul & Preuss, 2008). These findings further highlight the importance of research done by Balasubramanian, Karrh and Patwardhan (2006) about the significance of placement congruency and its effects on the audience perception of brand inclusions. In addition, the authors stated that placements comprising considerable amount of information about the brand can poten-tially distract audience’ attention away from the movie and lead to irritation by the agent.
3
Method
In this section the authors present their research methodologies and the reasons for their usage. In addition, this chapter focuses on explaining the methods used for data collection and analysis.
3.1
Research philosophy
In regards to the research philosophy, the approach of pragmatism is most fitting for this thesis since it supports mixed method research and attempts to combine these into a work-able solution (Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004). This research philosophy recognizes that each form of research has its weaknesses and can therefore be complementary. Addition-ally, according to Johnson and Onwuegbuzie (2004), a pragmatist point of view stresses that mixed research approaches should be conducted in a way which provides the best opportunities to answer research questions. Pragmatism is often seen as rejecting tradi-tional research philosophies and is in this sense an “anti-philosophy” (Coe, 2012, p.8). However, this pluralist approach is said to “help improve communication among re-searchers from different paradigms” in an effort to expedite knowledge (Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004).
3.2
Research design
The authors of this thesis decided to approach the phenomenon of product placement practice as a case study among international students studying in Sweden. According to Mitchell (1983, p.191), a case study refers to “descriptive material an observer has as-sembled by whatever means available about some particular phenomenon or set of events”. The reason for choosing a case study over a different research approach was that a case study has the ability to evaluate and explain why a certain factor had or did not have an effect on the studied phenomenon (Ashley, 2012). In addition, as mentioned by Ashley (2012), a notable characteristic of a case study is that the investigated phenome-non is studied within a specific context. In our case, the practice of product placement is studied within the specific context of international students, thus having a limited gener-alizability to large populations (Ashley, 2012).
3.3
Research approach
When it comes to methods of reasoning, it is common to think of deductive and inductive approaches in the first place. The deductive part of reasoning is related to confirming or testing specific hypothesis found in extant literature (Barratt, Choi & Li, 2011). In the case of our paper this would mean formulating specific research questions and answering
them. Whereas the inductive reasoning in contrast with deductive approach is consistent with the notion of "gap-filling" in existing theories, in other words, extending current literature with new concepts, ideas and topics (Alvesson & Sandberg, 2011; Gibbs, 2012). Since neither of the reasoning approaches is dominant in the paper, the process is cyclical rather than straightforward. Moreover, as neither deductive nor inductive approaches in-dividually would be rational with regard to the purpose and research design, an abductive reasoning approach is used. Although the abductive approach is less prevalent in litera-ture, it is the one that takes into account explanatory considerations so as to assess the value of studying hypotheses and theories (Haig, 2010).
3.4
Data collection
As for the data collection method, a mixed approach that combines both quantitative and qualitative research characteristics is used in this research. There are two main reasons for opting for a mixed approach rather than relying on one of them specifically. The first one relates specifically to our purpose that cannot be fully answered by either quantitative or qualitative approach. The purpose is formulated in such a way that the qualitative ap-proach supports, clarifies and enriches the quantitative part of research. In addition, the study is designed in a concurrent manner meaning that both quantitative and qualitative elements appear within the same research, hence, neither specific approach is given a dominant position (Biesta, 2012).
Another reason is the notion of dual benefits from both quantitative and qualitative data gathering techniques. The former approach is useful to gain a lot of data that can be further used for statistical analysis (Currall, Hammer, Baggett & Doniger, 1999), whereas the latter one is used when depth and variety of data is preferred over amount (Murray, 2003). Therefore, a combination of both approaches complement each other and lead to a higher validity of inferences (Jick, 1979). However, the main disadvantage of mixed approach is the growing risk of getting divergent or conflicting results between the respective ap-proaches, thus making it more difficult to find appropriate connections (Lund, 2012). 3.4.1 Primary and secondary data
In regards to the data collection, both secondary and primary data was gathered. The for-mer one was acquired by reviewing literature from multiple databases and different search engines. A number of key words were searched for, such as “product placement”, “movie”, “attitude” and “brand recognition” (See Appendix A). The latter one was gath-ered by a combination of both quantitative and qualitative data collection techniques, namely questionnaires among moviegoers and focus groups consisting of those who had answered the questionnaire.
3.4.2 Quantitative data collection
In order to answer the first research question, a research method utilizing a survey was chosen as an approach to get quantitative data. The advantages of a survey include rela-tively easy administration and handling (Tymms, 2012), as well as the allowance for rep-etition in the future and quick data gathering (Blaxter, Hughes & Tight, 2010). However, the disadvantages usually refer to breadth of validity and accuracy of the collected data (Blaxter, Hughes & Tight, 2010).
The quantitative data was collected by means of handing out questionnaires directly after the movie had been shown in a regular movie theater setting. In general, a face-to-face approach allows researchers to get higher response rate as well as more complete answers than if it would be distributed via post or email (Blaxter, Hughes & Tight, 2010). On the whole, three movies were shown during the three movie sessions on different dates to make sure that a sufficient amount of data was acquired. The questionnaire itself consisted of a mix of multiple choice, Likert-type scale and open-ended questions. Furthermore, the questionnaire consisting of nine questions was designed so that it would not take more than two minutes to fill out. It goes without saying that the layout and question construc-tion was made as readable and simple as possible thus fitting the whole quesconstruc-tionnaire on one half of A4-format page (See Appendix B).
Moreover, before the questionnaire was used for research purposes, it was piloted by a group consisting of four individuals to ensure that the questions asked were understood by the respondents. Even though the task was relatively simple and straightforward, it is of high importance to make sure that the questionnaire was formulated correctly in order to avoid confusion among the respondents (Thomas, 2004).
As for the venue for this research, the movies were shown at Jönköping University (JU) campus in collaboration with the student union. The location itself, a large auditorium, is comparable to the setting of those in movie theaters with a large silver screen and high quality sound system. This setting allowed the research to be conducted very close to a natural moviegoing setting. Moreover, it was done in the context of a weekly movie event held by the student union. The group of moviegoers in these events consists of regular JU students from all faculty schools. From a demographic point of view, the majority of students are between 18 and 25 years of age. Moreover, due to the international standpoint of the university participants represent different nationalities.
In the end of the questionnaire the authors explicitly asked participants to voluntarily indicate their email address as a consent to be contacted regarding further research. There-fore, for the focus group discussions, randomly chosen moviegoers that attended the movie nights were invited to participate in the second part of our research. In general, two focus group sessions were held two days after the second and the third movie sessions,
respectively. During the focus group discussions participants were encouraged to elabo-rate on their observations and views of product placements in the respective movie they have seen during the event.
3.4.3 Qualitative data collection
As the research requires more in-depth answers in addition to the data gathered from the questionnaire, the quantitative approach is supported with additional qualitative research. For the second research question to be fulfilled, focus group method was employed for a number of reasons. Firstly, as the subject of congruency or perceived fit of brands seen in the movies is not the everyday topic people are likely to be engaged in their everyday life, therefore, some concepts would require clarification on the moderator’s behalf. Secondly, this data collection method allows researchers to get insights in an interactive manner by facilitating discussions, arguments (Liamputtong, 2011), obtain a variety of opinions among the participants (Puchta & Potter, 2004) and the group opinion that should be regarded as important as an individual one (Gibbs, 2012). An alternative method within qualitative approach could have been holding one-on-one interviews. However, in that case, no group discussion per se would take place which might have shed light on the topic from collective perspective.
As a drawback, although focus group discussions are free of “interviewer biases”, they are more influenced by participation pattern (Miller & Dingwall, 1997). It may also get challenging to manage discussions within the scope of topic and sustain interaction among all participants (Gibbs, 2012). In order to address this issue, the focus group in-cluded a moderator who ensured that the session kept its track and that all investigated areas were covered by the participants.
In order for the second research question to be answered, two forty-minute-long focus group sessions were organized. During these sessions two of the researchers were taking notes while the third one carried out the role of a moderator. One of the note-takers fo-cused on the content, whereas the other one paid attention to how the discussion flowed and what reactions participants had including their body language. In addition, after hav-ing received an explicit consent from all of the participants, the whole discussion was recorded in order to make sure that nothing was omitted. Two recording devices were placed in different parts of the room in order to ensure both the quality and safety of the recording.
The focus group session consisted of three parts: introduction, movie clips viewing and post-discussion. The session started with a few general questions about the subject of research that meant to serve as both warm-up and introduction into the topic of product placement (See Appendix C). For the second part, six short clips were shown lasting from 26 to 67 seconds each (See Table 1).
When deciding on the number and length of the clips, the challenge was to not only pro-vide an optimal amount of information for participants to be further discussed, but also ensure that the focus group did not turn into merely a clip-viewing session. As for the choice of movie clips, it was important to select the excerpts that portrayed brands from different product categories and the amount of placements varied from clip to clip. More-over, the excerpts chosen belonged to different movie genres so as to evoke the diversity of opinions around the practice of product placement in different movie genres.
Table 1: Movie clips and brands portrayed
Movie Genre Clip length, in seconds placements Product placement Number of Transformers: Age of
Extinction Action, Sci-Fi
54 1 Beats pill
61 2 Bud Light, Goodyear Let's Be Cops Action, Comedy 27 4 eBay, Apple iMac, Ap-ple MacBook,
Face-book
Sex Tape Comedy 43 1 Apple iPad
Wreck-It Ralph Animation, Fa-mily 26 1 Nesquik
Cuban Fury Comedy 65 1 Fanta
Source: own
After seeing each clip that portrayed brands in a different way, participants had to answer two questions on the given handout where they rated the focal brand along two dimen-sions. Once this procedure had been done the participants were given an open-ended question facilitating the post-clip discussion around the corresponding movie clip. There-fore, in total six small discussions took place followed by the post-discussion where the session was summarized including the concept of product placement and its use by mar-keters in movies.
The reason for choosing short movie excerpts instead of full movies was justified for practical reasons. From a practical point of view, it would not be feasible to show full movies. If that would be the case, the research would last for several hours which would be both impractical and tiresome for the focus group participants. In addition, the movie clips allowed participants to concentrate on the studied subject and discussion rather than watching five full movies.
3.5
Movie selection criteria
Three movies were chosen for our research 22 Jump Street, Chef and Gone Girl that had satisfied the key indicators that the authors have identified, namely movie performance, research relevancy and technical limitations. In addition, all of the movies selected are in line with the definition of Hollywood blockbuster productions presented in the introduc-tion chapter. The reason for choosing three movies is that this amount allowed us to gather
optimal set of data that satisfies the first part of data collection set. Two movies would not be enough while having four or more movies would require a trade-off between quan-titative and qualitative part of research.
Movie performance. By movie performance the authors mean financial success, film rat-ing and target audience (See Table 2). Financial success in turn was measured by lookrat-ing at combination of box-office revenues at movie theaters worldwide and at least breaking even the budget of respective film (Box Office Mojo, 2015). Film rating was done by comparing the average scores among three movie aggregating websites, namely IMDb (2015), Rotten Tomatoes (2015) and Metacritic (2015). Therefore, the movies selected have been rated above the score of 7.6 on a ten-point scale. In addition, the films had been shown worldwide, thus targeted at a global audience rather than only the US domestic market.
Research relevancy. As not all movies and certainly not all genres make use of this mar-keting technique, the pool of movies satisfying our purpose is rather limited. The selection process started with information search regarding brand placements in recent movies on the Internet, watching trailers and short movie clips on the web. Once a dozen of candi-dates had been selected, the next step was to select top five favorite films. Then the list of the movies including top five favorites was sent to the movie night's organizing com-mittee for approval. After the long negotiations and continuous talks the consensus was ultimately reached resulting in three films - 22 Jump Street, Chef and Gone Girl.
Table 2: Movie performance selection criteria
Criteria/Movie 22 Jump Street Chef Gone Girl
Financial success
box-office: $331
million box-office: $45 million box-office: $368 million budget: $50 million budget: $15 million budget: $61 million
Film rating
IMDb: 7.2 IMDb: 7.3 IMDb: 8.2
RottenTomato: 8.4 RottenTomato: 8.6 RottenTomato: 8.6 Metacritic: 7.1 Metacritic: 6.8 Metacritic: 7.9
Average: 7.6 Average: 7.6 Average: 8.2 Target audience global domestic initially with global expansion later global
Source: own
From the authors’ point of view, the placements portrayed in these three movies were tastefully done in accordance with the definition that was presented earlier in the paper. Most importantly, the films chosen included a minimum of ten different brands within different product categories and inclusion modality (See Table 3). It was further assumed that diversity of brands and the way they are embedded would result in a positive brand recognition. In addition, all three movies were of three different genres, namely
com-Technical limitations. By technical limitations the authors mean practical problems hin-dering or limiting our selection pool in any way. The first and the most important one is that the films had had to be released on DVD in order for it to be shown at the event. Recency was another important issue considered when opting a particular movie to the ones already available on DVD. Therefore, all three movies were released on DVD in 2014. Other problems encountered in the movie selection process are discussed in the limitations section as they were of secondary importance to the process itself.
3.6
Data analysis and manipulation
After collecting both quantitative and qualitative data, the process of data analysis and manipulation took place. The further sections explain in detail how each part of the infor-mation gathered was approached.
3.6.1 Questionnaire
As soon as the last questionnaire was filled in, the results were manually entered into a computer using Excel spreadsheet. The reason for choosing manual entry of data was that the number of handouts was not substantial. Moreover, as the questionnaire included two open-ended questions, it would be problematic for survey software to scan and recognize the responses for these two questions. Once the results were entered, they were further sorted out, coded and categorized. Then a thorough analysis of the results took place using both Excel spreadsheet and SPSS, a software used for statistical analysis.
Prior to the data analysis, all brands spotted on the screen within three movies were cate-gorized in compliance with two variables, namely prominence and plot connection. Ac-cording to Lehu and Bressoud (2009), the placement is regarded as prominent if it is obvious, covers a fair share of the screen and is present for at least a few seconds in the shot, whereas plot connection is defined as being related to the action and/or in contact with the main character.
This manipulation allows the authors to sort out all brands seen in the movies chosen into a four-square matrix with plot connection being on the vertical axis and prominence on the horizontal axis (See Table 3). Although this procedure is not straightforward and de-fined, it requires on the author’s behalf to argue how an individual product was portrayed according to two dimensions. This table is crucial in analyzing the answers relating to brand recognition gathered from the questionnaire. Hence, the brands that had been spot-ted by participants in the movies were to be analyzed in accordance with a four-square matrix. Initially, the authors made an assumption that there is a clear difference in brand recognition of products placed in different quadrants, especially those being portrayed prominently and connected to the plot.
Table 3: Product placement categories
Dimensions Prominent Non-prominent
Plot-connected Chef: Twitter Chef: YouTube, Vine, Facebook 22 Jump Street: Lamborghini 22 Jump Street: Facebook
Non-connected
Chef: Adidas, Lacoste, Apple
(iPhone, iPad, iMac) Chef: Don Julio, Fox, Mercedes 22 Jump Street: Sony 22 Jump Street: Nike, Under Armour, Doritos, Coca Cola, Obey, Adidas, Red
Bull
Gone Girl: Volvo, Sony Bravia, Netflix
Gone Girl: Hasbro, NBC News, OxyCon-tin, Apple Macbook, Tessere, Nokia Lu-mia, New balance, Extra, Mountain Dew, Savoir, BlackBerry, Google, Coca Cola, Leffe, Walmart, KFC, Dreyer's, Kit-Kat, Fox News, Apple iPad, Facebook
Source: own
3.6.2 Focus group
As soon as two focus group sessions had taken place, the first step was to transcribe the recorded tapes. Once this process was finalized, the notes taken by the authors during the actual discussions were compared and aggregated in a single file.
The analysis was done in the following way. First, the results received from both focus group sessions were grouped into general and individual clip discussions.
In addition, the handouts with printed questions and corresponding answers were entered into a spreadsheet format in order to compare responses with individual as well as group opinions. The use of handouts were meant to serve two purposes. The first one was to control whether individuals’ responses from the papers are in consistency with whatever participants actually said during discussions of each movie clip. As focus group discus-sions might sometimes get chaotic and uncontrollable, and not every participant can get a chance to speak up every time (Puchta & Potter, 2004). Therefore, the second reason for using handouts was to ensure that every participant gives response to every single clip at least in a written form.
3.7
Credibility of the collected data
In order to ensure the credibility of both quantitative and qualitative data gathered a num-ber of measures were taken into account prior to the actual data collection. As for the literature, the academic journals that were used in the theory section were labelled as peer-reviewed.
The questionnaire was designed in a way that respondents would not find it complicated or ambiguous to understand the questions (Tymms, 2012). The language of the question-naire was English, this choice can be justified by two reasons. First, the international audience for whom it was intended would be able to understand the content, regardless of level of English proficiency and the respondents’ respective faculties. Second, collect-ing the data in the language consisted with the language the thesis is written excludes the need of translation which would lead to “language bias” (Torgerson, Hall & Light, 2012, p.225).
When it comes to the focus group discussions, the selection of participants was done by means of sending an invitation to people via voluntarily provided emails during the movie night, where quantitative data collection took place. In order to ensure that no valuable comments were omitted the sessions were recorded, and once the empirical findings were written down the tape was erased. In addition, the focus group discussions were conducted in English for the above mentioned reasons.
