By Cynthia Littleton
Backstage.com

Integrated advertising in television and films is the talk of the entertainment business these days.

But for advertisers, getting their brand into a blockbuster film or hit TV show is just the first step toward exploiting what can be a highly lucrative way of linking their brands with Hollywood, according to top producers and industry executives who took part Monday in a panel on integrated advertising sponsored by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences and The Hollywood Reporter.

Mark Burnett, executive producer of CBS' "Survivor" franchise, considered the benchmark for successful integrated advertising in a TV series, cited the advertising model established years ago by the guardians of the Olympics and its world-renowned logo of interlocking rings.

"You spend a dollar to get the rings, and then you spend three dollars to tell people you've got them," Burnett said.

Burnett and other panelists cited the association of Ray-Ban sunglasses with the "Men in Black" feature franchise and BMW's ties to the recent James Bond films as examples of expertly executed product placements that paid off abundantly. Panelist Mark Workman, CEO of First Fireworks Group and a 15-year veteran of the product placement business, called them examples of "magic moments" when the use of a brand dovetails perfectly with a film's story line in a way that makes consumers forever associate the brand with the film or its stars.

But not every film has to be a blockbuster to pay off in branding buzz, according to panelist Jeff Greenfield, vp sales at the advertising firm 1st Approach.

"It's not always about how much the gross is on the film or the ratings for the show," Greenfield said. "It's about what the client does with the fact that they're integrated into the show. They need to take it to the next level and utilize (the association with entertainment) as part of an overall campaign. People want their brands to be part of Hollywood."

As an example, panelists discussed the prominent placement of the Mini Cooper car in this year's remake of "The Italian Job." That feature isn't burning up the boxoffice charts, but it has helped generate significant attention for an old auto brand at a time when its manufacturer is relaunching it with a sizable marketing campaign.

In the television world, there's a sense of urgency surrounding the discussions of integrated advertising and product placement because the TV landscape has become so fragmented and niche-oriented with the explosive growth of cable and satellite channels, panelists agreed.

"What's good for consumers must be a nightmare for brands (trying to get advertising messages to consumers who have an average of 120 channels to chose from)," noted panel moderator Robert J. Dowling, editor-in-chief and publisher of the Reporter.

The success of product integration and placement in such series as "Survivor" and Fox's "American Idol" is forcing networks to reevaluate industry traditions governing how TV advertising time is bought and sold, panelists said.

Advertisers "want the integration (in a program) first, and then they'll support it with the ad spending, not necessarily the other way around," said David Lyle, FremantleMedia entertainment president. "Integration is the notion that's driving the bus."

Burnett concurred: "The mantra (for advertisers) is not just to buy spots. Everything has to come with added value."

Panelist H. Mitchell Kanner, partner in the startup Integrated Entertainment Partners, noted that advertisers are starting to view old-fashioned commercial buys as "stupid money" in an era of TiVo-like devices that allow viewers to bypass commercial breaks entirely.

Still, Kanner and other panelists agreed that advertisers should learn the basics of how the entertainment business works before diving into integrated placement deals.

For the most part, "advertisers are operating with no education and no information," Kanner said. Dowling noted that the long lead time between the launch of a consumer product and the development of a film will increasingly become a challenge for marketers and producers to overcome as the studios chase more integrated ad money at the outset of the development process.

Lyle added that it's incumbent on producers to be frank with their advertising partners.

"Part of the education has to be (the acknowledgment that) a lot of this stuff fails," Lyle said. "We can't guarantee some of the things that they can when they're just buying (traditional) ad time."

Monday's session, held at Barsac restaurant in North Hollywood, was part of ATAS' quarterly Media Think Tank series co-sponsored by The Reporter.