Land Rover Publish William Boyd Advert

Today we read that Land Rover has become a digital publisher and the obvious question is, why? The answer is that it can ensure that their product is in the reader’s eyes and is aligned with the work, or to put it another way it cheap advertising.

Laptop manufactures love to see the backs of their devices in a film or on TV with their logo sometimes glowing for all to see. Sometimes product placement can be more subtle and may just be a packet of a brand of Corn Fakes sitting perfectly positioned on a shelf and in shot. We wrote many years ago about 'Cathy’s Book' which was altered to remove a specific lipstick and colour and changed to promote Proctor and Gamble’s ‘Cover Girl’ range. Years earlier Fay Weldon was paid by Bulgari to write  Bulgari into ‘The Bulgari Collection.’ Product placement is a real way to get your product infront of an audience in a subliminal way.

So when is naming a specific product in a book now innocent and when does it involve money and is product placement?

Land Rover have taken it a stage further with William Boyd’s “The Vanishing Game,” with key words that can launch video of Land Rover vehicles in action. Having been in a Land Rover on a constructed track and being driven up and down 45% rises with horizontal as well as vertical slopes the cars are amazing. Now by clicking on words such as ‘river,’ or ‘mountain,’ the reader will see footage of the car crossing a rugged waterway or traversing a mountain slope. Readers’ comments on their driving experience are also embedded.

All Boyd had to do to get the money was to write one of their vehicles into the storyline. Land Rover believe that by respecting the artist’s freedom this is more of a commission, than product placement or sponsorship. Well forget the reader, who pays for it and their views, it’s all obviously alright then!

So as author advances continue to be under pressure and net receipts continue to bite, will authors and their agents start to redefine some rights and will we see advertising, product placement rights being withheld? Will publishers now be knocking on the doors of every FMCG company offering lucrative deals to get their products placed in bestsellers or even to get the marketing expense fully covered? Will other car manufactures follow and will Jeremy Clarkson’s next book be published by Porche, or Bill Bryson’s next journey be by Tripadvisor, or Bob the builder be by JCB, or the Good Cook Book be by MacDonalds?   

Related Articles:

Brave New World October 2008 ; Product Placement or Product Search?

Original article from Digiday : 

Land Rover commissions novelist William Boyd’s latest

Product Placement or Product Search?

We have all seen the subtle but sometimes obvious product placements on TV and in films. These can earn significant exposure for a brand and literally touch millions. Car manufacturers have been know to fight hard and pay big to get their latest model on screen and it always interesting what brands you can spot on the soaps. It’s in your face but outside of the commercial break.

We now read an old story that was released in 2006 but got visibility today and prompted us to revisit it. It refers to a book ‘Cathy’s Book’ by Stewart and Weisman and which was first released in the US in 2006 by Running Press and published in the UK last year by Bloomsbury.

Product placement has come to books and the original article refers to the changing of a reference to specific lipstick and shade in the manuscript to a generic brand from Proctor and Gamble in the finished book. The manufacturers haven’t paid cash for the placement but are instead are promoting the novel on their Beinggirl.com, a site dedicated to young girls make up, and tips on life, and through their cosmetic brand Cover Girl. Go to the site and see and hear a funky piece of marketing http://www.beinggirl.com/en_US/funzone_watchthis_cathys.jsp?ContentId=GTWT_cathy&page=2&

Unfortunately the Bloomsbury site doesn’t have the same buzz and the search inside on the page took us to David Dimbley’s ‘How Britain was Built’ – hardly relevant unless you count lip gloss as foundation!

A novel will obviously make references to all sorts of common goods but do so to add relevance and gain empathy with what they are trying to describe. In reality the opportunity is very real but unless the book is a bestseller the eyeballs could be limited and not the sort of speculative investment advertisers like.

There are exceptions and apparently Bulgari went one step further and commissioned Fay Weldon five years ago to write ‘The Bulgari Connection.’ Not bad work if you can get it!

Irrespective of the success of individual titles to secure ad placement funding or support it looks an exercise doomed to be undermined by technology. Why should manufacturers pay anything to a publisher or author when they can potentially search their product on a book search and then place their ads accordingly. It may not happen that way but as content becomes searchable on line so does the opportunities to exploit it in ways that were never possible before. Go to Google search on Books and type in ‘Nescafe’, ‘Perrier Water’, ‘Walkman’, etc and you soon get past the brand marketing books to novels that refer to the brands. Unfortunately sometimes the reference isn’t always what you expect! But interesting how content search and advertising aren’t far apart.