How people react to product placement: A comparative study between normal product placement and non-ethical product placement.

Abstract: Product placement is more and more present in movies. Therefore, this paper is to research the reaction of French young people towards product placement, while differentiating “normal” product placement and non-ethical product placement, i.e. placement of computers, phones… against the placement of cigarettes or alcohol in movies.This paper brings answers to the questions about which feeling do young people have towards the two kinds of product placements, about how much they pay attention to non-ethical product placement and about their purchasing intention after seeing non-ethical product placement.In this document, we choose to follow a deductive approach and we use a quantitative research by sending a questionnaire.The conclusion of this thesis is that people have positive feelings towards “normal” product placement and negative feelings towards non-ethical product placement. Moreover, people do not pay attention to non-ethical product placement, while they like to see “normal” brands in movies. But they are concerned about the impact that non-ethical product placement could have on the youngest. Finally, product placement does influence the purchasing behaviour but not that much for cigarettes or alcohol since they do not really care about those placements in movies. Thought, the behaviour imitation effect and the stereotypes build by the movies could lead to the consumption of those products.