Chevy and FOX Deceive Millions With Product Placement

Here is product placement going, if not over the edge, certainly right to it. Chevy is way behind GM in its use of the Internet and this stunt did nothing to advance its status. Adrants reports that during Tuesday night's Major League Baseball All-Star game, FOX announcers feigned innocence over a fan banner that read HHRYA.com. Turns out it was a paid placement for the new Chevy HHRYA car, and it sent people to a website that was reportedly swamped and overloaded for half an hour. The site is a asks people to upload pictures of themselves with the letters HHR somewhere in the photo.

Don't Treat Customers Like Morons
I don't mind product placements. People can ignore them or not. But I hate deception and I hate to see consumers treated like morons. I would much rather hear the announcers say "there's a banner that points to a website you might want to check out," then to pretend they don't know it's a promotion.

I bet just as many people would have gone to look at the site if they'd been upfront about it.

Does Chevy really want feedback like this, from UK's The Register "Fox deceives millions during national pastime."

Fox networks deceiving millions? I can't believe it! Not from the "fair & balanced" folks?!?!?!

On the other hand, isn't the whole point of product placement seemless integration between content (the ball game) and advertising (the silly sign)? The announcers may have done a rookie job, but it seems the ad was relatively effective (except for the fact that the servers couldn't handle the initial load of visits). I don't really see this as deception. Next time a Hollywood star raises a Coke in a movie should I assume that the star is a true Coke drinker or just chalk it up to deception? Or should the star break from character, read the "ad" into the camera then get back to his/her pesky acting job?

It seems to me that product placement is intended to blur the line between programming and advertising, and HHRYA did that - perhaps a bit too effectively.