Brand placement: New perspectives and a comprehensive definition

Brands are facing pressure as never before and the challenge of managing brand equity is getting progressively more intense. Environment and media factors such as increasing costs, competition and clutter are seen to increase brand pressure. In this context the need for a marketing communication tool such as brand placement has increased even more than before. Brand placement has evolved over the last decade and in this paper the need for a fresh definition of brand placement is discussed. Through a review of research, this article proposes a new contemporary and comprehensive definition of brand placement. Brand placement is a marketing communication tool with distinct values and is the paid inclusion of communicative identities via management of intensities in the creative content of any media, and is a strategic communication process managed by stakeholders for a desired outcome. Various aspects of the definition including new perspectives, two intensities ( silent visual placement and interactive inclusion), four super structures, outcomes, namely, brand recall and brand attitude, are discussed in addition to contextual issues such as clutter and celebrity association. This article will give academicians a new direction for research and will further the understanding of brand placement for practitioners.