Product placement is now a $23 billion industry – one of the reasons it’s expanding is that people aren’t paying much attention to traditional advertising. Now, there’s a new player in town: a virtual product placement added post-production. (CyberNews)

TV commercials and YouTube ads are becoming less effective for brands, because people see these as an annoyance and look to avoid or skip these ads at any chance they get. Considering the amount of money brands spend to run these ads, it is obvious that there are some inefficiencies in this model.

Ad’s are continuing to innovate new ways to get products in front of potential customers organically, and one form that has been rising in popularity is product placements within shows, movies, and videos. Product placements appear to be much more organic to the viewer because it just seems as if the characters would use those products in their normal lives.

Most product placements today are ultimately up the discretion of the director/producer of the content, which can be positive or negative to the brand. For example, in the show Stranger Things, Coca-Cola had $3.44 Million of returned value on their $1.6 Million spent for their product to be used within the show. However Peloton, on the other hand, saw a sharp decline in their stock price after a character in a fictional series And Just Like That had a heart attack while riding a Peloton bike.

This brings us to the newest iteration of product placements, virtual product placements that are edited in post production. This means that a show can film, and present the scenes to the company after so they can see exactly how they will be portrayed, then have their product edited in.

Back in May, both Amazon and NBCUniversal announced that content in their streaming platforms would feature virtual product placements. Virtual product placements are not only less expensive, but it also gives advertisers much more control. This also allows advertisers to focus on placing ads only on shows that are proven to be popular.

Ad’s are going to continue to innovate and become more integrated in our daily lives. Not to mention, with virtual reality headsets continuing to grow in popularity, this opens up new opportunities for advertisers to connect with their audience, Jordan Edelson, the CEO of TradeZing, a live-streaming Web3 platform, told Cybernews.

“Audiences will be able to essentially visualize the item in a virtual space or in their physical space, helping users feel physically and emotionally impacted by the virtual item’s presence, and have a sense of familiarity when they encounter the item in a retail setting.”

Jordan Edelson, TradeZing CEO

As advertisers innovate, it will be crucial for them to find creative ways to promote their products while still keeping the interaction organic with their viewers.

To read more about CyberNews’ story on Virtual Product Placements, you can visit the full article here!