Product Placement or People Manipulation?

Analyzing popular culture can lead us to very interesting sociological discoveries.

What do these images all have in common? Other than they are stills from the CW’s hit television remake of 90210. Notice the sunglasses. Take a closer look.

All four of these sunglasses are Ray-Bans, and all were featured on the second season premiere of 90210. The first ten minutes of the show seemed like an advertisement for the brand, and it was very hard NOT to no

tice the glasses.

This is called product placement, where the brands pay the films or television shows to promote their products.

Here is another example of product placement found in an episode of ABC’s Castle.

90210 and Castle are not the only ones guilty of this trait, product placement is found everywhere. Here are a few more examples taken from the brochures that accompany DVDs.

The Vampire Diaries is shown promoting the iPhone

The Big Bang Theory is shown promoting Dell laptops

David Grazian, talks about the hegemonic power of popular culture as a means of social control in his book “Mix It Up”. Seeing all these Ray-Bans would subconsciously make people think that they should go to the store and purchase one. The hegemonic power is so subtle, that people would not normally admit to being affected

by it. Grazian says that this is because it works at a level of common sense. One example is the idea that products are “So Last Season”. Products have a limited shelf life, and companies do this on purpose to ensure that their costumers will return to purchase the “New and improved version”- which is new, but it isn’t necessarily improved. This method is called planned obsolescence.

The media uses its hegemonic power to increase its country’s economic power. In this example, we are talking specifically about the United States. By allowing companies to advertise, it’s like hitting two birds with one stone. The media company is getting money and as an added bonus, the country’s economy is increasing in wealth because people are subconsciously told to purchase new products that they do not even need.

For example, it is as if the media programs us to think that “shopping completes us” and that brands matter, when in fact ... they don’t. This is seen a lot in television shows and

Is this a celebrity endorsed culture of sheep? Or is it the fault of those who flock around their idols?

One thing is for certain, the viewers will not admit to being manipulated and the media

corporations will not admit to their manipulation over the public.