STUDYING MOVIEGOERS BELIEFS TOWARDS PRODUCT PLACEMENT IN HINDI MOVIES

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1 STUDYING MOVIEGOERS BELIEFS TOWARDS PRODUCT PLACEMENT IN HINDI MOVIES Prof. CHIRAG R. PATEL 1 Dr PANKAJRAY PATEL 2 1 Assistant Professor, Department of Business Management, S.P. College of Engineering, Visnagar, Gujarat, India. 2 Director, Gujarat Technological University, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India. ABSTARCT Product or brand placement is a form of advertising in which brand name products, packages, signs and corporate names are intentionally positioned in motion pictures and television programs. This paper examines beliefs towards product placements in Bollywood Hindi movies in India. Researchers also tried to put light on demographic differences in beliefs for product placement in movies. In this research, researchers aim to study the beliefs in terms of Attentiveness, Informative, Relevance, Credibility, Interest, and Likeability of audiences towards product placement in movies. The study comprises samples of 300 moviegoers who watch Hindi movies frequently. Data has been collected by the use of questionnaire. This research paper has implications for academicians who want to conduct further research in this area. Findings suggest that overall audience have positive beliefs towards concept of product placement in Hindi movies. Further it reveals that there are gender wise and educational background wise significant differences for beliefs towards product placement in movies. While there are no significant differences found among various age group. For various occupations, no significant differences found for Attentiveness, Informative and relevance of product placement in movies. Keywords: Product Placement, Hindi Movies, Beliefs INTRODUCTION In the present times, there is a multiplicity of channels from which consumers can and are receiving messages. Selectivity of media and globalization of media content have resulted in tremendous audience fragmentation. Due to technological advances, consumers get their information about products not only from traditional advertising methods, but through word of mouth, their own researches, and their individual past experience, all of which are widely available to them. One of the communication channels which marketers have exploited more frequently in recent years is the practice of Product Placement. This phenomenon caused companies to look for alternative methods to capture consumer's attention, because they didn't know what was said and how it was heard. New forms of consumer communication steadily developed and improved all around the world, as traditional forms of advertising supposedly lost efficiency. Product placement was one of the various alternative strategies that marketing professionals looked at to reach customers. (Russell & Stem, 2006) LITERATURE REVIEW Product placement is defined as purposeful incorporation of a brand into an entertainment vehicle (Belch & Russell, 2005). Karrh (1998) defined product placement as compensated inclusion of branded products or brand identifiers, through audio and/or visual means, within mass media programming icmrrjournal@gmail.com

2 The practice of product placement practice has been noted across various media. The practice was found prominent in TV shows (Avery & Ferraro, 2000: Russell. 2002), movies (Gould, Gupta, & Grabner- Krauter, 2000; Delorme & Reid, 1999), radio shows (Freidman, 1985), music videos (Chang, 2003), computer & video games (Nelson, 2002) and magazines (Fine, 2004). Further, wide use of brand names to create humor in popular writing such as novels, plays, songs, and mass circulation newspapers and magazines have been documented by Freidman (1991). Placement characteristics like placement commerciality, modality and prominence, have a strong impact on audience reactions to product placement. Audience characteristics, such as attitudes and beliefs about brand placement, advertising, and media, also play a major role in shaping audience reactions to brand placement. Placement memory also increased when multiple brand placement formats, such as articles, advertorials, and coupons, were combined or when placement formats were more editorial than commercial (Cameron and Curtin, 1995; Kim et al., 2002; Lord and Putrevu, 1998; Singh, Balasubramanian, and Chakraborty, 2000). Product placement evaluations were not affected by audience age or sex (Nelson and McLeod, 2005; Ong, 2004). Audience evaluations of advertising in general and of the specific medium vehicle in which the brand was placed were positively related to brand placement evaluations (Gupta, Balasubramanian, and Klassen, 2000). It was also found that attitudes toward advertising moderated the effects of beliefs toward brand placement. The effects of involvement with the medium vehicle in which brands were placed were mainly positive (Nicovich, 2005), showed positive effects of involvement on beliefs about placements in games (Lord and Putrevu, 1998) and showed that involvement resulted in more positive beliefs toward advertorials in newspapers but only when viewers were intrinsically involved and not when involvement was manipulated in the study. Above studies were focused more on other aspects than beliefs. So far no studies have tried to purely focus on audiences beliefs towards Product placements in Hindi movies. So in this paper researchers have tried to check weather demographic differences exist in audiences beliefs towards product placement in Hindi movies. DEVELOPMENT OF HYPOTHESIS This study is designed to provide understanding of audiences beliefs towards product placements in Hindi movies. Further researchers have also put light on demographic differences for beliefs. Beliefs were measured on six parameters like attentiveness, informative, relevance, credibility, interest, and likeability. Such understanding is important for public relations practitioners while counselling clients about strategic brand placements in movies and when they consider placement decisions within strategic public relations program planning. The hypotheses were developed as follows. H1: There is no significant difference for mean beliefs towards product placement and gender of H2: There is no significant difference for mean beliefs towards product placement and Age group of H3: There is no significant difference for mean beliefs towards product placement and education of 25 icmrrjournal@gmail.com

3 H4: There is no significant difference for mean beliefs towards product placement and occupation of (Beliefs were measured on Attentiveness, Informative, Relevance, Credibility, Interest, and Likeability) RESEARCH METHODOLOGY To test above mentioned hypothesis, exploratory research was conducted. Three hundred and ninety seven people were contacted through convenient sampling method to generate a representative sample of three hundred. Researchers have ensured that these are regular moviegoers. Questionnaires were distributed among the and later after filling it up they were returned to researcher. Beliefs towards product placements were captured on six parameters (Attentiveness, Informative, Relevance, Credibility, Interest, and Likeability) using 5 point semantic differential scale from High to low. Data analysis was performed using SPSS. To test the hypotheses, ANOVA tests and t-tests were performed with the mean belief on six parameters as the dependent variable. ANALYSIS AND RESULTS Respondents have given their responses on semantic differential scale and mean values were obtained from the data are given in following Table-1. Table-1 Mean Beliefs towards Product Placement in Movies Attentiveness 3.18 Informativeness 3.05 Relevance 2.72 Credibility 2.90 Interest 3.16 Likeability 3.24 Total no of responses = 300 In order to test above mentioned hypothesis T-tests and one way ANOVA was conducted with the help of SPSS software. Results obtained are discussed in this section In order to check gender wise differences, independent samples T test was conducted. As shown in Table-1, results of T test shows that difference exits between male and female for almost all the parameters except credibility. Table -2 Gender with mean Beliefs of product placement shown in movie Beliefs Attentive Informativ e Relevant Credible Hypotheses for mean attentiveness of the product placement for mean informativeness of the product placement for mean relevance of the product placement for mean credibility of the product placement Significa nt value Result 0.003* Rejected 0.003* Rejected 0.000* Rejected 0.772* Accepted 26 icmrrjournal@gmail.com

4 Interesting for mean interest of the product placement Likeable for mean likeability of the product placement 0.000* Rejected 0.000* Rejected Further to check age group wise, education wise and occupation wise differences in mean beliefs, one way ANOVA test was performed on data. Table -3 ANOVA Beliefs Vs Age Group Parameters Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig. Result Attentive Between Groups Accepted* Within Groups Total Informative Between Groups Accepted* Within Groups Total Relevant Between Groups Accepted* Within Groups Total Credible Between Groups Accepted* Within Groups Total Interesting Between Groups Accepted* Within Groups Total Relevance Between Groups Accepted* Within Groups Total icmrrjournal@gmail.com

5 Table-3 shows that there are no any significant differences for mean beliefs among various age groups. Table -4 ANOVA Mean Beliefs Vs Occupation Parameters Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig. Result Attentive Between Groups Accepted* Within Groups Total Informative Between Groups Accepted* Within Groups Total Relevant Between Groups Accepted* Within Groups Total Credible Between Groups Rejected* Within Groups Total Interesting Between Groups Rejected* Within Groups Total Likable Between Groups Rejected* Within Groups Total Table-4 shows that there are no any significant differences for attentiveness, informative and relevance while significant differences exists for credibility, interest and likeability towards product placements in Hindi movies. Table -5 ANOVA Mean Beliefs Vs Education Parameters Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig. Result Attentive Between Groups Rejected* Within Groups Total Informative Between Groups Rejected* Within Groups Total icmrrjournal@gmail.com

6 Relevant Between Groups Rejected* Within Groups Total Credible Between Groups Rejected* Within Groups Total Interesting Between Groups Rejected* Within Groups Total Likable Between Groups Rejected* Within Groups Total Table-5 reveals that a significant difference exists for mean beliefs on all parameters among people having different educational background. Overall we can say that demographic differences for beliefs towards product placement are significant strongly for age groups, moderate for occupation and non significant for gender and educational groups. DISCUSSION The goal of this study was to examine audiences beliefs towards product placement concept in Hindi movies which might be considered by practitioners during strategic decision making and which have been little researched. Results suggested that demographic differences for beliefs towards product placement are significant on all parameters for age groups, some parameters for occupation and non significant for gender and educational groups. Finally, Research presented here could be improved in several respects. First, the attitude of audiences was not examined. The specific mood states induced by different movie genres need further investigation. Second, movie involvement and interest are other important variables, and these were not studied. The degree of viewer involvement with, a movie and product can be important factors in shaping beliefs towards product placement concept. REFERENCES 1. Avery, Rosemary J., & Rosellina Ferraro (2000). Verisimiltude or Advertising? Brand Appearances on Prime-Time Television. Journal of Consumer Affairs, 34(2). 2. Belch, M. & Russell, C. A. (2005). A Managerial Investigation into the Product Placement Industry. Journal of Advertising Research, 45(1), Cameron, G.T., and Curtin, P.A., Tracing sources of information pollution: A survey and experimental test of print media s labelling policy for feature advertising. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly 72 (Spring), Chang, S. (2003). Product placement deals thrive m music videos. Billboard, 115(48) icmrrjournal@gmail.com

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