For Sale: The Price of Advertising in Books

By Greenleaf Team - Apr 27 , 2007

By Ashley Marion

Is there a place for product placement in books? With advertisers’ ever-increasing fears about the demise of the thirty-second TV spot, product placement has become a more and more popular way of promoting consumer goods, whether we’re aware of it or not. Books have mostly remained an untapped resource for advertisers, but readers are aware of brands in books. And some publishers and marketers are starting to explore the possibilities that can create.

Product placement, in its simplest form, is an advertising tactic in which a real product is placed in the context of a television show, movie, video game, or book as the result of an exchange between an advertiser and a media client. Showing a product in entertainment media can produce results. One of the most famous product placements occurred in E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial. Reese’s Pieces were used in a pivotal scene; sales of the candy increased by 65 percent. Product placement is controversial, however, because often nothing marks the difference between paid advertising and entertainment content.

In movies and television, the trend has been gaining steam for a long time. But in books, the controversy over product placement started just a few years ago. In 2001, author Fay Weldon was paid by Bulgari to mention the famous jeweler twelve times in her novel The Bulgari Connection. Recently, Jordan Weisman and Sean Stewart, authors of Cathy’s Book, included a mention of a specific type of Proctor and Gamble’s Cover Girl lip gloss in the book. In return, P&G advertised Cathy’s Book on its teen website, BeingGirl.com. No monetary exchange, just your basic I’ll-scratch-your-back-if-you-scratch-mine. Simple, right? Wrong. Many object to this case in particular because the book is aimed at a young—and presumably less jaded—audience.

However, adult chick lit thrives on unpaid (we think) homage to designer treads like Prada and Jimmy Choo. If we are already promoting brands and products in adult contemporary fiction, then it’s inevitable that young adult fiction will follow suit. If it does, does it matter if the promotion is paid for?

In a report published by Scholastic, 46 percent of teens ages 15–17 are low-frequency readers. They say the number one reason they don’t read is that they can’t find anything that interests them. Product placement could conceivably help close that gap, if corporate marketers can pique interest in a book through means unavailable to a publisher. And if that can help get teens reading, it’s unlikely many publishers will complain.

For more information about this topic from both sides of the spectrum, check out Commercial Alert and Wikipedia’s article on product placement.