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Cultural icon? Or just log-roller? A new Macy's ad cites the brand's pop-culture currency -- some of which was bought and paid for.
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Last night during the Emmy broadcast, I think I witnessed the next step in TV commercials. Product placement has already mutated into "product integration" in TV dramas. But I don't know what you call this new thing.

Neda Ulaby had a story about product integration on today's Morning Edition. It was pegged to the Emmys, and the first example we used was how Emmy winner Mad Men integrated Heineken beer into a major storyline in its latest episode.

But get this: During the Emmy broadcast -- which was terrible, a point Linda has already made today, but I'd like to second it -- Macy's (or should I say Macy*s?) ran a commercial based on clips of TV shows and movies that have mentioned or showed the department store.

The thrust of the ad was to communicate how much we love Macy's, how it's part of our lives and our beloved pop-culture institutions. There were clips from Seinfeld, and from Friends, and from old movies with their yellowish saturated color.

And then there was a clip of the Macy's Challenge on Project Runway.

To borrow an observation from Neda: All of us who are fans of Project Runway are used to watching, say, contestants make dresses out of Saturn auto parts. (Saturn is a sponsor, and the brand of car in the winner's prize package). That's product integration, and we're getting used to it.

But for Macy's to take the product-integration appearances it's paying for on a reality-TV competion and use them in a commercial to argue for its place as a beloved cultural icon? That, as they say, is taking things to another level.

-- Sara Sarasohn

categories: Television

12:45 - September 22, 2008

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