Tell the FCC to Require Full Disclosure of Product Placements

In June, five years after we first requested action, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced an inquiry into hidden advertisements and product placement -- the paid inclusion of products in programming -- on television and radio.

This is our chance to stop advertisers from turning TV programs into disguised infomercials. Whether the FCC takes meaningful action will depend in large part on whether the public demands it.

Product placements are inherently deceptive because most people do not realize they are being advertised to when watching television programs, nor how frequently. This is a large and expanding problem. According to Nielsen Media Research, product placement rose 39 percent in the fist quarter of 2008. There were more than 4,500 product placements on American Idol in just the first 6 months of 2008. For more about product placement, see our web page here.

Commercial Alert is urging paid-for product placements on TV be accompanied by pop-up messages saying “paid advertisement.” This kind of mandatory simultaneous disclosure would, at least, inform viewers that they are being advertised to.

The FCC has requested comments from interested organizations and individuals. Please contact the FCC and tell them that you want clear and simultaneous disclosure of hidden advertisements and paid-for product placements.

The letter below is in the format the FCC requires of all comments submitted by email. Emailed comments are processed by a computer and will be discarded if not formatted properly -- PLEASE DO NOT DELETE ANY FIELDS OR CHANGE THE FORMATTING IN ANY WAY. Some of the fields have already been filled out for you and SHOULD NOT BE CHANGED. You MUST fill in your NAME and ADDRESS for your comment to be submitted to the FCC. Your email address is optional, however we recommend providing it; the FCC will email you confirmation of your comment.

The text of the letter following the TEXT tag may be edited. If you wish to elaborate on the text of the letter that has been provided, some points to consider are:

- Embedded advertisements and paid-for product placements are not adequately disclosed and therefore are violating viewers’ right to know they are being advertised to.

- Some programs have gone to the extent to allow advertisers to help shape the plot of the show in order to better advertise their brands, compromising the integrity of the programming.

- Disclosure of paid-for product placement needs to be simultaneous; even if there is better disclosure at the beginning or the end of a program, most viewers do not watch the opening or closing credits when such disclosure would occur.

- The persuasive power of an advertisement occurs at the moment it airs. It is at that instant when viewers are being marketed to, yet viewers are unaware this is occurring. Only simultaneous disclosure can address this problem -- being told before or after a program that there are product placements will not resolve this deception, especially since the viewer will have no means of identifying each and every placement.

- The top product used in paid-for product placement in the first quarter of 2008 was Coca Cola; having soft drinks and junk food embedded in television shows that are watched by children in high numbers, such as American Idol, contributes to the childhood obesity epidemic.