If you're watching your favorite television show, you may or may not notice certain brand name products throughout its viewing. Some of those products are labeled under "product placement", the strategic setting of brand name objects that are shown for a set cost.
In season five, episode No. 8 of The Big Bang Theory titled "The Isolation Permutation", this idea of product placement is seen at various points. Some instances were more obvious than others, while the products ranged in viewing time from a couple of seconds to a number of minutes.
Examples of Product Placement
One of the most common instances of product placement comes in the opening scene of the episode. During a 2-3 minute clip, Sheldon is shown wearing a Flash T-shirt a number of times on screen. This is promoting both The Flash (a fictional character appearing in the DC Comics series), as well as DC Comics itself. It is bright red and yellow, which drew a great amount of attention to it early. The next scene finds the group (Sheldon, Leonard, Howard and Rajesh) sitting at a lunch table in the cafeteria of the university that they're employed. Leonard approached the table lastly, and with his tray in hand, places it on the table. Whenever the camera focused on Leonard, a Sunkist orange soda can is shown at a visible distance. The logo of the brand was shown each time on the screen, showing the audience what the brand of soda actually was. There were also water bottles and juice bottles on the table, but no labels or brand names were shown on those. I believe that both the Sunkist soda can and Flash T-shirt are both examples of product placement.
The second-to-last scene opens with a gigantic lego spacecraft (roughly one and a half feet in height) that Sheldon is putting together at his apartment. There is no lego brand logo or any mention of "legos", however, the audience most likely knows what that product is. It was placed at such a high magnitude on the screen for a reason to suspect it is an example of product placement. Also during two of the final scenes, a Purell hand sanitizer station is shown in both clips of one of the biology labs. It isn't focused in on the screen and the brand name can be tough to read, however, I believe it is product placement because it is on the screen for a number of minutes and people can view it in the background. Neither the legos or Purell hand sanitizer are as obvious as the previous two examples, yet I believe both are considered product placement situations.
Not Examples of Product Placement
Leonard is shown playing a virtual video game in the living room of his apartment near the beginning of the show. When switching to the TV screen of the video game he is engaged in, an Xbox Connect system is seen, although very briefly, on top of the flat screen TV. This happens three times, although for about a second during each instance. It is very likely that those not looking for product placement wouldn't see the video game system on top of the TV. Therefore, I do not believe this is a subject of product placement.
Roughly halfway through the episode, a snack machine is visible in the cafeteria as the group is conversing. The audience can see various products (chips, candy, etc.) in the machine, however, it's not visible what the foods are. It is shown only a few times, and since none of the products are being singled out or presented clearly, I believe this falls short of product placement, too.
As mentioned earlier, water bottles, juice bottles and other drinks are shown throughout the episode. When the group was eating at Sheldon and Leonard's apartment, about six or eight drinks were seen on the coffee table (most of which were water). None of their brand names or labels were shown to the camera, and the only drink I could see a brand name for throughout the whole episode was the Sunkist soda can. Because of this, only the Sunkist soda can is an object of product placement.
I anticipated that many more products would be placed throughout a TV show to enhance their brands. I was expecting a few more than the four products I had labeled as product placement (Flash T-shirt, Sunkist soda can, legos and Purell sanitizer). However, in a 22-minute or so episode, I guess it's tough to incorporate many more with the limited amount of time.
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