While B2B products have already begun to surface as placements in entertainment media, research attention to date has focused almost exclusively on the use of this marketing-communication strategy to target consumer segments rather than organizational buying centers. In what is seemingly the first published examination of product placements in a business-to-business context, this study attempted to bridge the gap between research and practice.
Results confirm that buying-center participants dislike the notion of placing B2B products in movies for commercial gain but like the increased realism such placements bring to popular entertainment. The generally positive levels of acceptance of the proposed use of product placements for a substantial array of organizations suggests that any aversion to the practice based on perceptions of crass commercialism is not a substantial threat if placements are depicted in realistic fashion and the products do not represent companies for which the targeted audience already has some skepticism (as was seen in the Halliburton result).
Consistent with results observed in consumer experiments ([11] Gupta and Lord, 1998), the prominence of a B2B product/service placement was shown to affect brand recall and cognitive response strongly. Though typically more costly and challenging to execute than subtle placements, depictions or mentions of the product or service in ways that occupy more than fleeting amounts of time and space and represent it in interaction with central characters and plot are likely to elicit high levels of recall and thought generation, especially if such depictions are highly realistic and constitute a good fit with the surrounding content. Results suggest further that positive emotions evoked by the entertainment context in which the product or service is embedded will enhance recall and cognitive response. Overall attitude toward the entertainment context, however, was negatively associated with recall (unaided and aided) and cognitive-response generation. Possibly a movie (or other entertainment vehicle) that is too enjoyable sweeps the audience up in a style or focus of processing that depletes that cognitive resources needed to recall or think about the product or service. For purposes of generating heightened awareness, then, a B2B placement would optimally appear in prominent but realistic fashion in an upbeat, but not intensely engaging, part of the entertainment context.