Product placement and music video: Analysis of most viewed music videos on YouTube (2011-2015)

Abstract

Product placement is known from its beginnings for being linked to the film productions and television formats. Later, it has been integrated into other audiovisual messages. Since the beginning of the Internet, product placement has found a new way to position itself, through the YouTube video platform, residing its success in its ubiquity. Since 2010, product placement in music videos has experienced a significant boom, acquiring differentiated characteristics. From 2011 to 2015, product placement in music videos has experienced a transition in which the positioning of the brands has acquired some differentiated features. In the present paper, the Product Placement is studied with a representative sample from the 50 most viewed videos on the YouTube platform, from 2011 to 2015. The analysis is done through different criteria such as the type of video clip, the location and the context of the brands or the kind of the brand, among others. The conclusions point to a decrease in the number of brands that bet on music videos, as well as a change in the type of music videos to those of a mixed nature. Another set of changes in how brands are inserted in music videos in these years are identified and discussed.