This Plug's For You

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But asked the same question, Fox president of sales Jon Nesvig says with a laugh: "I would hope the producers would probably use some judgment there." At the least, producers would risk losing sponsors. Says Debbie Myers, media services vice president of Taco Bell: "We have tremendous equity in our brand. We would never do this unless we were fully protected." And looming over the rest of TV is the idea that after the success of sponsored reality series, networks might want to sign up sponsors for dramas and sitcoms, and advertisers could thus exert control over scripts and story lines.

To ad-industry critics like Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, the new product placements add up to a return to the past--the 1950s quiz-show scandals were spurred partly by sponsors' meddling--and an "Orwellian" future in which "the TV begins collecting information on you." But Keith Quinn, marketing vice president for LivePlanet, The Runner's production company, contends that consumers will welcome "cool, fun" and useful in-show ads. "We could ask on the website, 'What brand of car was the runner in last night?'" he says. "If you answer correctly, you're entered in a drawing to win the car. People would be psyched."

It's an audacious and not necessarily inaccurate vision of the viewer's relation to advertising today, a continuous circle of capitalism and entertainment that blurs the line between your life and the game, the ad and the show, consuming and playing. To Chester, this vision is a sign that "the already tattered distinctions between marketing and content are being obliterated." To consumers, it may make no difference: in a MAY TIME/CNN poll, only 13% said they would think less of shows that took placements.

The dangers for product placers may instead be the same as in traditional ads: overkill, ham-handedness and boring the audience. "Less is more," warns John Lazarus, senior vice president of ad-buying agency TN Media. "If you do too much, it's going to look silly and overcommercialized." Above all, producers and advertisers agree, placements need to be "organic"; an out-of-place product or overly enthusiastic shill (remember Colby gushing over the Pontiac Aztek's capacious luxury) breaks the spell. But organic is in the eye of the beholder. Slagle says PVI recently made a demo with a rerun of Bewitched, adding a box of SnackWell's cookies in the 1960s kitchen of Samantha and Darrin's nosy neighbors, the Kravitzes. "It absolutely fit in," he marvels. "They would be the sort of people who would eat SnackWell's." Samantha will always be in her time warp. But there's nothing to keep Madison Avenue from twitching its nose and doing a little hocus-pocus.