Coronation Street Advertising

763 Words2 Pages

Advertising
This essay seeks to show the ways advertisement has shaped television production. Using ITV’s ‘Coronation Street’ as a case study, I will explore how advertising may have shaped production through paid product placement. It is suggested that advertising has shaped production since the 1950’s, when the competition for advertising revenue began (Gorman & McLean, 2009). In recent times this is becoming increasingly prevalent as the increase in commercial TV channels funded by advertisers has resulted in a more competitive advertising market. Amanda D. Lotz (2007, p. 155), argues this has occurred because audiences of today are ‘empowered with control devices that enabled them to avoid commercial messages in a variety of ways’. Meaning …show more content…

A 2014, p. 187), through the change in guidelines ITV’s Coronation Street became the first UK primetime show to make a deal with product placement, with an estimated £330,000 a week deal with Nationwide banking to feature in ‘Dev’s shop’ via an ATM machine (Shaw. M 2013). A deal in 2015 was then signed with VISA to promote contactless payment within the programme. This could be seen as integration as the advertisement has become part of the narrative, and producers have specifically placed this within the script, we see characters make numerous contactless transactions throughout episodes. Within an episode. This is done discretely and is either seen in the background of a two shot of characters exchanging dialogue, or over the counter. In ‘The Bistro’, an exchange between Nick and Kevin occurs in a stream of single and two shots of the card machine being handed over and Kevin quickly holding his card over it, in detail a mid shot of Nick as he reaches for the card machine, then a 2 shot as they continue dialogue and Kevin pays, then a single of Kevin as the card machine is taken away and out of shot again. It is done smoothly and without fuss so it is barely noticeable and looks natural within the scene and flow of dialogue which agrees with Hackley who suggests placements are often designed so they are not …show more content…

We get an idea of how products work, so by representing a safe and accessible product audiences are likely to remember it. A study found 7% of audiences find the soap more enjoyable with product placement (ITV/Nielsen Corona&on St Study 2010). However, this can be seen to exploit the audience and play upon their naivety to digest the advertisement and react to it. ITV justify this by claiming ‘products are show cased within natural settings more relatable to viewers, providing inspiration, or in some cases, validation for purchase choices’ (ITV plc

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