Marketing managers using product placement on US television will soon be given help in measuring how effective the advertising message was.
Nielsen Media Research is planning to launch a service next year tracking product placement on the top US networks.
Product placement has been controversial. Consumer groups have complained that paying to embed products in programming, such as the Budweiser beer on the set of Friends is an insidious means of getting marketing messages across.
But the method has grown increasingly popular for advertisers as consumers become increasingly sophisticated.
Even more of a threat are new technologies such as video on demand and Tivo, the personal video recorder that allows viewers to skip commercials altogether.
"It's obviously a growing form of television advertising," said a Nielsen spokesman. "We're tracking consumer products placement and that will be made available to our marketplace. It's also a form of competitive intelligence."
Clients will be able to view short clips of product placement online according to either product categories or particular brands.
They will also be able to work out how much time a product received exposure during primetime TV in a particular week or month.
Analysts will determine positioning, their placement in the foreground or background and integration into storylines, as well as length of time on air.
Nielsen will not rate product placements or assign a monetary value, but at a later stage may provide viewer data for the TV show at the time the product appeared.
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