"Project Runway" and Product Placement

I was catching up on this season of Project Runway on Lifetime's website, and couldn't help marveling that the network, which is pay cable, would allow one of their most popular shows to be streamed online for free. Most other cable networks, with the exception of Comedy Central, are extremely protective of their new content. You don't see current season episodes of shows like "Burn Notice" or "Breaking Bad" on Hulu Plus. One of the reasons I've fallen so far behind on "Top Chef," is because Bravo doesn't make it easy to watch them online. So I felt pretty good about Lifetime, until I was about halfway through last week's episode and I remembered what was offsetting any lost revenue - the product placement.

"Project Runway" is probably the perfect product placement show. Sure, there are some sponsors that are shoehorned into episodes with a notable lack of tact - the Lexus challenge where the designers were required to use the color of one of the new models in their designs was pretty ham handed - but others are so deeply ingrained into the format of the show itself, it's hard to imagine "Runway" without them. Any "Runway" fan will tell you that the workrooms are located at the Parsons School of Design in New York, and the one season when they tried to move shop to a new location was not a good one. The designers stay in the Atlas apartments for the duration of the competition. They get their fabric from Mood, home of a shop dog named Swatch. They sketch designs on HP tablets and use Brother sewing machines. The accessory wall has been stocked by various companies, including Bluefly and Piperlime. This season it's Lord and Taylor. And then there's the hairstyling segment of every show, where just before the models are sent out to the runway, they get a quick consultation from stylists wielding Garnier products, never mentioning prior sponsor Tresemme.

Challenges are often built around major retailers trying to appeal to different kinds of customers, or celebrities preparing for specific events. Then you have the judges. Michael Kors is a big designer with his own stores. Nina Garcia is an editor of Marie Claire magazine. Even Tim Gunn, who started out as a teacher and dean at Parsons, went and joined Liz Claiborne a few seasons back, and is always introduced as their man now. Everybody's selling something, and there's nothing wrong with that in this context. The fashion industry is all about marketing yourself, making your name into a recognizable brand that will fuel the sales of your products. So in an environment that is naturally obsessed with branding, the high amount of product placement is actually very appropriate. The producers have been good about picking their partnerships, and ensuring that while the promotions are obvious, they're also pretty well integrated. I mean, if you're going to have a whole challenge based on making clothing out of candy, why not get the candy from Dylan's Candy Bar in Times Square? On the other hand, they're not always successful. Again, the Lexus challenge.

I know all the arguments against product placement, that it's more insidious and blurs the boundaries between content and marketing in unwanted ways, but honestly I prefer advertising like this to the more intrusive commercials and the screen-obliterating pop-ups that are the blight of many network and cable programs. Especially in the reality shows, it feels odd when you don't see branded products everywhere, because brands are everywhere in real life. Blurring out logos actually draws more attention in some cases than if they were left alone. However, product placement has to be handled carefully, especially for the scripted shows. For every charming visit to a period Howard Johnson's in "Mad Men," or the Subway sandwiches that became a running joke on "Chuck," there are the more poorly considered ones. For instance, the infamous "Modern Family" iPad debacle, which read like too-obvious product placement even though Apple didn't actually pay to have anything promoted. Or Peter Parker's use of the Bing search engine in this summer's "Amazing Spider-man" movie, which was mocked from all sides.

There is a not-so-subtle art to this, and it'll be interesting to see how strategies and campaigns develop as more and more product placement is introduced into our content to make up for the waning effectiveness of more traditional forms of marketing. There is definitely a danger of some shows turning into extended commercials, but then, this is not a new problem. Keep in mind that television shows specifically created to shill products have been around for ages, and in the past they were often much less subtle about it than anything we see today. Look up the old "Mr. and Mrs. TV Show" episode of "I Love Lucy," for an eye-opening spoof, if you have the chance.

For now, the aggressive product placement on "Project Runway" isn't hurting the show much. Sure, some of the constant repetition of brands is annoying, but it's much less annoying than the high volume commercials for related products I used to have to sit through. And they don't interfere with the most dramatic moments of the competition - the judging, the eliminations, and the meltdowns. If the price of getting the show free online is more emphasis on all this product placement, so far I think it's been a good tradeoff.
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