Deep Soap: This Column Was Brought To You By Pepto Bismol

By Sara A. Bibel
Fancast.com

Worst. Product.Placement.Ever.Period.

As soaps desperately search for ways to become profitable, they’re turning to product placement. I’m not going to condemn this trend. If putting some Florida Orange Juice on a breakfast table can help a show’s bottom line, then so be it. I’ll accept being pulled out of a scene for a moment by a brand reference if that’s what it takes to keep a show going. After all, product placement has been a part of the genre since soaps were fifteen minute long radio serials. (It was arguably worse in the “good old days.” Some soaps sold branded products a la ABC’s former “Shop the Soaps” line. Without visuals the characters had to describe the cheap jewelry.) Blatant product integration is an accepted part of reality shows. Movies are full of lingering shots of branded products. With lots of viewers routinely fast-forwarding through commercials via Tivo, advertisers are determined to get their products seen. Audiences have become more tolerant of the concept.

However, last Friday’s episode of Days of Our Lives took it a little too far. It started off with a plug for NBC’s Ms. Universe pageant: Chelsea (Rachel Melvin) and Morgan (Kristen Renton) talk to their sorority rep about a charity walk: Chelsea says, “Second Sunday in July. We can walk all day and watch the Ms. Universe pageant at night!” Setting aside the unlikelihood of a college student being so into Ms. Universe that she knows when it’s airing weeks in advance, I can live with this one. NBC wants to promote the pageant to women. DOOL is an easy way to do it.

Later, however, things veered into a blatant, embarrassing commercial. Morgan announces to Chelsea and Stephanie (Shelly Henning) that she has cramps. Stephanie responds by handing her a bottle of Midol.

Morgan: My Mom uses this!.

Chelsea: You don’t? You should. It really works. It says on the box that it takes care of cramps, fatigue and backache.

Morgan sees her nemesis, Chloe.

Morgan: I cannot believe that harlot is here.

Chelsea: Harlot?

Morgan: It’s a Southern thing. Now I’ve a headache too.

Stephanie: Well, it’s a good thing you’re going to take Midol. Because it will make that headache disappear.

Chelsea: It’s the miracle drug!

All three actresses deserve kudos for managing to get through that with more or less straight faces. There should be an Emmy category next year for “Best Performance of Promotional Dialogue.”

As a viewer, I was dumbfounded. It almost seemed like a parody that would appear on Saturday Night Live or The Simpsons. I want to know about every aspect of the lives of the characters that I watch – except for their bodily functions.

This isn’t NBC’s first “feminine product” related promotion. Last year’s NBC on-line soap Coastal Dreams was sponsored by Stayfree. The show handled it well by having a character design jewelry with the company’s butterfly logo.

I’m sure NBC asked DOOL to make a detailed plug for Midol and they did the best they could. I think that it would have been funny to do it as a scene where amnesiac John found a box at the DiMera mansion and mad scientist Rolf had to explain what it was. However, I doubt the company would have found that a satisfactory use of their product.

When I worked for The Young & The Restless, we had to make a reference to OnStar. Maybe we could have done something that was actually interesting and organic – like having characters that were in a car accident use the system to call for help. But we didn’t have any car crashes happening during the allotted timeframe. The resulting scene of John and Gloria talking about the glories of OnStar wasn’t our finest moment.

Writers generally hate product placement, for obvious reasons. But it isn’t going anywhere. My humble suggestion is that, since it’s inevitable, daytime do its best to make creative use of product placement. Some classic TV episodes have featured references to brand names - Seinfeld’s Junior Mints, Sex & The City’s Rabbit (hey, SoapNet’s advertising a similar product in its late night airings). The Kodak Carousel advertising pitch on Mad Men is, IMHO, one of the most brilliant scenes in television history.

As far as I know, none of these references were product placement deals. They were all stories the shows’ writers wanted to tell. But daytime writers are accustomed to turning rotten lemons into delicious lemonade. They are capable of making network-required shilling entertaining. So I’m looking forward to seeing General Hospital’s hit man Jason Morgan recite a haiku about his Smith & Wesson.

Technical Difficulties
Only a portion of my pre-Emmy column posted. It’s old news now, but I apologize. I’ve been having massive computer problems. I have finally purchased a much-needed new laptop that should prevent anything like that from happening again. It’s fabulous. Since I don’t have a product placement deal, I’m not going to tell you the brand
Ask the (Currently Unemployed) Soap Writer

MarkH: You gave a recent TERRIFIC interview to Toups over at Soap Opera Network. In that you said:

“Story plans change for all sorts of reasons, both from external suggestions and stories simply evolving from their original design. With that caveat…”, and you go on to list “Originally, Victor’s epilepsy was going to be a much more complicated story. It was going to propel Victor back towards Ashley and Nikki towards Jack. I think that would have been interesting….

What I want to know is what changed, and why?… What I am still trying to figure out is whether Lynn Latham was undermined.

That’s a really good question. I honestly have no idea why things changed. As a low level writer, I wasn’t always privy to what went on up the food chain. I think that it would be virtually impossible to undermine someone who is both the head writer and the executive producer and has the support of the network.