Embedded.

Print ads, commercials and billboards are fair game. We have agreed on the rules of engagement: this space is a marketplace, caveat emptor. But what happens when advertisers decide that there is too much content and not enough space for ads? What happens when they convince content providers? How much is it worth to an advertiser to hawk their product when you are not in that guarded space, aware you are being solicited and contextualizing the message with a critical thinking? Then, my friend, you have embedded advertising, or product placement.

In just the past few years Apple has appeared in 103 top grossing films, Budweiser in 73, Chevrolet in 73, Sony in 64. Subway sandwiches have paid to be part of Happy Gilmore, Austin Powers: Goldmember, Barbershop 2, Blades of Glory, Get Smart, Hitch, Jackass: The Movie, Meet the Spartans, Talladega Nights, the TV show Chuck (“We're doing this as an ongoing way of making sure we get to the audience”), Will and Grace, and appeared prominently in the reality show The Biggest Loser.

Director Michael Bay, who delivers a litter of low quality summer blockbusters every season, is a record breaker when it comes to cramming shameless and over the top (sometimes plot driving) product placement into his movies. Says Bay, “"There are products in everything in everyday life. Do people think there shouldn't be brand names or something? Everything is branded. I hate commercials when they take logos off of stuff. It's not real life."

A website called “Brand Channel” tracks product placement, or “product cameos” in media. According to Brand Channel, the newly released film Valentine’s Day had 56 clearly identifiable brands pitched in the movie, Kick-Ass has had at least 42. Even Star Trek, the recent reboot of the sci-fi classic included a much touted in movie ad for Nokia phones.

And the walls are more permeable than you think…

For two-weeks in 2008, KVVU, Fox News 5 in Las Vegas, had its morning news anchors deliver the news behind two tall, frosty glasses of McDonald’s iced coffee. The coffee was not real, nor was the ice, which did not melt, or the condensation, which sparkled perfectly for the two weeks the coffee appeared on the newscast. The newscasters did not drink or acknowledge the coffees, whose logos faced the camera for the length of the broadcast. The news station was paid to place the product on camera, as what is referred to as an embedded product and it is more prevalent than you might think.

And it works; according to a Nielson Media Research study, product placement boosts “brand awareness” by roughly 20%. Without being aware that we are subject to advertising, it is successfully effecting us.