Product placement: Why it’s everywhere in 2025

0:22Hello guys, we are back again with another Friday episode. If you're new here, I'm Rhiannon Joyce and this is my lovely co-host, Madison Sullivan Thorpe. Every fortnight, we like to come on here and analyse the world's brand, creative campaigns, bit of fashion and beauty trends and all of those useful career stories and tips. Okay, it's my favourite time of the week. It's word of the week time. Mads, it's your turn. What's your word of the week? My word of the week is almost I want to reframe a word that already exists and it's the phrase girl's girl. And I think that in a professional or business sense, when someone's helping you, being a girl's girl doesn't cut it because it's so much more than that.

1:02To me, girl's girl is like when someone gives you a bandaid in the club bathroom. That's girl's girl. But I've had so many instances lately of just women being really generous of time and spirit. And I love the phrase generosity of spirit. And I feel like that's what it truly is. Had a great brand founder that I was like frantically voice noting being like, oh, can you help me with margin structure? What do I do here? Just a lot of moments lately where I feel like I'm like really asking a lot of people and unashamedly so. Or you feel like you're asking them something that is a little bit on the nose.

1:36It's like, are they going to be willing to share this? 1000%. And are they comfortable and also acknowledging that you're asking a lot of them? I think that's the catalyst of it as well. And really important disclaimer. My whole point is I kind of want to reframe the phrase girl's girl because I think that if someone's helping you with career or a campaign or you're calling a friend about an idea or you're needing help on something, I think that we need a unicorn word. We need a unicorn word. We should come up with this. That can be our task for next fortnight's word of the week. Yeah, I would love you to come back with what the word should be.

2:09Okay. It needs to be like the spider of info sharing, girl's girl. No gatekeeping. No gatekeeping, no tall poppy. Okay, I can do this. Great. It'll probably be like two words. We never stick to one. Never. We're so bad. All right. We have a big episode to get into. So season two of Nobody Wants This came to our screens from the 23rd of October. And ever since, we've seen a lot of commentary online about the product placement on the show. Missions Are also spoke a little bit about it in Shameless last week. So if you haven't seen the show, it's a Netflix show where a hot rabbi and an LA podcaster become love interests.

2:43Sounds a bit random, but it's actually quite good. and they have to work through their cultural differences, disappointing family members in tow. So that's the general theme. This season has been dripped in product placement. According to an article by The Guardian, brands such as Dunkin' Donuts, Jennifer Meyer, a jewellery brand that's pretty popular with celebrities in the US, DoorDash, a pack of Flamin' Hot Cheetos for something different. I've seen a lot about that one. Yeah. Airbnb and how could we forget the Estee Lauder feature? It was so prevalent. so prevalent like it reminded me of being on a cosmetic photo shoot where you're like asking the model to be like turn the pack closer to the camera yeah yeah don't obstruct the front and you're like basically asking a model to like awkwardly hold a serum jar yeah it was honestly I'd be shocked if most people missed it I do think I'd love to know the average person if they're clocked into that or if it's a marketing thing from our point of view because we work in the industry you've worked in beauty for many years I would say that even the average person would have clocked that one.

3:44It was pretty obvious. I think, and no hate to my mum here, but like mum has never worked in this industry in her life. I think mum could have probably even clocked that that was a product placement. Yeah, we actually ended up having a lot of back and forth on our Slack channel about how product placement works. There was so much to really understand. And we really wanted to know why there's such a negative sentiment around it and why both brands and productions use it. And because we were talking about it so much and everyone was kind of doing that thing where they get their backup and I'm like, oh, there's something in this.

4:13Like this is going to be a juicy episode and I think people will care. As much as we care. Opinions that are said with their chest. Yes. You know? So there's three types of product placements and we thought that we could explain how they often work. So the first is the classic paid placement, which is what we've seen a lot of in Nobody Wants This. So that's a deal brokered between a brand and a network or a studio that can carry contingencies such as how visible the brand is or how long it stays on screen. Estee Lauder. Yeah. In Nobody Wants This was a paid placement for those playing along at home.

4:43The second is organic and that's where a company will often send or provide free product in the hope that it will be featured or written in without a brand or company's knowledge. And the third way, according to an article published by Variety in 2025, which accounts for 90 % of all product placement in TV, film or cinema, is that a product is written into a scene without the company's knowledge. And the best example I have of this is the Peloton that featured in episode one of And Just Like That, Sex and the City spin-off. Famously, first episode. Spoiler alert! Do you know that their shares, yeah, sorry if you haven't watched it, do you know that their shares for Peloton fell 10 % overnight?

5:24I did read that. That's insane. Yeah, so for those playing along at home, Big, who was one of the main characters in Sex and the City series, carries love interest and in Just Like That sadly passes away after having a heart attack on said Peloton. And honestly, terrible for Bran. So bad for brand. That's one you probably would have wanted their heads up on. Maybe that's why they didn't give them a heads up because there's no way they would have approved it. No way a brand is going fantastic. Okay, we're going to get into why you might be seeing even more of this, specifically from Netflix. Because when we started researching, Rhi and I were like, wait, there's a real theme here.

5:58We're bringing up a lot of Netflix. And Amazon Prime came up as well. It did, yeah. A lot of streaming platforms were really top of mind when we were talking about the theme of product placement. Totally. So we're going to deepen it, get into it, but that will be right after a word from today's sponsor. Product placement as a whole has a pretty long tenured history. It started on radio, which surprised me. Surprised me too. And it started with soap brands sponsoring audio soap operas and then integrating their products into the stories themselves. Like, what are you saying? Like, we had a scrub-a-dub-dub in the tub.

6:35Oh, yeah. And also, like, can you imagine the sound effects? Sorry, it's a radio format. No, don't. My mind went somewhere else anyway. Okay, well, let's stay away from that. Keep your head out of the gutter, Rhiannon Joyce. I'll do my best. But it started appearing in silent films in the late 1800s. But I think it would be really interesting if, as we said, we deepen Netflix, because as we said, it came up a lot. And Netflix in particular, their relationship with product placement. Yeah, I think what was interesting is a lot of the recent examples we gave, subconsciously, I don't think we registered that they were all Netflix series.

7:09And then once we pieced it all together, we're like, oh, this is interesting. But also, as you said before, the general theme of product placement in streaming platforms as a whole, when we had a conversation about the summer, I turned pretty on our Wednesday episode a few weeks ago, that product placement conversation came up again there. So yeah, it just seems to be across the board of streaming platforms, very prevalent at the moment. Totally. And I felt like that meme with the red string that's across all the images, it was like we were talking about all these shows and then we're like, Netflix, streaming.

7:37I do want to say up top that Shameless Media has partnered with both Prime and Netflix who will be mentioned throughout this episode. This is in no way sponsored. You guys know that everything that we do editorially, we hold a lot of integrity and there's no influence from any of our brand partners that we've worked with in the past. Yeah. Okay. Thanks for the disclaimer. Yeah, I know. That was a real, really rolled off the tongue as well. I know. I'm like, not a first time doing one of those. Okay, so one of the shows that we brought up when we were talking about this was Stranger Things. Yes.

8:06Off the top of your head, Rae, what are some of the brands that you recognised before you started researching? Coca-Cola. Yeah. Straight up. Straight off the bat. Coca-Cola. I had Burger King. Yes. And I had Adidas. Adidas. Adidas featured really strongly in, I believe it was season three. Yeah, so interestingly, season three. Yeah. I want to deepen this a bit because I did a lot of research on the side of what our senior producer Kate gave us around specifically The Stranger Things Season 3. There is actually a really robust research piece about measuring the effectiveness of the product placement in Series 3.

8:41I read this same article. I know exactly where you're going. This article was so good, so much so that Netflix actually came out later on and gave comments saying that none of the brand's features in Season 3 were paid. So they've gone on record saying that they were all organic and that the Duffer brothers, who are the directors of Stranger Things, really wanted to integrate brands that they felt were relevant and contextual to the time in which Stranger Things is shot. Totally. And season three was centered around 1985. Yes. So, like, what I love about this, right, is Coca-Cola featured, yes, Coca-Cola, like, obviously a brand that was as prolific as it was in the 80s.

9:16Turns out they also loved a 3pm Coke Ziz, you know? Yeah. Well, Ziz didn't exist then, but, you know, just a Coke. Coca-Cola actually had a failed campaign called New Coke in 1985 where they tried to like kind of like rebrand it. Anyway, they actually brought that packaging back into season three of Netflix Stranger Things to contextualize it to that time. So they really lent into the nostalgia and like the truth of product in that time as well, which to be honest is what makes Stranger Things such a strong show because they do feel that you are transported back to this moment in time. Yes. And that is critical when it comes to product placement.

9:51It can so easily pull you out of the viewer experience. I do want to flag that the total estimated value of all the product placement that was seen in Stranger Things Season 3 equates to 15 million USD. And according to the report from Concave Brand Tracking, Coca-Cola was number one in total visibility and the total valuation of their product placement through Season 3 is 1.5 million USD. It's insane. That's free. That's Free advertising. Cadillac also featured in that list, as did Adidas and Burger King, who I mentioned. But I think to your point, the reason that this worked so well is because it was contextual to the time that the series is set in.

10:32It felt nostalgic, but never transactional. It didn't feel like an ad. It felt like context of the story and where we were. Like, yes, these are teenagers who would have jobs at Burger King's or McDonald's or the like. So it didn't feel like a Burger King ad. Do you know what I mean? I know exactly what you mean. It actually propelled the story along, whereas some of the poorer examples of product placement I've seen are a little bit kitschy. And Mission Zara spoke a bit about this when it came to Emily in Paris in the Shameless episode last week. They spent a portion of the episode talking about how product placement can be quite jarring and how it can really disrupt the viewer's experience.

11:10How have you found that as a viewer? Emily in Paris, to me, it just, it felt like a pay to play model. And it just felt like every episode was for sale. It was. Yeah. And I mean, you've got two Netflix series here. And in total contrast, you know, it feels like the brands fell into the world of Stranger Things. And Emily in Paris felt like the show fell into the brands. That is really jarring. For me, TV and cinema and movies are supposed to feel like escapism. You want to be drawn into their world. And the minute you feel like you're thrown back out into your own and you feel like you're watching an ad or you're being sold to, it removes all of the mystique and the joy and the escapism.

11:52I totally agree. To play devil's advocate with Emily in Paris, I actually think it worked because she works in a marketing firm. So it was a little bit of a ba-dum-boom-ch for me. Like as a viewer, I'm like, okay, this is so glaringly obvious a paid feature. And the pay-to-play language is really important. That is actually the term that they use when a brand does have a sponsored episode feature, which McDonald's did in season three of Emily in Paris. Bit of a reoccurring theme here. I've just clocked that it's always season three. It seems to be very strong. But I would say... Do you think that's maybe because the cast start demanding higher income?

12:26Yeah, I think it's paychecks that they're like, fuck, got to start getting more brands and products in these shows and we can afford them. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll take a soda sponsor. We'll take a fast food sponsorship. Perfect. So Place2Be Media developed the partnership between Emily in Paris and McDonald's in season three. And they said that their company budget for product placement ranges between€500 ,000 to€1 million for a scripted placement. So that's the specific pay to play. Totally. And I want to contextualise this because people might be going like€500 ,000. euro. If you want to buy a TV slot on free-to-air TV here in Australia and you want to run that ad for six weeks, you would spend a million AUD.

13:10Easily. The amount of money that's being spent in TV. So I would say based on the spend versus the views, because Deadline reported that Emily in Paris season three was watched in total 17.6 million hours. I'm saying that's bang for your buck. Bang for your buck. When you look at that spend versus those views, that's cheap as chips. Especially when you take a brand like Augustinus Barda, which was featured in the show, it's a prestige luxury skincare brand. And they've now got this duo partnership. Emily and Paris is a younger viewer. You're building brand awareness as a lead way into launching a more accessibly price point brand.

13:48Bloody genius marketing, in my opinion. It's also a great way to cement your brand into culture, which is why I think product placement has really surged in 2025. I do want to say on Emily in Paris just for a little bit longer because Mads, off mic, you and I were talking about how interesting it is that they work with existing brands that we all know and love, like McDonald's, but they also make up their own brands. Love a six-piece nuggy. But they do. And it's interesting. We've seen it a lot. Parks and Rec had their own fake beer. Breaking Bad had a fake cigarette brand. Yeah, so did Mad Men.

14:19They had the same one. Yeah. And so it's interesting, right? Because in one part, it's like, okay, we're not selling you anything, but it's also, in a way pulling you out of that, you know, I guess realism that you kind of want to balance that escapism of the show, but you still want it to feel realistic as a world? Yeah. In the Variety 2025 piece that we mentioned up top, there was a lot of commentary around fake brands actually really disengage a consumer and the viewer finds them quite jarring. So I would say that there is a case for real brands to be integrated into a show or a film or even a, I don't know, back in the days I remember the Swarovski crystals in the JLo music video.

15:00I feel like product placement in music videos in the 2000s was huge. But it definitely has a place. It just has to be subtle or feel authentic to the show. I do find it is a little bit kitsch and a ba-dum-bum-tsh when it's so glaringly obvious. But as I said up top for Emily in Paris, it kind of worked for me. So I guess summarize all of this, Ray, and obviously we've contrasted the overt of Emily in Paris with the, I guess, subtle or nostalgic tie-in of Stranger Things. Let's go back to Nobody Wants This. Do you think they nailed the product placement? No. Sorry, I didn't even let you finish.

15:33I do this all the time. I'm like, no. No. No. No. Why? Because I found it too overtly obvious. I think the bottle strategically placed next to the phone while she's on FaceTime, you don't need it to be that obvious. No. They could have integrated this product in a way that felt seamless and felt really authentic to how you do speak to your friends whilst you're getting ready. I just didn't need the perfect bottle turned perfectly to the camera, zoomed in. It just felt a little bit eye roll for me. Nothing quite beats that Friday feeling of finishing the work week and spending time with your partner or friends.

16:09If that's on the cards for you and you're looking for something new to toast the end of the week with, download the Dan Murphy's app to get inspired. You'll find out exactly what's new and what's trending when it comes to drinks. Then drop into Dan Murphy's to pick up your selections and never aimlessly wander the aisles again. Remember to choose to drink wise. And thank you so much to Dan Murphy's for making this episode of Stylish possible. Funnily enough, I was thinking about this a lot because I was like, OK, like I'm in marketing. How would I have done this if I was Estee Lauder? And I'm like, they have a podcast.

16:40Have them record an ad. We record ads. Have them be like, no, I don't want to talk to you. We have to do this ad for Estee Lauder. Which is real. I don't know why I did like this American accent. and I'm terrible at that. But I was like, that's what podcasts do. That feels believable. Or have them like film it so that it feels like they're overtly having to product place for their podcast. Film the ad during the podcast. As you said, that would just contextually make sense. Yeah. Okay, so what film or TV brand do you think could pull it off really well in the future? I'm so glad you asked me this because I really sat on this last night before I came in and I was like, White Lotus.

17:15White Lotus could do this well. and I will talk future season, which we know is happening, but I'm going to talk in the context of last season. Yeah. And now we all know the infamous Piper, no. But imagine, like she was, as a character, very high maintenance. Victoria was very demanding. Imagine it was like, you know, the way that she was talking about her medication. It could have been like, mommy needs her Aperol and Aperol could have sponsored that. Or it could have been like, oh, no, I only have, I only do Grey Goose. You know, like. Yeah, it feels authentic. It feels authentic because of course she would be high maintenance and only drink a particular type of alcohol.

17:49The other one that could be subtle is that everyone had an Apple device. The dad's on the laptop, the teenager who's high maintenance. Like we know that they kind of have these really evolved characters each season. It could be like everyone's got a phone. Someone's got like the new colourful like iPad. Someone's got the laptop. The kids are like watching them in the pool. Like it's a very easy way to never have to reference the tech. Electronics are an easy category to integrate. The other one that you had that you haven't touched on that I want to bring up is airlines because I think that's a great one.

18:19Imagine episode one. If we go back to their first season, they all came in via the boat. But imagine season four opens with them all on the plane. Now, I would say Emirates, as an airline, their business class and first class is very distinct and recognizable. There needs to be no logo, no reference, no visual of the outside of the plane. Like lean into your distinctive asset of the way that your plane is formatted in your seats or even the Emirates bar and have them all interacting in episode one of season four, getting off to the destination, off the plane, genius. Love. If I do say so myself.

18:54No, I think that was a great one, which is why I brought it up. I saw it in the notes and I was like, I need you to expand on this. I can see you skipping over it. You're like, go, be smart, say the good thing, be smart. No, mine is James Bond and you're probably sitting here listening and being like, but James Bond is notorious for product placement. Absolutely. Historically they have some of the strongest product placement I've seen in any film. Oh, that. And milking every dollar of it. Milking every dollar of it. And it just feels very contextually relevant. But also, apparently, some of their deals have racked up to£70 million spent on product placement in total.

19:27So they're not shying away from it. They've been doing this for years. What is interesting, though, is that James Bond, the new iterations of the film, will be produced by Prime. So coming back to the previous conversation we had around The Summer I Turned Pretty and the product placement and the partnership with Coach in that series and why it works so well is because they also offered the product to be readily available to shop in an Amazon storefront that was bespoke to the samurai temperate. So everything that you saw on that show, you could buy in the Amazon storefront. I would love to see James Bond do this.

20:00I think it would also be interesting because a lot of the products that feature in James Bond are quite premium. So we're talking Rolex, BMW. I'm trying to - Buy a Rolex on Amazon. But like imagine. But what I love about this is like could we see, you know, I know that the martini was like the signature drink and then it moved to Heineken, right? But like let's say it goes back to the martini. Like you could be buying the glass where James Bond uses. Exactly. Do we think we'll get a James Bond moment where he goes, hey Alexa, play. Oh my God, I think you're bang on. I just love the idea of there being a martini set available on the storefront.

20:33I would buy that. I would buy that too. So maybe it's less about the product placement in the form of like obviously your BMW car and your Rolex isn't going to be available, but more building out that experience and that storytelling, like merch. Yeah. Merch or even just like things that you wouldn't even think of being featured. Like what if there's a coffee table in his apartment that has like coffee table books, like the opportunity for Amazon to be able to capitalize on this. And there will be like a, you know, male who goes, oh my God, I want to have my apartment to look like James Bond's apartment who will buy all the coffee table books.

21:05Absolutely. And the other thing I thought that just popped in my head is the intro song to every James Bond film is always dedicated to a specific artist. What if Amazon also had the exclusive release rights to that song? Genius, let the sky fall. Go on, Della, bring it back. It just feels like to me that Amazon Prime are in the perfect place to be able to double dip. They've got the product placement down pat. They've got the storefront set up. I just feel like they've got a great opportunity here. It'll be like half a billion dollars worth. A lot of product placement working or not working really does depend on the subconscious and subconscious marketing.

21:38Mads, do you want to tell us what subconscious marketing actually is? Yeah. And I'm going to read this. So bear with me because I wanted to get the literal definition and then give our own interpretation. But the definition is that subconscious marketing uses subtle cues and emotional appeals to influence consumers without their conscious awareness, tapping into psychological needs and triggers to shape perceptions and purchasing decisions. So, Ray, that's the definition. Why do you think it works? I think it works because it hits the part of our brain that makes associations, not decisions. Yes, I love that.

22:11Well, it's actually what you said. Did I actually? It's in my own bloody show notes. Of course I fucking love it. It's in your notes, babe. No. And that is called an affinity bias that I didn't even realise I had. No, just to expand on this a bit and coming back to the Stranger Things example, The reason why it worked is because it felt authentic to the environment that we're in. It wasn't brought to your consciousness. No. It was subconscious. So you were sitting there watching that and you weren't even thinking about it. But then after we read that article and we talked about it, I'm like, huh, that was actually really good.

22:44Yeah. But in the moment, we didn't clock it. One thousand percent. And I think, you know, even if you bring it into the everyday of just doom scrolling on Instagram or TikTok, we often feel influenced by things that people are raving about that aren't an ad because no one likes being sold to. People like to interact and feel like there's a connection or that they're gaining an affinity to something without feeling like they're being sold to or marketed at. Yeah. So why do you think there is friction between the audience and product placements? Because I think I alluded to it earlier when I was saying you're being brought out of the escapism and into reality.

23:18We are constantly being sold to. We are surrounded by transactions. Entertainment is escapism. and to feel like you're watching an ad feels like you're watching, you know, free to air TV or that you're back in the everyday. And I want to watch Everybody Wants This because I love - Nobody wants this. I want to watch Nobody Wants This, which by the way, everybody wants this, because it's about a couple falling in love in an unconventional way who are not 25 and the hottest thing since last, I mean, they're both pretty fucking hot, but they're not 25 and they've both had past relationships. Like I want that escapism of, oh my God, this is so fantasy-like and it's beautiful and it's fun.