"Behavior Placement"

[Nightgaunt]

What Your TV Is Telling You to Do

NBC Universal's Shows Are Sending Viewers Signals to Recycle, Exercise and Eat Right. Why?

By AMY CHOZICK

In just one week on NBC, the detectives on "Law and Order" investigated a cash-for-clunkers scam, a nurse on "Mercy" organized a group bike ride, Al Gore made a guest appearance on "30 Rock," and "The Office" turned Dwight Schrute into a cape-wearing superhero obsessed with recycling.

Forget product placement, NBC Universal is trying "behavior placement" with some of its shows. Characters from programs such as "30 Rock" and "The Office" are acting out eco-friendly behaviors that advertisers hope will sway viewers. WSJ's Amy Chozick reports.

Coincidence? Hardly. NBC Universal planted these eco-friendly elements into scripted television shows to influence viewers and help sell ads.

The tactic—General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal calls it "behavior placement"—is designed to sway viewers to adopt actions they see modeled in their favorite shows. And it helps sell ads to marketers who want to associate their brands with a feel-good, socially aware show.

Unlike with product placement, which can seem jarring to savvy viewers, the goal is that viewers won't really notice that Tina Fey is tossing a plastic bottle into the recycle bin, or that a minor character on "Law and Order: SVU" has switched to energy-saving light bulbs. "People don't want to be hit over the head with it," says NBC Universal Chief Executive Jeff Zucker. "Putting it in programing is what makes it resonate with viewers."

TV has always had the ability to get millions of people to mimic a beloved character. Ever since Carrie Bradshaw on "Sex and the City" stopped in at the Magnolia Bakery, fans of the show wait in long lines for the once-quiet shop's $2.75 cupcakes. When Jennifer Aniston as Rachel on "Friends" cut her hair, salons across the country reported requests for the shaggy, highlighted, layered look known as "the Rachel."

This is the power of persuasion that NBCU hopes to tap. "Subtle messaging woven into shows mainstreams it, and mainstreaming is an effective way to get a message across," says Lauren Zalaznick, president of NBCU Women & Lifestyle Entertainment Networks, which oversees the effort.

Since fall 2007, network executives have been asking producers of almost every prime-time and daytime show to incorporate a green storyline at least once a year. The effort now takes place for a week in April and November. Starting April 19 this year, 40 NBC Universal outlets will feature some 100 hours of green-themed programming, including an episode of the Bravo reality series "Millionaire Matchmaker" in which a 39-year-old tycoon with an eco-friendly clothing line goes into a rage after his blind date orders red meat.

Read the full article

Most people who know me well know why I can't stand watching television. "Law & Order" is a perfect example. Every week, the cops on this show blatantly violate people's rights, but by the end of the show, it's no problem because, well, they were bad guys and the end justifies the means. Ever since police tasering people unnecessarily or to an extreme degree became an issue, we see being tasered portrayed as just wacky hijinks in TV and movies. Constitutionalists are portrayed at best as "conspiracy nuts" and at worst, public enemies. This article talks about warm fuzzy stuff like encouraging people to be healthy and to recycle, but I have to conclude that if this practice is effective in these arenas, it's also being used to promote agendas and social conditioning that maybe isn't so nice.

What do you think? Is it art reflecting society, or government and corporate dollars attempting to sway public opinion?

[TheOsakaKoneko]

Your bold text is almost impossible for me to read T__T

I think encouraging this kind of behavior in a subtle way is a good thing...no different from all the smoking there used to be...I don't think it's a new phenomenon. I think the reason we all have the image that after sex you need a cigarette is from TV and movies...why not have the image that 'duh, of course plastic bottles go in the recycle, where else would they go?'?

The rest of what you say is a good point though, though again I'm not sure it's a new phenomenon.

[Nightgaunt]

That's a great point about how we were sold a bill of goods concerning smoking! Sorry about the bold text...I couldn't get it to "unbold".

[Msterbeau]

Movies and television have always been "art" to some degree or another. Movies probably far more then TV. The vision of the writers and producers often carries a message, so it's nothing new that these mediums are being used to "sell". What's more recent is if this is more subtle way of doing a product placement with the purpose of getting us to spend money on a particular product. Though advertising can be creative and entertaining, I seriously hate the way marketing targets and tries to take advantage of people rather than just informing us of the product's merits. I get that linking emotions to a product is what's necessary to make a sale but it's also manipulative. Don't even get me started on in your face kinds of selling.

[Nightgaunt]

It's the graduation to social conditioning combined with "product placement" that bothers me. If product placement is done well (read "unobtrusively"), I don't have a problem with it if it means that the artist gets more funding for his art. I also don't have a problem with an artist trying to get a message across. That's intrinsic to art in general, with a long and noble history. My problem is when a corporation forgoes trying to sell a product in favor of changing social mores to see a product group as morally or ethically essential.

"You don't buy Ecocorp brand biodegradable garbage bags? Why do you hate the earth??"

"You didn't take a morning after pill? Don't you care about overpopulation?"

It's even scarier when governmental entities can buy their way in. No one has more to gain by shaping people's perceived reality than government.

[candyman]

Meh...we just went from everyone smoking to everyone going on a "health" bender where they will rub, ingest, or pop pills of anything with "good" effects whenever they are told to...MUCH better that a bunch of people smoking. The social norms are changing as usual and sometime in the future we will find out that those norms "sucked" according to certain people so we will bring on some new ones which will follow the same path.

Listen to the placement, do what you want, or take parts from both it really doesn't matter...just stop telling other people what is right and what they should do...

[Darkmatter]

Movies and television have always been "art" to some degree or another. Movies probably far more then TV. The vision of the writers and producers often carries a message, so it's nothing new that these mediums are being used to "sell". What's more recent is if this is more subtle way of doing a product placement with the purpose of getting us to spend money on a particular product. Though advertising can be creative and entertaining, I seriously hate the way marketing targets and tries to take advantage of people rather than just informing us of the product's merits. I get that linking emotions to a product is what's necessary to make a sale but it's also manipulative. Don't even get me started on in your face kinds of selling.

Well in essence one could call advertisment a crude form of hypnotic suggestion. People fall asleep watching Jay Leno or something lame, then before you know it the info-mercials have begun, filling your subconsious with garbage. In my fathers later days , when he lost his mind and became senile i was living with him. I once awoke in the middle of the night to hear him screaming from the living room couch."NO I DON'T WANT ONE!" "LEAVE US ALONE". I rush out of my room to see what the problem was. Long story short my father fell asleep in front of the TV and then the Orek Vacuum cleaner comercial came on, and my father had a nightmare about it. One that turned into delusion after he woke. Apparently the Orek vacuum cleaner guy was rounding up all the senior citizens in town and forcing them to buy these vacuums, or they would hurt their families.

[candyman]

Well in essence one could call advertisment a crude form of hypnotic suggestion. People fall asleep watching Jay Leno or something lame, then before you know it the info-mercials have begun, filling your subconsious with garbage. In my fathers later days , when he lost his mind and became senile i was living with him. I once awoke in the middle of the night to hear him screaming from the living room couch."NO I DON'T WANT ONE!" "LEAVE US ALONE". I rush out of my room to see what the problem was. Long story short my father fell asleep in front of the TV and then the Orek Vacuum cleaner comercial came on, and my father had a nightmare about it. One that turned into delusion after he woke. Apparently the Orek vacuum cleaner guy was rounding up all the senior citizens in town and forcing them to buy these vacuums, or they would hurt their families.

Well, truthfully if you want a clean house those are the vacuums to get...

I keep falling asleep after Star Trek when the info things come on for Extenze or those other male enhancement drugs...wonder whats going to happen to me when I start going nuts...I really don't want to be living in a care home yelling about being chased by oddly shaped, vein covered wieners...

[Nightgaunt]

Television does induce a trance state; you don't even have to fall asleep while watching. I'm sorry to hear about your father's troubles. My grandfather went through the same thing in his later years. He believed that it was 1974 (it was 2000), Jimmy Carter was President and that I was his grandfather. It's a horrible thing to watch and know there's nothing you can do. :(

[Darkmatter]

Television does induce a trance state; you don't even have to fall asleep while watching. I'm sorry to hear about your father's troubles. My grandfather went through the same thing in his later years. He believed that it was 1974 (it was 2000), Jimmy Carter was President and that I was his grandfather. It's a horrible thing to watch and know there's nothing you can do. :(

Thanks dude, but its been over for a couple years now. He passed in August of 2008. However do not feel too bad for that one. I know it is in poor taste to speak ill of the dead, but I was not the only person who knew my father as "evil" or "depraved". He did many many bad things in his time on this earth. Those that belive in karma might say that the universe balanced itself out on that one.

[Msterbeau]

I don't watch TV, so I'm safe. *phew*

Edited April 13, 2010 by Msterbeau

[Darkmatter]

I don't watch TV, so I'm safe. *phew*

Hells yeah. I watch a couple shows that are out there (Caprica ,Legend of the Seeker, Family Guy, South Park, The Simpsons, V 2009, and thats about it atm, but i download them so they are without commercials. Or i watch them on the DVR in which case i still get to by-pass the adverts.

[Msterbeau]

Hells yeah. I watch a couple shows that are out there (Caprica ,Legend of the Seeker, Family Guy, South Park, The Simpsons, V 2009, and thats about it atm, but i download them so they are without commercials. Or i watch them on the DVR in which case i still get to by-pass the adverts.

Um. The whole point of this thread is that the mindfucking is going on in the program itself. :-P

[Darkmatter]

Um. The whole point of this thread is that the mindfucking is going on in the program itself. :-P

True. With the age of DVR/Download upon us TV land has to find a new way to stay in business. I think product placement will get a lot worse as well. But at least cutting the actual comercials out of the mix does minimize the damage to my brain banana.

Edited April 13, 2010 by Darkmatter

[Simon Bar Sinister]

of course it works - look at the rise of backyard wrestling.