Product Placement - nothing new

Sometimes precedent crops up in the strangest places, hmm? On Tuesday, Radio 4 told me of the fortunes of John Newbery (1713-67), one of the most successful publishers of his period. One book in particular, the ultra-didactic The History Of Little Goody Two-Shoes, was a roaring success. In fact, it was one of the milestone texts we studied at Uni... but did he make his money in publishing?

Do TV producers make their money in producing?

In both cases, the answer is no! Like the broadcast media of today, Newbery made his great fortune in advertising - for he had another product:

Doctor James' Fever Powder! Which sounds utterly awesome by the way, to the extent that you can almost imagine it as a powder designed to cause fever. What a horrible idea, Doctor James. Shame on you!

Anyway, Newbery's masterstroke that set him above the other quacks was one of the first instances of those two 'evils': a) product placement, and b) advertising to children. Check out this passage from Goody Two-Shoes:

"Care and Discontent shortened the Days of Little Margery's Father.--He was forced from his Family, and seized with a violent Fever in a Place where Dr.James's Powder was not to be had, and where he died miserably"

Hmm, what a truly wonderful powder this must be! I wonder I might find it? And then, at the end of the book:

By the KING'S Royal Patent,

Are Sold by J. NEWBERY, at the Bible and Sun in St. Paul's Church-Yard.

1.	Dr. James's Powders for Fevers, the Small-Pox, Measles, Colds, &c. 2s. 6d.

I guess there are two ways to look at this. One is exploiting and terrifying children at their most impressionable (in the midst of an educative book) for personal gain.

The other is to see it as a necessary 'tax', without which this otherwise morally-enriching and popular text might have never seen daylight. Which is true?

I don't know. But the debate's resurfacing!

Conscience Clea(red)

On the 25th November, Starbucks unveiled its new campaign for the US and Canada. Really nice in connection with Christmas, right? Not so nice in connection with World Aids Day, which is what it's actually about. Ouch! I wonder if the copywriter's gonna be a little (red) faced over this? A whiff of client writing, I reckon...

(red) is something of a success story right now, between catching the wave of philanthro-branding (alongside Fairtrade), and being very careful in its associations (phones, The Gap, the right sort of celebs). This campaign, unfortunate strapline aside, will almost certainly be a moderate success: the facebook event for this 1st December promotion currently has 531,000 attendees.

Looking closer, some of those have only joined to use the group as a forum for their grievances:

"...maybe I'd reconsider if they didn't support authoritarian regimes, if their coffee was fair trade certified, or if they didn't practice semi-legal union-busting techniques"

Quite, Stacy. Whatever Starbucks' practices may or may not be (and I'm certainly not qualified to know), lots of people still have an anti-capitalist attitude towards them - and against that, what this promotion amounts to is a 5 cents donation towards AIDS charities, for each cup of coffee.

Isn't that about... 3p? Thruppence on a £2 coffee? And beyond that, there's the nature of (red) to consider. From joinred.com:

"(RED) is not a charity. It's a business model designed to create awareness and a sustainable flow of money from the private sector into the Global Fund, to help eliminate AIDS in Africa. Consumers buy (PRODUCT) RED, and at no cost to them, money is sent directly to the Global Fund."

(red) isn't a charity. But neither is Starbucks! And the people that buy this won't, in a personal sense, be 'giving' much to charity. What they will be doing is expressing a notional support for the idea, like we all do with badges, or T-shirts - and incidentally, you can bet that the cups this coffee comes in are branded to bits.

So perhaps Starbucks are doing the right thing here? They're a business. They've partnered with a business. Both are experts on branding, image and aspiration. Your purchase will perform the function of showing you in a certain light, without too much of the markup associated with a significant charity donation. If people actually want to give any real money I guess they'll just go and do it.

Right?

thanks, http://forums.somethingawful.com people. I love you.

Append: Stacy writes back to say that 'anti-capitalist' is something of a slur and certainly, I can understand it might touch a nerve in America! Lets pretend I'm a better writer and that I actually put 'responsible-consumerist' instead :)

That Gross Oversimplification

Man, that is some Web 3.1-level satire right there.

But seriously, does this signal the end of the 'everything shop'? And should we be glad of that?