Safe Sex and Teen Pregnancy Score Some ‘Product Placement’ Spots on TV
LatestProduct placement on TV doesn’t always have to be that awkward moment, say, when a meth-addled character wakes up in the morning, putters into the kitchen, opens the pantry, grabs a box of Honey Smacks, holds it so that the viewing audience gets an obstructed view and announces, “Gotta have my Smack…s” [Laugh track]. TV spots from the Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, for example, can work contraception tutorials into the plotlines of network shows so that viewers realize that, in real life, a lot of people use condoms when they have sex because unfurling a prophylactic only ever poses a threat to the plot progression of a 22 minute sitcom.
According to NPR’s Neda Ulaby, the not-for-profit (and, bonus, non-partisan) Campaign works with Hollywood “gatekeepers” and writers to subtly and tastefully add messages about contraception and teen pregnancies into TV shows, much the same way that a for-profit company will pay serious money to have Dr. Temperance “Bones” Brennan comically knock over a femur to reach a can of Red Bull. Ulaby points to the some of the Campaign’s handiwork earlier this year on Fox’s Raising Hope, which had its main character catch a high school couple fumbling with each other’s underthings and delivered a awkward lecture about the dangers of teen pregnancy.