Product Placement

A few months ago I was watching Coronation Street when Ofcom (Britain's communication broadcast regulator) said that product placement has now been given the green light in the UK to place products in popular TV programming. Product placement can be anything from a subtle bottle of Fairy Liquid on the side of Deirdre Barlow's kitchen top and Ronnie Mitchell mentioning a Rolls Royce, to a brief review of a Rustlers Microwavable Burger by David Plat.

They told the audience at home that they would be responsibly informed of this by the display of this symbol (at the beginning, ad breaks and the end) if a program had done this.

http://consumers.ofcom.org.uk/2011/02/product-placement-on-tv/ 

Products that are placed have to be relevant to the programming (for instance advertising Heinz beans during Ground-Force wouldn't be permitted). 

People in the public eye are considered Icons and the spokespeople of today and therefore, if a person is using a certain brand then people will be influenced by this. Examples are:

1. Cheryl Cole walks out onto the x factor stage wearing the latest Vivian Westwood dress. Consumers that see this now think it is the new fashion must have.
2. Hayley Cropper is working hard scrubbing the Cropper sandwich shop counters with the new Mr Muscle formula. Maybe this will boost sales of the certain product playing on the stereotypical housewife consumers?

The first product placement in the UK was this:

There a strict guidelines on what is deemed acceptable to be advertised on UK TV by Ofcom. And therefore these products:
Alcohol
Baby Formula Milk
Weapons
Gambling
Medicine
Unhealthy