Music video standards falling with product placement

Product placement is now almost guaranteed in most music videos. Lady Gaga, Avril Lavigne and Britney Spears are just a few mainstream artists adding brands to their videos. Does it lower standards?

Placing any commercialized product in a music video that doesn t blend with the story structure is hard to fit, and looks out of place. Whether you re a genius music video director or just starting out and making promos, having to place a product in a movie is not great fun.

The problem with product placement is that a shot has to be constructed around it so that it can be included within the story, make sense editing wise, and not seem intrusive.

Lady Gaga s Telephone video managed to pull it off, but barely. It was a gimmick and a larger than life vid, but overall music videos may not be the best place for them. Infomercials are a format of their own, so product placement is expected and crafted especially to be part of the message. When you start placing TVs, ipods and dating websites into music videos about crashing taxis and looking sexy (Avril Lavigne s What The Hell) it doesn't fit. You may as well create a pre-roll ad for that video with your product.

With youtube now replacing MTV as the mainstream music platform, there is more freedom to be edgy and add as much product placement as you want. What artists should watch out for is having that advert look in their videos. If Gaga wants to stay original, she needs to get rid of the ads Madonna doesn t show in her videos.