Artefact 1

For my first Artefact I decided to carry out a questionnaire for my research topic, product placement.

EVALUATION

For the first artifact a survey was the most suitable approach to start with.  I asked 13 different questions to expand my knowledge of people’s general perceptions of product placement. Fifty-three people took part and ages ranged from 16- 50.  The survey results are not conclusive in the fact that they do not reflect product placement in neither a positive or negative light. This is reflected in the question asked about if people find product placement deceptive. It had a balanced reception- mainly half of people find it deceptive the other half don’t.   

A very high proportion of people, over 90% who took the survey know what product placement is. Over 90% of people agreed/strongly agreed that TV adverts are annoying and that they skip advert breaks where possible, which is what I was expecting. However, people stated they bought more items over the last six months seeing it on a TV advert than in a film/TV program. Therefore it would seem sensible to conclude that yes people find TV advert breaks annoying however the traditional advertising method is still the most effective way of persuading people to buy products, not product placement.

This has led me onto my second artifact. I will be carrying out more research on the fact that people say they buy more products due to watching an advert not in a film/TV programme. It may be the fact they are subconsciously unaware that brands/products they see in a film/TV attracts them to buy products. And so it will be interesting to see how many people are aware product placement is occurring. Even though over 90% of people stated they know what product placement is, it doesn’t necessarily mean they are aware of it. For my second artifact I am going to test this out by forming a focus group to watch a clip with product placement in and see how many people notice it.

Being critical of myself I should have asked more people of different ages to fill out the survey because a high proportion of the participants were likely to be students since the survey was sent out though Facebook. This would have given me a better reflection of the public’s perceptions.