Ludicrous Number of Product Placement Plugs on Leno Show

Published on October 2nd, 2009

This is an example from ONE SHOW. Unwatchable.

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# 1 RTaylor said, on October 2nd, 2009 at 10:14 am

John you’re just jealous. Think of all those big checks rolling in. Two years of this and you could buy a vineyard and retire.

# 2 Mr. Glum said, on October 2nd, 2009 at 10:20 am

I can’t watch it. No link.

# 3 Improbus said, on October 2nd, 2009 at 10:22 am

My decision to get rid of cable tv was the right one. If I can’t stream it or download it I don’t need to watch it.

# 4 pedro said, on October 2nd, 2009 at 10:28 am

Better product placement scheme since the price is right

# 5 GigG said, on October 2nd, 2009 at 10:39 am

I don’t think all of those are product placements but so the hell what if they are?

As more people zap through commercials with TiVo and download commercial edited out versions they are left with few options.

1. Charge the viewer directly.
2. Make cheap reality shows.
3. Product placement.

# 6 ECA said, on October 2nd, 2009 at 10:43 am

PRIME TIME is more expensive then LATE NIGHT..
we are talking 4-10 times as much in the time slot.

# 7 Paul said, on October 2nd, 2009 at 10:47 am

For some reason this doesn’t grate on me as much as much as it does in Heroes. (I don’t know why I keep giving that show a chance.) This season the product placement is so blatant and corny.

# 8 Benjamin said, on October 2nd, 2009 at 10:56 am

#4 Just got into Heroes when I saw season one in the discount bin at the used DVD place. I don’t watch regular TV. Never really notice product placement, except with Hiro insisted on a certain model of car.

I don’t think the Wendy’s bit was flattering to Wendy’s so that should count as product placement.

# 9 Radiotube said, on October 2nd, 2009 at 10:59 am

Jay’s niche in comedy is to tug at the American cultural icons, which is why he brings up things people are familiar with in their daily lives. I don’t think it is intentionally done except maybe that Bing BS he did… that has Microsoft money all over it. (did you notice the Google search window in the browser when he was doing that bit? LOL!

# 10 The0ne said, on October 2nd, 2009 at 11:15 am

He’s always does this like #9 said. I don’t see anything wrong here, not to the extreme to consider “news.”

# 11 MikeN said, on October 2nd, 2009 at 11:17 am

Expect more of this with people using bittorrent and other illegal downloads. Movies are going to decline even more when people think the product should be free.

# 12 Chris said, on October 2nd, 2009 at 11:29 am

So any mention of a product, restaurant, etc. is a “plug”? Weak John.

# 13 Carcarius said, on October 2nd, 2009 at 11:30 am

Leno will be off the air by the end of the year. I was never a fan of his, but regardless of my lack of interest to catch even one of his shows I will not watch it simply because he stole ideas from Top Gear with the celebrity lap times. Pathetic.

Leno was on Top Gear last year and possibly asked to use their idea in exchange for allowing them in his car garage.

# 14 SimonSezz said, on October 2nd, 2009 at 11:42 am

Yes it is product placement… if the company’s intention is to have Leno ridicule the product! It’s so easy to make a video take things out of context by just cutting the words you want no one to hear.

# 15 Mister Ed said, on October 2nd, 2009 at 12:25 pm

Isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black?

# 16 David said, on October 2nd, 2009 at 12:28 pm

Aside from the Bing promo, most of these jokes don’t seem very flattering. Are you sure they’re paying for this kind of mockery?

# 17 James said, on October 2nd, 2009 at 12:53 pm

Big brands are part of our culture. If you want to hear sneaky, paid (I’m convinced) product placement then listen to Leo Laporte.

# 18 sargasso said, on October 2nd, 2009 at 12:55 pm

#1. Owning a vineyard, isn’t retirement.

# 19 chuck said, on October 2nd, 2009 at 1:22 pm

Ridiculous product placement, and it’s not funny.

# 20 audion said, on October 2nd, 2009 at 1:23 pm

#1 wins, I think.

# 21 Jägermeister said, on October 2nd, 2009 at 1:54 pm

#20 – audion

Agreed. #1 FTW.

# 22 GF said, on October 2nd, 2009 at 2:09 pm

Yep, if a product is mentioned by name or you can see it’s trademarked label or profile it’s product placement. You can bet Leno would never have done the Wendy’s bit w/o approval from a bunch of lawyers from both NBC and Wendy’s signing off.

# 23 Hugh Ripper said, on October 2nd, 2009 at 3:26 pm

Is all this product placement necessary to make up the shortfall of revenue due to ad skipping and TIVO etc, or is it extra revenue on top of that? Lots of people, mostly older folks, will watch the ads because they like to.

# 24 d43pan said, on October 2nd, 2009 at 4:08 pm

Bill Hicks on Jay Leno…

# 25 jbellies said, on October 2nd, 2009 at 4:20 pm

Click and see
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For an Igemmy.

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(apologies to the Firesign Theatre)

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# 26 zeph said, on October 2nd, 2009 at 5:36 pm

…someone watches Leno?

# 27 Animby said, on October 2nd, 2009 at 6:03 pm

Funny you should bring this up. I was watching the tv series Psych and noticed Microsoft has modified the computers on the show to have a big glowing Windows logo. Then, of course, in the credits you see a “promotional consideration” announcement.

I’m not sure what bugs me more: product placement or product obfuscation. You know, when six people are sitting around a table and, somehow, you can’t see the label on any of their drinks!

Somebody ought to invent a line of fake beer, soft drinks, laundry powder, etc. for use on TV shows. Sort of like in the 70s when there were all the cop and medical shows set in Los Angeles. You saw a lot of Mayfair Ambulances. I understand that was a real company but they weren’t responding to medical emergencies. They responded only to casting calls by renting a vehicle to TV shows in need of an ambulance.

As for Leno? He has always been unwatchable. Shill or not.

# 28 Cap'nKangaroo said, on October 2nd, 2009 at 7:19 pm

Worst piece of product placement I saw was on a CW sitcom where a character spoke the entire voice-over for a women’s deodorant commercial. I thought it was just bad writing until I later saw the actual ad. It was then blatantly obvious the product bought the right to insert their ad directly into the storyline.

# 29 FRAGaLOT said, on October 2nd, 2009 at 9:51 pm

Letterman isn’t watchable. I swear the guy is getting too old and must be going senile. He will do a bit, or a gag, and do it repeatedly for a month, as if he forgot he’s been doing that stupid gag for more than a week.

For a whole month, if not longer, he kept doing this stupid gag where a phone would ring, he pulls it out from under his desk, answers it, and you’d hear what sounds like audio from a police scanner from somewhere in LA. He did this so much, a good month at least, so much that they repeated the same audio bits from 3 weeks ago. I was fed up after that,I just stopped recording his show and never looked back.

Leno, O’brien, and Fallon have always been much better to watch, even if some of their guests are dull. Yay for Fast Forward!

# 30 Carcarius said, on October 3rd, 2009 at 1:41 am

#26 – funny you should bring that up about the “promotional consideration” on the tv show Psych. Someone must have noticed that one of the characters used a Mac while the other character used an Alienware laptop. Naturally, non-geeks/non-techies may not realize that any PC will more than likely have Windows installed (especially Alienware since it is a hardcore gaming machine), but since Windows is software, it wouldn’t be identified as clearly as an Apple product on screen.

So they put that silly Windows logo on the laptop cover so people will identify a Microsoft product to counteract the Apple product displayed on the show. I wonder if this annoyed Alienware or if the Alienware product placement contract simply expired allowing MS to use this spot. Regardless, as a techie and geek I saw the Windows logo on the laptop and immediately recognized the tacky product placement by the show. Since when does ANY laptop prominently show the Windows logo on the back of the display cover?

MS has become incredibly insecure and has gone to some unnecessary lengths to keep up with Apple’s brand recognition.

# 31 See B.S. said, on October 3rd, 2009 at 5:39 am

Props to whomever watched this to pull it in the first place (though someone’s copyright is likely violated). Wonder if due to being posted here on DU that (edited) ep of Jay was seen more on the net than OTA …

# 32 deowll said, on October 3rd, 2009 at 5:45 am

I don’t care. I will merely observe that seeing any of them can get to be painful after too many views. Most are of course for things I won’t buy.

# 33 Likes2LOL's saturated eyeballs said, on October 3rd, 2009 at 10:41 pm

Leno is the total shill, but he’s under major pressure by NBC to generate revenue, so he’s not the one to blame for these placements. Especially annoying is the bald-faced admission of the “Earn Your Plug” segment. Ironically, the Bing segment was demo’ed on a Macintosh browser screen — I bet the M$ PR folks winced when they saw that.

Soon the sponsors’ ads will be displayed on the screen during the show in a way that we can’t possibly avoid. I wouldn’t be surprised if Leno’s desk started displaying ads on the front surface. (Is there an AdBlock Plus extension for TV?) Any form of subtlety is long gone.

I’ve come to re-appreciate newspapers because at least the embedded ads aren’t animated! Unfortunately, they won’t be around much longer.

# 34 Glenn E. said, on October 3rd, 2009 at 10:52 pm

I too loathed seeing Heroes being turned into a shill for Sprint. I don’t mean simply seeing a Sprint cellphone during the show. But they use to cover up all product names on Tv, decades ago. I mean the supplemental story line, that can only be seen via the Sprint website (or on their network?). I’m not going to lose any sleep, worrying about what I might be missing of Heroes, because I don’t have a Sprint account. I’m barely on board with this show, mostly out of curiosity. But if it ventures into multi-laned commercialized channels, forget it!

# 35 Glenn E. said, on October 3rd, 2009 at 11:07 pm

Speaking of Microsoft placements. Earlier this year, when I rented the movie “Day the Earth Stood Still” (2008). They had this “Microsoft Surface” tabletop in one scene. And one briefly saw the Windows XP logo in the center. Not I still think the “surface” technology is useless and has no real purpose. But this movie’s producers went out of their way to create a scene for a fictional Microsoft product. That’s not even (and may never be) available to today’s consumer market. So why even bother?!

I guess it’s like how they projected the existence of Pan Am, in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. When 2001 finally came (and went) Pan Am was out of business. And certainly never had commercial flights into space. So movies are shill for these companies to keep their stocks strong, not to sell products one can buy. Isn’t that a bit like Insider Trading, in some slick way?

# 36 Rick Cain said, on October 4th, 2009 at 4:11 am

If you want product placement, watch spanish language television like “Telemundo”.
There’s one show where the host actually gets the audience to sing the official tune of some Laundry Soap.

# 37 Zellers said, on October 16th, 2009 at 10:34 pm

Someone mentioned the Google search bar in the Bing segment…funnier is that the browser they show is Apple’s Safari.

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