Watchdog Group Files Complaints with Feds Over Product Placements

A watchdog group petitioned Federal authorities Tuesday to look into products and ads embedded in television shows.

The group, Commercial Alert, filed separate complaints with both the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission.

Commercial Alert is asking the FCC and FTC to require prominent disclosure of embedded advertisements including product placement, product integration, plot placement, title placement, paid spokesman and virtual advertising, the Washington, DC-based group said.

“The networks are being totally dishonest by not disclosing when ads are ads,” said Gary Ruskin, executive director of Commercial Alert.

The complaint read in part: “Embedded advertising is the new reality of television, and it is time for the Commission to address it. TV networks and stations regularly send programs into American living rooms that are packed with product placements and other veiled commercial pitches but they pretend that these are just ordinary programming rather than paid ads. This is an affront to basic honesty”.

A spokesperson for the FTC said it had received the complaint, but had not had a chance to review it.

“We’re taking it under consideration,” said spokesperson Brenda Mack.

Commercial Alert is also asking for an investigation of current product placement practices and to issue new guidelines for disclosure of TV product placements, among other things.

Ruskin said federal law requires disclosure of sponsored broadcast materials.

“What it amounts to is disclosure at the outset of a show, and concurrent disclosure when one of the embedded ads comes up,” he said.

The FCC complaint cited a survey of 750 media planners from earlier this year that found 18% had negotiated a product placement over the previous six month, and 26% anticipated working on one during the next six months, according to the complaint.

Over the last four years, televised product placement has increased dramatically.

For example, the NBC soap opera Passions integrated Avon’s new cosmetic line “mark” into at least three episodes this summer and in The Restaurant, NBC’s new reality show, Coors, American Express and Mitsubishi all appeared with product placements.