Man oh man, the entertainment press is on a roll lately.

Let me first begin by linking to Ghent's blog that spotlights a recent syndicated gem about the original Star Wars season sets on DVD .


So, today's Excellence in Journalism comes courtesy of the Vancouver Sun...

I won't post the entire article... but I will post up until the point where you slap your forehead and wonder how this stuff happens. And, I've highlighted the pertinent part in bold for you...

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http://www.canada.com/vancouver/vancouversun/columnists/story.html?id=f72b02ec-a9eb-4ed3-9d66-4ce64e16f82f

The product is the message
Shelley Fralic
Vancouver Sun


Friday, November 18, 2005

Nestled among all the breathless two-hour specials and cross-over casting that filled our screens during November sweeps was this interesting moment, featured on the much-promoted Nov. 6 episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent.

The case, led by the detectives played by Chris Noth and Vincent D'Onofrio, involved a bad judge and his son and, like most episodes of L&O, was a study in terrific acting and riveting story line.

So riveting, in fact, it was easy to miss the real star of the show, that being a can of Coca-Cola, which was summarily drained by a punk suspect in the interrogation room before being carted away, gingerly so as to preserve its DNA possibilities, by Det. Bobby Goren.

Now that, my friends, is product placement, for that wasn't just a can of Coke as prop, but a can of Coke as cast member.

Nothing new about product placement on television, of course -- this is the medium that brought us Wonderful World of Disney and the Hallmark Hall of Fame, along with a Dodge Charger in Dukes of Hazzard, a Pontiac Trans Am in Knight Rider, and a Ferrari in Magnum PI, which was nearly as handsome as Tom Selleck.

But not since E.T.: The Extraterrestrial so endearingly followed a trail of Reese's Pieces have we been this masterfully manipulated by Madison Avenue, as marketers increasingly turn to television to blur the lines between advertisement and content.

You might be old enough to remember that retail products on primetime had a proper place -- they were either overtly promoted in a bona fide commercial or disguised on a set. If a bottle of whisky showed upon Bonanza, for instance, you can bet the label was facing away from the camera so as not to identify the brand.

Even the soaps for which the soap opera is named knew their place: a 30-second hard sell between cliff-hanging scenes.

And then along came E.T., setting a new standard for product placement.

In a deal with George Lucas, the Hershey company provided its Reese's Pieces for free, and then spent $1 million on commercial advertising to simultaneously promote the movie and the candy. (The only loser in that scenario? M&Ms, which turned down Lucas's offer to be part of the 1982 classic.)