Article Abstract

"Product Placement Effects: Product-Character Associations (PCAs) in Sitcoms"
|by Cristel A. Russell and Stern, Barbara (2005), in Geeta Menon and Akshay R. Rao (eds.), Advances in Consumer Research, Vol. XXXII.

Abstract: The paper presents and tests a new model of product placement effects in television sitcoms -- the Product-Character Association model (PCA) -- to explain character-driven influences on viewers‚ attitudes to placed products. The model is grounded in two disciplines: literary theory, the source of information about sitcom characters; and social psychology, the source of research on consumer responses to characters (sources) and products (messages). Hypotheses about PCAs‚ effect on attitudes toward placed products were tested in a controlled study using the theatre methodology, a method in which the stimulus ˆ here a sitcom with manipulated PCAs ˆ is created especially for an experiment. Results support the model, for the findings indicate that attitudes toward characters drive attitudes toward the products associated with them.

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