Scary Movies More Effective For Product Placement?

Brands spend over $8 billion annually on integrations in film. Still, relatively little is known about the conditions which make a product placement most effective. Heck, sometimes it seems pretty difficult to predict the success of movies on the whole, much less a brand placement within the movie.

A new study though, entitled "The Impact of Fear on Emotional Brand Attachment", (via Businessweek) may shed some light on the optimal situation for marketers to execute product placements. The study from the Journal of Consumer Research finds product placement may work best when consumers are a) scared and b) alone. The results showed that when those studied felt fear, they experienced an increased emotional attachment to the brands that had been with them.

The study, which you can read in full here, was headed up by Lea Dunn, assistant professor of marketing at the Michael G. Foster School of Business, University of Washington, Seattle, and JoAndrea Hoegg, assistant professor of marketing at the Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia, BC.