One of the main characteristics of hugely popular American sitcom The Big Bang Theory are Sheldon Cooper’s T-shirts. In every episode we can see him wearing at least one T-shirt with some interesting prints. You can check some of them here.
In the 16th episode of the fifth season Sheldon wore a blue T-shirt with Reddit’s logo. That wasn’t the first time we could see him promoting the popular website: he was wearing the same T-shirt in the fourth episode (S05E04) too.
To be visible in one of the most watchable TV show can be a great promotion for any brand. But did Reddit pay for its placement?
In December last year Bill Prady, co-creator and executive producer of The Big Bang Theory, disagreed with a story from NielsenWire that listed the show as having three of the top ten “Most Remembered Brand Integrations, Dramas/Sitcoms.” Prady tweeted these comments after stories built on the Nielsen data began hitting the Internet:
“I’m not aware of #bigbangtheory doing any paid product placement. We use real brand names so dialogue doesn’t sound fake.”
To be visible in a popular show without any financial investment is great news. It’s not common and any brand that achieves that kind of exposure should be happy and try to capitalize on that. We’ll see. Perhaps he’ll wear the same T-shirt again :)
