Product Placement in Television: An Examination of the Impact on Brand Personality Author Love, Anita Brody Published 2011 Thesis Type Thesis (PhD Doctorate) School Griffith Business School DOI https://doi.org/10.25904/1912/3415 Copyright Statement The author owns the copyright in this thesis, unless stated otherwise. Downloaded from http://hdl.handle.net/10072/367013 Griffith Research Online https://research-repository.griffith.edu.au Griffith Business School Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Anita Brody Love March 2010 Product Placement in Television: An Examination of the Impact on Brand Personality. Anita Brody Love Bachelor of Commerce (Hons) Department of Marketing Griffith Business School Griffith University Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy March 2010 SYNOPSIS 21st century consumers are faced with the ubiquitous presence of marketing communications for innumerable products and brands across an expanding network of media platforms. This, coupled with the increasing homogeneity of product offerings in today’s marketplace, has lead marketers to differentiate their brands through brand image and personality characteristics, with the aim of developing emotional connections between consumers and their brands, and personalising the consumption experience. Meanwhile broadcast television advertising faces a revolution: where once an ad could be placed in a prime time program with an assured reach to a captive mass market audience, this is no longer the case. Digital broadcast and internet technologies have revolutionised the consumption of television programs, fragmenting television audiences and transferring control over the time and place of program viewing to the consumer. Television advertisers are faced with problems and opportunities posed by these technological advances, both in terms of advertising reach and exposure, as these technologies allow viewers to determine the advertising messages to which they will be exposed. As a consequence, marketers are increasingly looking towards product placement as a means of cutting through advertising clutter and averting the problems of advertising avoidance, by embedding brand communications within program content. In particular, product placement in television establishes a brand presence alongside characters with which an involved consumer (or fan) may hold a strong emotional attachment. This form of marketing communication has the potential to allow marketers to develop brand associations facilitated by the pseudo-endorsement of the characters alongside whom their brands are placed. With this in mind, this thesis aimed to address the central research question: Does the placement of a brand in a television program impact on consumer perceptions of the personality of the brand placed? i To address this question, the research firstly involved the reduction and revision of the Brand Personality scale (Aaker, 1997), to ensure the applicability of the scale in an Australian context. The major study utilised a Solomon Four Group methodological experimental design, administered through self-administered surveys and incorporating a written script except as the treatment prompt. The key finding from this research is that exposure to a single instance of a ‘used by character’ product placement facilitates changes in consumer perceptions of the personality of a brand at the trait level. This finding makes an important contribution to the academic literature by providing evidence of the potential for product placement to create brand associations that impact on consumer perceptions of a brand’s personality. These findings provide implications for further research on the complex nature of brand associations facilitated by product placement, and provides an important consideration to practitioners when examining the effectiveness of product placement. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS SYNOPSIS..................................................................................................................... i TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................ iii LIST OF TABLES .................................................................................................... viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .........................................................................................xi STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY ............................................................................xii CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ...................................................................... 1 CHAPTER OVERVIEW.............................................................................................. 1 1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE RESEARCH.......................................................... 2 1.2 RESEARCH PROBLEM AND HYPOTHESES.............................................. 6 1.3 JUSTIFICATION FOR THE RESEARCH...................................................... 9 1.3.1 Importance of Product Placement in Television................................... 9 1.3.2 The Research Contribution to Date..................................................... 11 1.3.3 Usefulness of the Application of the Research Findings..................... 13 1.4 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY.................................................................... 14 1.5 DEFINITIONS................................................................................................ 14 1.6 LIMITATIONS AND SCOPE OF THE RESEARCH................................... 15 1.7 SUMMARY AND OUTLINE OF THE DISSERTATION............................ 16 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW ....................................................... 18 CHAPTER OVERVIEW............................................................................................ 18 2.1 INTRODUCTION........................................................................................... 19 2.2 PRODUCT PLACEMENT..............................................................................19 2.2.1 Product Placement in Television......................................................... 22 2.2.2 Importance of Product Placement in Television to Marketers............ 24 2.2.3 Perspectives of Film and Television Producers.................................. 26 2.2.4 Consumer Perspectives on Product Placement................................... 28 2.2.5 Types.....................................................................................................31 iii 2.2.6 Recall and Recognition of Product Placement.................................... 34 2.2.7 Brand Effects....................................................................................... 36 2.3 BRAND PERSONALITY............................................................................... 41 2.3.1 Development of the Brand Personality Construct............................... 44 2.3.2 Influence of Product Placement on Brand Personality....................... 48 2.4 INVOLVEMENT............................................................................................ 52 2.4.1 Product Category Involvement............................................................ 53 2.4.2 Enduring Involvement..........................................................................54 2.4.3 Involvement with the Television Program.......................................... 56 2.5 PERCEIVED SIMILARITY BETWEEN THE VIEWER AND THE CHARACTER.............................................................................. 64 2.6 PURCHASE INTENTION............................................................................. 67 2.7 SUMMARY.................................................................................................... 68 2.7.1 Summary of Hypotheses...................................................................... 69 CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY........... ................................................... 76 CHAPTER OVERVIEW............................................................................................ 76 3.1 INTRODUCTION........................................................................................... 77 3.2 BRAND PERSONALITY SCALE REVISION AND REDUCTION.................................................................................................. 77 3.1.1 Justification for Revision of the Brand Personality Scale................... 78 2.1.2 Survey Administration and Method of Analysis for Brand Personality Scale Revision and Reduction.......................................... 80 3.3 FINAL STUDY RESEARCH DESIGN......................................................... 81 3.4 SAMPLING METHOD AND RECRUITMENT........................................... 83 3.5 SURVEY ADMINISTRATION AND PARTICIPATION INCENTIVE...... 85 3.6 INSTRUMENT............................................................................................... 87 3.6.1 Brand Personality................................................................................ 87 3.6.2 Prior Purchase and Use...................................................................... 88 3.6.3 Enduring Involvement......................................................................... 88 3.6.4 Television Program Involvement........................................................ 90 3.6.5 Television Program Connectedness................................................... 90 iv 3.6.6 Endorser Similarity............................................................................. 91 3.6.7 Purchase Intention.............................................................................