Today's practice of brand placement and the industry behind it

This article presents a content analysis of brand placement on Dutch television, followed
by 24 interviews with the parties involved. By combining a content analysis and a
practitioners’ perspective, this article offers unique insights into the increasingly popular
phenomenon of integrating advertising into television content. Analysis of one week’s
television programming showed that programmes with brand placement are growing
into a significant part of Dutch television. A fifth of these sponsored programmes can be
classified as brand-integrated programmes in which brands are an intrinsic part of the programme.
The practitioner interviews showed that these brand-integrated programmes
were considered as the future of advertising. Moreover, the interviews gave insights into
the mutual relationships between the different parties, showing that practitioners use the
law restrictions to estimate the acceptance levels of the audience with respect to television
sponsoring.