A few days ago Netflix confirmed a new subscription plan called “Basic Plan with Ads”, which will arrive in Spain on November 10 at 5:00 p.m. It seems that it is not the only one among the greats of streaming, who advocate trying to increase advertising revenues beyond the fixed fees for the service that their clients pay.
If you thought that these plans with ads could end up being imposed, even if they do not serve to substantially reduce the subscription fee, the future of advertising on streaming platforms is worrying.
The virtual product placement arrives
Product placement , better known by its English term product placement, has been a constant in the history of cinema and series for years. The fact that a brand was explicitly shown during a shoot did not meet the tastes of the protagonists of said production, but rather a commercial agreement with an advertiser so that their products would appear and the spectators would have that impact.
Until now, the decision to advertise certain products in a movie or TV show had to be made during filming. New technologies allow advertisers to decide on placements after production .
Now, it will not even be necessary to record a product X for it to appear in the final production, but rather a new form of completely digital product placement has arrived in which the brand or product is added in post-production and, with the versatility offered streaming platforms may even change over time.
Amazon is already using this virtual product placement in some of its productions, including Bosch: Legacy, Bosch, Reacher, Leverage: Redemption and Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, both on the Prime Video service and on the free streaming platform Freevee.
How will this type of advertising work?
Amazon shows several ways in which virtual product placement (VPP) can be used. On the one hand, there is the possibility of including advertising in the form of billboards or posters. However, there is also the possibility of integrating products three-dimensionally in a given scene .
Colleen Aubrey , SVP of Advertising Products and Technology at Amazon, explained this implementation: “By working with content creators and using machine learning, we can insert products and brand finds into a TV series or movie. Billboards, signs, and screens in any chosen show can now have specific messages on the streamer. Amazon will now be able to integrate different products into episodes at different times and scenes.”
Peacock also announced its own digitally embedded advertising strategy with new In-Scene Ads , which are “designed to strengthen business opportunities with marketing partners by seamlessly blending products and/or messaging with content during post-production to insert ads during scenes that are considered relevant to customers”.
John Jelley, Senior Vice President of Product and UX at Peacock, said, “Most of Peacock’s clients are choosing our ad experience and we remain focused on collaborating with our brand partners to develop innovative and personalized ad experiences that continue to improve Customer experience”.