Product Placement in Japan - A focus on the animation industry

Abstract

Product placement has now become an important emerging area of marketing and advertising communications. This study examines the situation of product placement in Japanese media, with a focus on the animation industry. Japanese 'anime' has often been described as 'not suitable' for product placements. A field experiment study has been conducted in order to verify if this is true or not. Following existing studies on brand recognition/recall after exposure to product placement, an audience was exposed to anime with placements of 'spoof brands', measuring brand recognition.