The brilliant graphic illustration above is a very scientific illustration of just how to turn watchable televison programming into fast-food shilling drivel. Here's the technical explanation of just what's going on above:

In one embodiment, as shown in FIG. 1, a conventional advertisement 10 shown during televisin program's commercial break promotes a new product 12 of, for example, a fast-food establishment. The advertisement 10 is attempting to sell the particular product 12. A program-advancing element 16, such as the knife in this particular example, is introduced into the advertisement 10 to form a program-integrated advertisement 14. The program-advancing element relates to the television program and can be a program-promoting element, i.e., a viewer associates the knife with the program. Additionally, the two characters dealing with the knife in the program-integrated advertisement 14 may themseves be program-advancing elements, if they are characters in the program.

We came across this technological marvel via The Hollywood Reporter's legal blog, THR, esq which wrote about what must be one of the most amazing lawsuits of all time. This legalistic rabbit hole's silliness is so profound that it makes us think that it might be time to throw the entire judicial system out the window and muddle by on mob rule for a few decades.

THR writes:

Delaware-based ad agency Denizen is suing media agency Mindshare for stealing an idea to integrate a brand of Vaseline into a Lifetime miniseries called "Maneater."

In the complaint, Denizen says that TV networks face the problem of viewers not paying attention to ads in between segments of a show and claims to have "created the concept of 'program integrated advertisement' in order to entice viewers to pay attention to advertisements in various media, including, but not limited to, television, radio, and the Internet.

Denizen isn't actually suing for stealing the idea of product placement, but they are accusing Mindshare of making off with trade secrets about how to implement world class product placement that the Denizen folks supposedly let them in on during a meeting between the two companies.

But Denizen isn't just claiming spuriously, "yeah, we thought of that first"; they actually filed a patent on product placement, which they call "Program Integrated Commercials." Denizen's patent must rank as one of the most amazing legal documents ever produced, demonstrating the legal system's ability to absorb any level of ridiculousness and turn it into mind-numbing deadly serious jargon.

The patent starts out bemoaning the desperate state of advertising, noting the wreckage TiVo has wrecked and the failures of basically every attempt to get people excited about watching ads, what with these ungrateful viewers changing channels and fast forwarding and all.

The patent then claims, "The present invention comprises a method and system for incorporating thematic content from a particular television program into product or service advertisements (commercials) for a sponsor or the program or network."

Actually, when one gets into it the invention is far more sinister than merely sticking some products into a TV show wrapped around cockamamie plot points, but involves an attempt to take the characters out of the show and stick them into the actual ads based on cockamamie plot points, making the audience have to watch the ads themselves to be able to follow the plot of the show.

The verbal contortions in which the patent goes to explain this are fairly breathtaking. The following graph, for instance, attempts to codify this breakthrough in the science of forcing products into people's brains: "The program-advancing element is specific to a program or is associated with a program element such that it is capable of being recognized by a viewer. This includes, but is not limited to, character actions, setting descriptions, objects, sound recognition, and character dialogue, etc."

That's right, Denizen thunk that up! Take that Sterling Cooper!

You can browse this entire historic document by clicking one of the thumbnails below.

Now HSN has product placement! I could not even comprehend what that meant but apparently it means that, while an HSN host is talking about how great some piece of crap pan or whatever is for boiling up some pasta, he just casually says "Oh and by the way, speaking of boiling up some pasta in this fabulous pan (call now!), a good kind of pasta you can boil in it is Barilla pasta, which is some really nice pasta." And what do you know, he didn't just say that off the top of his head—he was paid for it, by Barilla pasta. Cunning.

But wait, will the average American viewer who enjoys staring slack-jawed at smiling salespersons on HSN for hours on end stand for ads being inserted into their hitherto pristine programming segments? "HSN doesn't foresee a problem." Okay then, good.
[WSJ. Pic via]

They paid Kenya Mejia $1,800 to say "I love you, Jake Minor!" in her actual graduation speech, the idea being that she would say she was inspired to call out her crush by seeing the same thing done in this movie, I Love You, Beth Cooper. Then the video of this would "go viral," supposedly. Let us count the ways in which this plan failed.

1. The movie bombed. "Even Ms. Mejia hasn't seen it." Return-on-investment fail.

2. The Fox-produced-but-supposedly-just-amateur YouTube video the company posted of the stunt barely has over 2,000 hits. Why would anyone care? They would not. Viral fail.

3. The school district is pissed. Education fail

4. This "Jake Minor" character that Kenya called out as her crush is not even her boyfriend. Although her boyfriend supposedly "endorsed it," hopefully for a hefty cut of the check. Furthermore, Jake Minor has a girlfriend of his own. His assessment of Kenya: "She's pretty quiet." Love connection fail.

Let us never try this again.

[WSJ]

Planned Parenthood is mailing condoms to college kids in their welcome packets, which would be totally passé in developed regions of the country. But this was in Missouri!

Chief among the university's concerns, Smart said, was an ad for Planned Parenthood with a condom attached. In bold type at the top of the insert are the words: "Welcome to MSU!"...

Smart said the university had received nearly a hundred phone calls about the material — mostly with concerns about the Planned Parenthood ad.

Haha! I thought that sort of protest went out of fashion in the 90s. Missourian parents are total throwbacks! For the more jaded kids in first-world parts of America, Trojan has paid for some product placement in the new Cobra Starship video, starring Leighton Meester and some young jerk in white sunglasses, who "makes it rain," with condoms.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.

Not since Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes, a member of R&B girl group TLC, wore a condom in place of her left eyeglass lens in the 1990s has safe sex received such a starring role.

It's only one small step from this to "making it rain" with American Eagle t-shirts, or cans of Pepsi, or Taco Bell spicy chicken wraps, which is a trend much more disturbing than the trend of telling kids about condoms. Priorities, Missouri.
[Gannett Blog, NYP]

MARKETING STRATEGY 1: Blackmail you into viewing its hour-long adver-show on Hulu:

Those Hulu users who watch the "Bing-a-thon" will receive a reward: the ability to watch TV shows or movies on hulu.com without commercial interruptions. (Yes, you have to watch a commercial to avoid watching other commercials.)

MARKETING STRATEGY 2: Have product snickered at by television's least funny late night host:

For instance, the segments on "Late Show" will present Mr. Fallon as a quiz master, asking contestants to use bing.com to search for answers to questions in categories like travel, health and shopping.
" ‘Bing' sounds like a Jimmy Fallon word," Mr. Silverman said, laughing.

Here's another Jimmy Fallon word: Shut Up. Google it.
[NYT]

The rich can't even afford to go to the Hamptons this year. Who shall take their place? The wearers of Axe Body Spray! It all makes perfect sense:

While other brands have sponsored party spaces, like the Polaroid Beach House in Malibu or the Esquire Apartment or the Playboy Mansion, this is one of the first brand-sponsored nightclubs going for a full season.

For its branded mating experience, Axe selected a big club on Southampton's main party strip, North Sea Road. The club has been known as Dune for the last couple of years, but this summer it will turn into the Axe Lounge.

Where better to meet a nice guy than "The Axe Lounge"? It's the place where young men who see their own stories told in Axe Body Spray commercials and the women who love them can meet!

There will be Axe branding on the D.J. booth, menu and valet tickets; an Axe-themed drink; and Axe products in the men's and women's bathrooms...But, Mr. Heller said, the branding will be relatively subtle.

DUDES COME MEET SLUTS HERE AXE AXE AXE axe (last one for subtlety).
[NYT]

The special sponsorship with Subway is enabling NBC to bring back the series, executives said, in a deal they described as made possible by a decision to go to advertisers earlier than usual in what NBC called the "infront," to ask for ideas about interweaving brands into shows.

You read that correctly: the fucking Subway product placement is enabling this show to be on TV, period. All the other stuff in there is just extra low fat mayo. How hardcore is NBC willing to get here? Hardcore to the bone:

"Chuck" appealed to Subway for reasons that included its audience, which is mostly the type of younger consumer that buys a lot of subs at malls. The show takes place in a mall, and Chuck's girlfriend, Sarah, is a C.I.A. agent who works under cover at various stands in the food court.

It is no great leap to believe she could be selling Subway sandwiches next season. An NBC executive said discussions have been under way about the specifics of the tie-in.

We hope you're very happy about the success of your "Buy a Subway Sandwich to Save NBC's 'Chuck!'" campaign now. Sandwich whores.
[NYT]

Like you, Wendy Farrington is a big fan of Chuck and sorry that it's probably getting canceled, so she's taken to the internet with a grassroots campaign to save the show—by eating Subway sandwiches!

"As a non-Nielsen viewer, I feel the most effective means of making an impact is to wield my consumer power in a way that NBC and their sponsors will be able to measure," Ms. Farrington wrote, noting Subway's support of "Chuck." "To demonstrate my gratitude to that franchise for their support of Chuck, I'm pitching a 'Finale & FOOTLONG' campaign to all the Chuck forums and boards."

Ms. Farrington also announced she was pitching "key TV critics who've been supportive of Chuck."

And Subway of course is all like "HEH, yes, buy our sandwiches, it'll be good for your show, or whatever, sure, just buy those sandwiches. We love that show, Charles, or whatever." And then this secret info leaked out, which is disturbing:

Subway has "a few folks we work with in Hollywood who we consider our secret weapons." He declined to name them, "because we prefer that they remain secret."

I'm guessing that one of them is the guy from Chuck.
[Ad Age, Previously]

If Chuck had better writers they may have been able to craft this one into something that was self-referential and funny, but as it is it's just crazy awkward. Ben Silverman's product-placing path to economic success continues!

Subway's "Chuck" appearance goes beyond the usual trappings of product placement, in which an on-air appearance or even a reference from a character is considered a boffo execution. Getting a character to repeat the company's ad slogan is tantamount to turning "Chuck" for even the briefest of moments into a bona fide Subway commercial.

[Ad Age]

Hey, all publicity is good publicity—whether from an athlete, movie star, or from one of the world's most notorious monsters, who enslaved, raped, and impregnated his own daughter in a cellar for a quarter century. [This is translated by Google, but you get the gist]:

"Any free advertising is included, especially given the global interest in this process," says Martine Poppe, Head of Customer Services of the Belgian manufacturer. "All of our brand, we prefer a more positive character related. But it is no different."

"But just our folder pops up during the process, it proves that we as a brand mean something," said Poppe in Het Nieuwsblad.

[Telegraaf; Pic via Reuters]

ABC is leading the way with two new pilots for the upcoming post-boom season:

One is an untitled project starring Kelsey Grammer, who plays a Wall Street millionaire unhorsed by the collapsing economy and forced into a "Mr. Mom"-like role at home with the family he hardly ever saw. The other is "Canned," a pilot about several younger Gen X friends fired from their lofty perch at an investment bank.

They certainly project a certain sheen of realism, no? And since product placement is increasingly non-negotiable for TV shows in these twilight years of the Pepsi Generation, ABC has hit upon an ingenious solution: Product placement of cheap shit. They're actually mocking Starbucks in the first episode, thereby ensuring a future episode revolving around characters visiting Wal-Mart to purchase Folgers and try on Hanes brand underwear. Hanes: comfort and durability for your poor balls.

Television is finally for the people, again.

[Ad Age; Pic via. "Sitcommunism" tag stolen from commenter Uncle_Billy_Slumming]

In January Notorious, the biopic about the life of deceased hip hop legend Biggie Smalls, was released. One of the centerpieces of the movie's soundtrack was "Letter to B.I.G.," an in memoriam-type song by Jadakiss—a rapper that Biggie helped put on, with his group The Lox. Jadakiss told MTV: "it's nothing fabricated on there. It's gotta be all real on there. Everything was personal."

In his first verse, Jadakiss (who's wearing Coogi in the video) says, "In your memory I keep Coogi in my closet." Why? Well, Biggie did love those crazy ass Coogi sweaters. But a more important reason: because, a good source tells us, Coogi paid Jadakiss tens of thousands of dollars to drop their name in the song.

Maybe save the product placement for normal, non-memorial-to-my-deceased-friend songs?

Last week Tina Fey herself said that there was no product placement deal involved in this. And today, Ad Age did some "reporting" and, according to both McDonald's and NBC, that's right, this was no paid product placement deal; 30 Rock writers just love the McFlurry that much:

As it turns out, the McDonald's inclusion was really part of the script; McDonald's didn't pay for it, said Jennifer Lane Landolt, director-entertainment alliances for McDonald's. NBC's ad-sales department was also made aware of the inclusion, according to an NBC spokeswoman.

"30 Rock" approached executives from the restaurant chain in advance, asking if they could make use of a McDonald's restaurant for filming purposes, she said. McDonald's executives examined the script and found nothing in it that portrayed the company and its restaurants in a bad light, Ms. Lane Landolt said. "If we felt that something disparaged the brand, we would have pushed back on what they did, but no, we didn't make any changes," she said. The episode was shot in a restaurant operated by an independent New York City franchisee, who was paid for the time his store was closed. The McDonald's ad that ran during the show was "part of our traditional media buy," said Ms. Lane Landolt; no advertising was moved around specifically to be near the "30 Rock" episode.

There you have it: this was a totally organic thing. I have no factual basis whatsoever to say, "Bullshit, they're obviously cuddling up to advertisers during a recession, this is all semantics, they'll get their money on the back end." [Ad Age]

Namely, the McFlurry references felt organic, as 30 Rock has a habit of tying that sort of jokey, downmarket fast food to its most glamorous guest stars (witness Isabella Rossellini declaring her lifelong love for the Arby's "Big Beef and Cheddar" way back in Season One). No, it's the constant, prominent placement of the iPhone in the last two episodes that's really caught our eye. Every character seems to own one, make calls on one, and constantly show off pictures on one (in lengthy close-ups, no less)—even Jack Donaghy, who we totally figured for a Blackberry Storm man.

Here's a mere sampling of the iPhone's screen time over the last two weeks. And yes, we took these pictures off our TV using the iPhone. Can we have our money now?

• 30 Rock [NBC]

Here's the statement she gave New York:

"It gives me great pleasure to inform you that the references to McDonald's in last night's episode of 30 Rock were in no way product placement. (Nor were they an attempt at product placement that fell through.) We received no money from the McDonald's Corporation. We were actually a little worried they might sue us. That's just the kind of revenue-generating masterminds we are.

Also, the upcoming story line where Liz Lemon starts dating Grimace is just based on a recurring dream I have.

Seriously, though, it's not product placement.

Also, whoever is writing my Twitter account is pretty funny, but it's not me."

-Tina Fey

Well, thank god. Not about the product-placement thing, since we couldn't really care one way or another about the broadcast networks' desperate spiral into nonstop primetime payola. No, we're just glad Fey has set the record straight about Twitter's "Tina Fey," since the obviously fake account has bothered us for months. We were kind of hoping Fey was doing an unfunny Twitter impression of herself to make a point about Twitter, but then we remembered that she actually has a life.

This week's episode featured Alec Baldwin and Salma Hayek sexily purring over the greatness of the McD's Blizzard knockoff, the McFlurry. It wasn't the clever, winking product placement that can get away with itself; it was more like bad ad copy. You can only do the clever, winking thing a few times, and it burns itself out. NBC boy wonder Ben Silverman's enthusiastic embrace of product placement is just as tight as ever, because the money it brings in could be the one of the only things helping him hang onto his job.

So you should actually expect to see more shit like this in the shows you thought were too cool for it. It's the new price they have to pay to remain on air. As Michael Hirschorn points out, the wave of the future is more and more disposable crap coming to prime time TV (including, he thinks, "the Today show, or some version thereof" moving to an 8 p.m. slot). Jay Leno was only the beginning. [NY Mag]

M&V: I saw the video for "Universal Mind Control," and I almost missed the Zune that appeared in the first five seconds.

Common: The video, or any visual, is very important to me, and for me to be open to showing a product in my video means a lot, because it's a representation of me. With anything I associate myself with, I think, "Is it gonna help or bring me down?" The Zune is something that I've been confident about associating myself with, because I think it's got a fly presentation to it. It is truly about music lovers, for me.

God, the entire interview is just that ridiculous. I remember when Common said this:

I might've failed to mention that the shit was creative
But once the man got you well he altered the native
Told her if she got an energetic gimmick
That she could make money, and she did it like a dummy
Now I see her in commercials, shes universal
She used to only swing it with the inner-city circle
Now she be in the burbs lickin rock and dressin hip
And on some dumb shit, when she comes to the city...

But ima take her back hopin that the shit stop
Cause who Im talkin bout yall is hip-hop

The totally tubular new series is called Engine Room, and is thoughtfully sponsored by HP itself. It follows in the footsteps of classic HP-sponsored MTV branded entertainment video series like Meet or Delete and Dorm Storm. Remember those? Yea!

HP is seriously spending "tens of millions of dollars" on this show. Try to ignore this focus-grouped lineup!:

The teams of contestants are divided by the regions they come from: Asia-Pacific, Europe, Latin America and North America. They are visited during the competition by guests like the musician Moby; Kevin Smith, the movie director; and the British pop band the Ting Tings.

The digital creations of the teams were judged by a diverse panel that included musicians, filmmakers, museum curators, a physicist, a tattoo artist, critics and Pete Connolly, an art director from Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, the Hewlett-Packard creative agency.

Ha, a tattoo artist and a physicist? What will they think of next? I guess this is why my new main man David Roman, the slammin VP of worldwide marketing communications at HP's personal systems group, told the Times, “We don’t want it to be advertising; we want it to be real."

Mind. Blown. The youth is your homeboy, HP.

[NYT]