Product placement is something that’s had a bad rap in many ways, partly because we all see massive big-name brands placing products on big screens in the middle of built-up inner city areas on billboards and anywhere where there’s a high volume of traffic way too much! But product placement is something that smaller businesses need to leverage in their own ways. Product placement for a small business can boost revenue and when it comes to getting greater coverage for your business, product placement is one of the greatest tools we can utilize. It may be impossible to get your name in lights on a massive billboard, so let’s show you some other methods to get greater coverage.
Inside Local Venues
The most important thing to remember about product placement is that it’s not just about getting on large billboards, but it’s about making sure that you can gain those subtle entryways into the subconscious of your target market. There are so many local venues, whether it’s a bar or a reception area, that can be utilized to great effect here. A company like WeWork showcases advertising screens that can fit in offices, reception areas, and elevators. When you are advertising in WeWork, you can showcase your brand in a more subtle way when you compare it to massive billboards or opt for mass communication.
Smaller Branding Opportunities
Knowing ways to display products on smaller screens can provide a very subtle message to your target market. You can also start to think about how you position your brand in the larger world. It is far more effective to maintain a constant presence in someone’s life, rather than boring them with one large image. Billboards have their place in the world because they showcase a brand to a great volume of people all at once, but smaller businesses can benefit from providing that constant message to their target market, which is where something like car decals can make a subtle but substantial impact.
Local businesses that spend time showcasing their brand on a local level work more effectively to cut through the noise, primarily because a logo in a residential neighborhood is a very rare sighting! Compare this to promoting your business with large billboards, a large billboard will always be in direct competition with another large billboard. Digital billboards in big built-up cities constantly show product after product, and because there’s a greater degree of bombardment, the consumer switches off. This is why you’ve got to tackle this problem by providing that curveball moment. Car decals, and even promoting your business with a striking image on the side of your van are all little ways to stick in somebody’s mind.
Media Coverage
Media coverage covers a number of different channels with three different overarching methods.
- Earned media, which would be organic exposure like social media posts or positive reviews.
- Owned media is the type of content you produce yourself, such as your blog on your website.
- Paid media would include product placements, as well as sponsorships.
When we opt for the latter, we need to choose the right method. When paying for TV advertising, you’ve got to determine if you can put a budgeting place to fulfill your vision. TV airtime can be very expensive, most notably in high-peak TV events like the Super Bowl, but what we can do is go down the lower end of the spectrum and opt for local TV channels.
While there are benefits, you have to ascertain if it is worth your while, so you may want to go for print or radio. A radio advert is easy to make and it can reach a large audience without expensive TV advertising. Print media can provide coverage for your product placement because people tend to go online and are still very significant in niche markets.
If your product is catering to a very select group, this might be a very useful avenue. There have been great print advertising campaigns in recent years that you can get inspiration from, for example, Coldplay advertising in local newspapers in their native UK. We can argue that a group of such high stature is naturally going to stand out by advertising in such a simple way, but we can bet the marketing team kicked back against this every step of the way!
Offering Seasonal Hooks
If you want to gain greater exposure, you may want to look at peak product placement periods such as Thanksgiving or Christmas. You can argue that there will be a greater level of competition but if you want to gain greater exposure in the media you can look at the times when your product sells better and work towards the nearest holiday. This is especially important when it comes to promoting through the media.
Becoming Entwined With a Story
The most obvious example in recent memory is the pizza brand that managed to position itself as the company that brought Andrew Tate to justice! If you can intertwine yourself with a story, it is going to elicit a human response. When you look at ways to position your project, there are resources that can help you here such as HARO. When you work with journalists you need to ensure that you provide great imagery, have an abundance of samples to offer, but also be prepared for an influx of consumer interest. Making sure that your products are in stock is a very simple thing, but if you are going to work through local media, this is vital.
Getting greater coverage for your product is about that ongoing effort. You can create great SEO content and make sure that your advertising campaigns are percolating online but it’s also about remembering that you can get widespread coverage in the real world. We greatly underestimate the real world as being a place where we can showcase our products to customers. When you start to think beyond what you can achieve online, you may learn a thing or two. Exposure is exposure, no matter what platform it is on.