Cut The Commercials!

Picture this: You're watching the season finale of your favorite show and it's time for the big reveal. You're at the edge of your seat when suddenly... cut to commercials. Is there anything more annoying than that? I say, stop cutting to commercials and just cut the commercials!


Aren't commercials important?

Yes, commercials are important to keep shows alive as they are an important source of funding. But with more and more people using ad blockers and streaming services, commercials are just not as reliable as they once were. The alternative? Product placement.

How not to do a product placement

As much as product placements don't interrupt a show, they can certainly be distracting. For example, in The Amazing Spiderman, Peter Parker uses Bing as a search engine. The product placement felt forced and unrelatable to most of the audience. In the sequel, Peter Parker uses Google, which connected a lot better with the audience.


How to do a product placement

Having produced many shows and movies, Seth MacFarlane has become a habituate at product placement. One great example of this is in Family Guy, season 19, episode 06, Meg's Wedding. In the episode, Peter Griffin breaks into his friend Joe's kitchen to steal his box of Cheez-It. Joe appears in the room and tells Peter that his wife hid the snack as a game of food hide-and-seek. The scene ends with Joe leaving in his wheelchair and we see that the box was taped to his wheelchair all along. 




The beauty of this product placement is that the humor used in the scene is the same type of dark humor the show is known for. The bit feels more like a cut-away gag than an ad. Cheez-It is also already established as a popular snack with the demographic of Family Guy viewers. Personally, when watching this episode, I just felt hungry for a cheesy snack. I did not feel distracted by the brand's appearance.

As mentioned above, Family Guy is a show containing dark and controversial humor. Most brands steer clear of shows that touch such topics. So when a brand decides to associate itself with controversial shows, it gives the company a more relaxed, edgy image.

I guess the final question is: Do you prefer a snack that interrupts a character, or a snack loved by a character?


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