“Listening to Maybach in My Maybach”: Evolution of Product Mention in Music Across the Millennium's First Decade

A content analysis of 2004 and 2010 song lyrics from popular music genres was conducted to identify the extent of product mention in music as well as the nature of the mentions. Overall, product mention in music increased from 2004 to 2010. Likewise, incidence of product mention was most prevalent in rap across both time periods. Additionally, vehicles and fashion top the references with luxury brands dominating rap. Country mentions consistently centered around nonluxury brands.     

Hegemonic Masculinity in Hip-Hop Music? Difference in Brand Mention in Rap Music Based on the Rapper's Gender

Content analysis of the top 50 hip hop songs from Billboard's Year-End Charts from 2008 to 2011, for a total analysis of 200 songs, was conducted for this study. Using Hegemonic Masculinity to guide our theoretical perspective, songs were coded for multiple items including gender of rapper(s), number of brand mentions and kinds of products mentioned. Results revealed that there are significant differences in the number of products and brands mentioned based on the gender of the artists, especially important when paired with the finding that women are significantly underrepresented in hip hop music. Songs performed by male artists had a significantly higher number of brands mentioned than did songs by female singers. Researchers also found differences in the types of products mentioned in hip hop music based on the gender of singers. Male singers mentioned brands and products in the categories of vehicles, alcohol, fashion, and entertainment categories while female artists mentioned more brands and products in the travel and entertainment categories.     

Virtual Product Placement as a New Approach to Measure Effectiveness of Placements

Product placement is a fast growing multi-billion dollar industry, yet measures of its effectiveness, which influence the critical area of pricing, have been problematic. Past attempts to measure the effect of a placement and, therefore, provide a basis for pricing of placements, have been confounded by the effect on consumers of multiple prior exposures of a brand name in all marketing communications. Virtual product placement offers certain advantages: as a tool to measure the effectiveness of product placements; as assistance with the problem in the lack of audience selectivity in traditional product placement; as a testing of different audiences for brands; and in addressing a gap in the existing academic literature by focusing on the impact of product placement on recall and recognition of new brands.     

Product Placement in Top-Grossing Hollywood Movies: 2001–2012

ABSTRACT

The study examines the nature and characteristics of product placement in U.S. top-grossing movies from a historical approach. Several important findings and trends are identified from the results. First, product placements are found to be prolific in U.S. top-grossing movies. Second, the product categories of automobile, electronic equipment, and media and entertainment enjoy the highest exposure in movies. Third, over years, the embedded brands appear more and more bold and salient in movies. Finally, variations are found among product placements in different types of movies and product categories.     

Brand Placement Recognition

Abstract

This study examines the impact of adding an audible reference to a visually prominent brand placement on recognition of the brand placed. Facilitated recognition scores were used to control for the effects of brand familiarity on brand placement recognition. Subjects exposed to one of two complete movies were asked to indicate recognition of brands that were or were not placed in their movie. Results indicate that brand placement recognition levels achieved by audio-visual prominent placements exceed the recognition rates achieved by visual-only prominent placements. Additionally, familiar brands achieve higher levels of recognition than unfamiliar brands, even when the recognition scores for familiar brands are adjusted for the guessing and constructive recognition that may result from inferences associated with familiar brands.     

Celebrity endorsement: How celebrity–brand–user personality congruence affects brand attitude and purchase intention

The present study provides and tests a conceptual framework aimed at comparing the relative effectiveness of celebrity–user, brand–celebrity, and user–brand personality congruence on brand attitude and brand purchase intention (BPI) thereafter. The data collection was done via an online survey of a representative group of consumers (n = 431) located across India. Hypotheses were tested using regression analysis with mediation approach. The results indicate that while user–brand and brand–celebrity personality congruence have a significant impact on brand attitude and purchase intention, celebrity–user congruence does not. Further, brand attitude is found to be a partial mediator on the relationship between the pair-wise personality congruence on BPI. The findings have major implications for marketers in understanding the significance of personality congruence among celebrity–brand–user in the formation of brand attitude and purchase intention that can be used in positioning and in increasing the advertising effectiveness of brands using celebrity endorsement. The present study is a pioneer in contributing to the celebrity endorsement literature by investigating the relative impact of three pairs of personality congruence: celebrity–brand, brand–user, and celebrity–user, on brand attitude and BPI, thereby supporting the applicability of McCracken's Meaning Transfer Model [McCracken (1989), The Journal of Consumer Research, 16 (3) 310–321) and the Hierarchy-of-effects model (Lavidge and Steiner (1961), Journal of Marketing, 25 (6) 59–62].     

‘Retweet for a Chance to…’: an analysis of what triggers consumers to engage in seeded eWOM on Twitter

Twitter provides an important channel for brands to seed electronic word of mouth (eWOM) by followers retweeting brand messages, but prior research has not established a theoretical framework for how brands can maximise eWOM. This study presents and tests a theoretical model incorporating interactive, textual and visual tweet features to predict eWOM, using tweets by leading brands from three industries. Industry was found to be an important moderator of the effect of tweet features; after controlling for the reach and frequency of tweets, hashtags, retweet requests and photos were consistently associated with a higher retweet rate across industries, but the effect of URL links, non-initial mentions and video varied across industries, in some cases decreasing the retweet rate. Implications for research and practice are discussed.