AdWeek: Watchdog Assails Product Placement

Advertisers and networks are beginning to comment on the anti-commercialization group Commercial Alert's proposal that television programs and other media disclose when a product placement appears.

The group's past successful efforts to reduce paid placement clutter have concentrated on the allegedly deceptive practices, such as the mixing paid online search listings with what are represented to be the most relevant search listings. But this new effort extends even to placements in fictional programming.

Perhaps Commercial Alert has finally over-extended its argument. While it might be appropriate to disclose sponsor-introduced product placements in a nonfiction show (inserting, for instance, a Budweiser can in the hand of a political candidate in a news show post production process), doing the same for a political sitcom is merely an act of a cheapened imagination.