In a fascinating talk Levern Engel, director of productions at FOX Networks Group Africa, insightfully explained how product placement on television is incredibly valuable but how Africa's television industry has not yet nearly realised its full potential with this ad-hopping panacea.
Levern Engel urged South Africa and Africa's TV industry, ad buyers and ad agencies to wake up to the broader and bigger possibilities of the fast-growing phenomenon of TV product placement and said that the African continent's TV and advertising biz needs to invest in the effort and expertise to do integrated product placement on television in much smarter ways.
The experienced producer Levern Engel heads up FOX Africa's brand-new production unit, FOX Networks Group Original Productions Africa.
On Wednesday in Johannesburg at FOX Networks Group Africa's FOX Upfront 2017, she wowed the crowd when she addressed advertisers and ad buyers, the press and TV executives from the stage in her incredibly illuminating speech.
In a smart speech worthy of being a TEDx Talk for Television - if TEDx ever were to create a subset platform for eloquent thinkers discussing and unpacking TV's most pressing issues - Levern Engel told attendees that "I want you to imagine".
"I want you to imagine what the possibilities could be on the content production side moving forward. I want us to imagine not what the trends are now, but what the new trends are that we can create in TV content."
Levern Engel said she wanted to use the opportunity to "engage on the issue of how do production industries and media partners work with brands and their agencies, and what opportunities exist that we haven't explored in the way that we could have possibly explored."
"Every piece of content is a business. That's why people now have their own YouTube channels. They're basically creating content, sitting at home. People blogging are making money."
"I envy some of those paychecks I hear bloggers are earning every month. Every piece of content - whether it is digital, print, television, music movies - is a business."
"And creatives only really have two currencies that they can engage with: The first is their time, and the second is their talent. And somewhere along the line - but I think that is changing now - people felt that they shouldn't have to pay for creatives' time," said Levern Engel.
"It was essentially like saying to a baker, 'I want your bread, but I won't pay for it'. I think you know what he's going to say."
"Content is critical to FOX - it's key to our business," she said.
"If we don't have content, we don't have channels - it's that simple. You want to put up a blank screen, that's fine, but I don't think anybody's going to watch it. Advertisers are not going to pay for that."
"So content is critical to FOX's existence. The day FOX said start this business [FNG Original Productions Africa], they said: 'What would be your plan?' I couldn't turn around and say 'Actually I'm not so good with the business stuff, I'm more a creative."
"I think every creative entity needs to understand the business side of business because that's what you're really hired to do even if you have your own entity."
Product placement incredibly valuable - but do it right
"So generally how does content gets financed? I think everybody knows this, I'm not going to teach anyone in the room, right? But I do want to focus on this issue of product placement because I think we haven't mined it in the way that we possibly can."
"Product placement is an incredibly valuable vehicle but you've got to do it right. You've got to do it right," said Levern Engel.
"There were a lot of articles over the past couple of years - even though I was sitting outside of South Africa I was still obviously following a lot of stuff."
"I know Thinus for example, you spoke about the fact that the product placement in the soaps 'is still so obvious guys, you're killing us and you're offending our audience".
"In Empire we've done it. So we've done it on FOX but it was a very classy, very sexy piece of product placement because it was built into the story," said Levern Engel. who then showed this clip:
"So lets imagine something. Let's imagine you have a scene which is set in a hotel lobby. It's a series about a hotel. You have a guest that you have booked in. What is he wearing?"
"Is he wearing a branded cap? A polo shirt. He's in a hurry so he looks at his watch. He takes out his wallet. He opens it up and pays with his Visa."
"We've used 5 brands in the space of one minute of screen time," said Levern Engel, "and that's when you do product placement properly."
"When we sit and we create, we have to say, 'What brands are out there?' And then for every scene that we write, we have to ask what are the opportunities, so that it doesn't feel like it's being forced down viewers' throats".
"The reality is that we live in a world of logos and brands. That's the reality. And when you do product placement, it reflects a reality."
"If we didn't have those brands in there, it would feel like an isolated, separate universe. It doesn't feel connected to the viewer's reality. So product placement is an ideal space for us to start playing."
"Predominantly we have international brands, and that's what enjoys the most engagement with consumers. However, with the economic downturn, African brands have lost equity in the market," said Levern Engel.
"Part of making content is not about creative at all. It actually sits in the realm of trade and investment. You are trading and investing, and there are many partners [in the value chain] that are doing that."
"This is an ideal opportunity for African brands to start regaining ground on their home soil."
