Originally posted on 1 year 4 months. This blog is no longer being updated - you should come check out my new blog: Too Short To Be A Storm Trooper With more and more devices now making eBooks easier to get and better to read the eBook industry is surging ahead and with it there are completely new and innovative opportunities for publishers. Amazon is predicting that by the end of 2011 their eBook sales will out do their traditional soft and hardcovers.
One of the trends taking advantage of the technical possibilities of the format that I’ve yet to see fully realised is product placement within eBooks. Authors already make reference to certain brand names when describing them to the reader and being connected online opens up the potential for these references to be exploited (for want of a better term).
"Edward Cullen was leaning against the front door of the Volvo, three cars down from me, and staring intently in my direction." -Bella, Twilight, Chapter 2 ((found this image and quote at http://ingenueperspective.blogspot.com/2008/11/twilight-week-edward.html))
Imagine you’re reading a novel and the main character is driving a Volvo S60 R and within the text if you were to click on the name of the car it was a link to a website that promoted the S60 R. If this was a paid for product placement the publisher themselves might have a page set up showing photos and video of the car and links through to official Volvo sites. Take this even further since you’re probably reading the eBook on a mobile device that may have location capacity that link could take you to a region based service that shows you where to buy or test drive the car nearby.
So on the one hand (the pure hand) this could be a great enhancer to the experience, not sure what the main character’s jacket looks like then you just hover over the name of it for an image and where you can buy one too, maybe this would add to your understanding of the character and why they wear what they wear. If you are reading a book set in another country then geographic information could be presented to further envelop you in the story’s location, naturally there would be a link to book tickets to visit.
The other hand is of course the negative aspects of this. I’m sure there are more than a couple of you reading this who already consider this to be completely awful but trust me it can get worse!
Why does an author choose a specific brand when mentioning it within a story? I would imagine (hopefully) that it is to cement their story in the real world and to create an impression about that character. The car I mentioned above is actually the car that Edward Cullen drives in Twilight, I suspect it says something about his character especially if you know anything about cars (which I don’t). Certainly comparing it to Bella’s 1953 Chevrolet Pick-Up Truck (everyone relax, I had to look both of those up!) says something about their different worlds.
But what if the author was being paid to say it was a Volvo, would it change how you feel about the choice? Worse still say the publisher was being paid and pushed it on to the author? It happens in movies all the time, look at Point Break for a Corona advertisement or Back to the Future for a Pepsi. I don’t think that either film suffers for the product placement but then we can’t click on the Corona or Pepsi for more content, yet.
It’s a double edged sword and one that will be upon us soon if it isn’t already happening, I admit that I’ve yet to embrace the fiction world of eBooks and haven’t noticed it in the non-fiction books I have on my iPad.
So how do you guys feel about the potential here?
They did it with Nissan in Heroes, very very on purpose.
As for product placement in e-books..I think I’d constantly be opening screens that I didn’t want to open and it would keep me cursing out loud instead of enjoying a book. And making an on/off switch for it would just lead me to switch it off permanently.
The linksystem reminds me a bit of wikipedia where you can sometimes click on every other word to go to a page specifically about that clicked word.
Any positive comment…hmm don’t know..maybe to keep the price down?
BMW did it really well with Jurassic Park, they supplied them with 4x4s that hadn’t even been released yet. But in saying that I don’t feel it was overly obvious (it may have even been a different car manufacturer to be honest which goes to show how well it works!!)
I actually didn’t consider the idea that the price could be subsidised by the product placement but I’m still more concerned about things being added to the actual story.
on an unrelated subject..your blog design falls offscreen here (using IE..I know..but it’s on the faculty). And unrelated to which browser..the titles have become a bit hard to read.
Could you send me a screen shot of what you mean “falling offscreen” and I’ve hopefully sorted the titles but I can’t test here because we’re now a Mac shop and they looked beautiful on the iMac
I despise nearly everything about eBooks. I think that the potential environmental benefits are far outweighed by the potential detriments of eBooks.
You should check out arkonbey´s last post… Animal Week 2011 2- The Zebra
I think we need to dig deeper into your hatred of eBooks, is it because they’ll replace books eventually? (I don’t think they will btw) Or do you just dislike them when reading them etc?
It’s just a very strong reaction to them!
you look fine here on firefox
This could be a minefield.
I hadn’t even considered product placement like they do in movies… Blech. I’d hate to see that. I want to read stories not thinly veiled advertisements.
In all honestly I doubt that I would click through anything in a fictional e-book. It is a very rare occasion that I look something up now that I didn’t know or hadn’t heard of and I’d imagine that it would interrupt the reading flow.
Non fiction however, whole different ball game. Reading a cookbook and come across an unfamiliar ingredient, click through and find out what it is and where to buy it. Brilliant. Reading a gardening book or a craft book of some description and come across a technique you aren’t familiar with -- click through and watch a tutorial. Would love that. Big, big potential methinks.
In text books, instead of a glossary at the back, click the word and have the glossary entry appear and links to other mentions or examples in the book or links to online supplements on the topic. Very handy.
I do have to wonder though how it would be received by consumers who are already so over-saturated by advertising in our daily lives anyhow. There would also have to be parental controls. Can you imagine if there were links in teenage fiction to particular websites or clothing brands or whatnot that conservative type parents disapproved of their kids seeing that couldn’t be turned off in an otherwise reasonably harmless book? I can see the potential for controversy.
You should check out Beet´s last post… Crickety crack goes her back…and ankles and knees and elbows and wrists and…
Minefield to say the very least!
The more I think about it the more problems I can imagine but then there are so many benefits in the area of textbooks etc.
I wonder if the concept of a textbook might one day be eliminated anyway with tablets becoming so popular.
Funny you should say that… I think they are certainly starting to be looked at as not necessarily necessary.
In some of the study I have been doing of late it seems to be more unusual to need a text book than it is to not need one. Many of my learning materials are emailed, downloaded or delivered via a data CD and the few text books I do need to buy practically all come with CD’s with digital versions or extra materials. I do still tend to prefer hard copies of things so I can highlight stuff or add in notes as I’m reading but I can certainly see the potential for being able to do just that on a tablet.
Makes all the study materials more portable too if you don’t have to lug huge texts everywhere with you!
You should check out Beet´s last post… Crickety crack goes her back…and ankles and knees and elbows and wrists and…
This is an interesting point and one that magazines should have to face before eBooks. You see, the Australian market is still in its infancy when it comes to apps and online mags. APC, Pacmags still haven’t realised this functionality would enhance their magazines two-fold and enable them to focus on content rather than product placement. Print media is far more open about their ‘not’ cash for comment model / editorial integrity and therefore this would be an even cheekier way of ensuring the ad guys get their dollars and the reader gets the story rather than a 100 page magazine containing 70 pages of adverts. That said, good adverts are worthwhile but those are so rare that it’s almost a art form in itself.
If you haven’t guessed, i am a traditionalist in that i like my books to come with dog-eared covers, hanging on the last vestige of page.
You should check out james´s last post… oh boy- here goes a leap of digital faith
This is food for thought isn’t it?
When I read the first part of your post, I had no problem with the idea of product placement, but you have raised an interesting point in regards to authors being paid or pressured into mentioning particular products. I wouldn’t want a story or character altered based on the money being paid to promote a particular product. But then, how would we know they had been altered? How would I know that Bob originally was a Jim Beam drinker, but due to product placement now drank Woodstock RTDs ?
You should check out Nikki AKA WiddleShamrock´s last post… In Limbo