Abstract:

Product placement or brand placement describes the integration of a product or a brand into a film, televised series, and other types of entertainment programming for promotional purposes. Product placement, as a variant of sponsorship, encompasses hybrid forms of promotion within mediated entertainment that share on main feature: the promotional intent is not made explicit but is ostensibly presented as a part of the dramatic entertainment. Little academic research to date has been conducted to study consumer attitude toward product placement in the form of webisode branded entertainment and their impact to advertisement attitude, brand image and purchase intention. This research used survey method to investigate the attitude antecedents that form brand attitude and purchase intention in an integrated marketing campaign that involves product placement (in form of webisode) and traditional advertising (in form of television advertisement). The research analyzed the primary data gathered using structural equation modeling (SEM) to investigate the relationships that may or may not happen from the proposed research model. The result of this research showsthat attitude towards product placement has the highest influence on brand attitude, while attitude towards character has very high influence on attitude towards advertisement. There is also a positive relationship found between attitude towards webisode and television advertisement, proving the impact of webisode in shaping consumer advertisement attitude in a digital and traditional media convergence.