Earlier this year Ofcom, UK's communications industries regulator allowed product placement in films, TV series, entertainment shows and sports programmes. This decision could've come earlier, but neveretheless a couple of weeks ago we saw the first product placement of a car in music videos. It was Citroen DS3 in Pixie Lott's new music video Broken Arrow.
Pixie is a 19-year old English pop star, who had 2 number one hits last year in the UK Singles Chart: her debut single “Mama Do (Uh Oh, Uh Oh)” and the follow-up single “Boys and Girls”. At the moment she’s kind of ‘one hit wonder’, although her debut album Turn It Up will be re-released on 18th October with 10 new tracks.
Citroen DS3 is the first car in the new DS (Different Spirit) range from Citroen. It’s a member of the supermini car segment with Mini, Alfa Romeo’s Mito and Audi A1 as the main competitors. Citroen DS3 went on sale in the beginning of 2010.
Pixie Lott’s video for Broken Arrow is about lost love. She starts remembering her ex-boyfriend and all those magic moments when they were together. One of those moments includes shiny red Citroen DS3.
Here’s the video:
Why do I expect more from Citroen? Ok, this was the first product placement of a car in the UK and it’s hard to nail it in the first attempt. But Citroen’s car is only invisible in couple of very quick shots. We could argue that Lady Gaga’s placements are over-the-top and some of her videos belong in the ‘michele thorne smoking a cigarette
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It’s generally believed that in the future product placement will finance the majority of music video production costs. But if I were in the position to decide about such a deal (for example at Citroen), I would demand more screen time or more prominent role of the brand in the script.
Here’s the official statement from Citroen. “Pixie Lott is one of the most talented and successful young performers of our time,” said Marc Raven, Citroen Communications Director. “We're thrilled DS3 was chosen to appear in her new video – a happening vehicle for an up and coming artist.”
Ok, I agree that Pixie is young performer and that she’s a member of DS3’s main target audience, but seriously … why bother with product placement if your product is visible for only a second or two. It’s super hard to generate buzz or some publicity with such a limited on-screen time.
So I expect from Citroen to use product placement again and again, but they can:
- make such a deal that their car would be much more visible or/and
- make many more deals in order to be present in several major music videos (see Carrera is on a product placement mission).
