ETHIQUE

6) Placement de produit et éthique
Many consumers and researchers consider product placements as excessive commercialization of the media and an intrusion into the life of the viewer. The viewer does not go to the movie or television to see the product placement. Rather, viewers often attend movies and television to escape the realities of life. As such, marketers must make the product placement look obvious at the point of emergence. Sometimes, the product or brand placement is weaved into the plot, like ET's Reese's Pieces with a 65% increase in sales due to this placement (Balasubramanian, Karrh, and Patwardhan, 2006). If the plot connection and the reflection of the user or character in the film are missing, the product placement often is futile.
Hence, relevance of the product to the situation needs to be created by possibly incorporating the placement planning at the script level. (Panda, 2004; Hackley, Tiwsakul, and Preuss, 2008; Kuhn, Hume, and Love, 2010)

Product placement caters to a captive audience even though the brands are shown in their natural environment. But, viewers generally tend to like product placements unless there are too many or they are invasively irritating. Product placements typically are seen as an acceptable practice, frank, amusing, pleasant, and dynamic. In general, viewers consider product placements to enhance realism, aid in character development, create historical subtext, and provide a sense of familiarity. However, if the audience realizes that the product placement was placed there, it may affect their judgment and they may counter argue the placed messages. (Panda, 2004; Hackley, Tiwsakul, and Preuss, 2008)
Still, some individuals feel that product placements are sinister and should be banned or at least clearly disclosed in the credits at the end of the program (The Economist, 2005). This is particularly true for implicit product placements that should be avoided since they are perceived as less ethical than the other types of product placements, particularly if they appear in an information/series television program. Also, consumers' ethical opinions about product placements differ significantly across product categories, with greater concern for ethically controversial products such as alcohol, cigarettes, and guns. (d'Astous and Sequin, 1999; Hackley, Tiwsakul, and Preuss, 2008)

Toys are likely products for product placement. But, the use of toy placements is very low, little better than chance. However, children's programming is highly regulated by the FCC and much product placement in children's shows is essentially banned. That is, a 2004 APA finding states that kids under 8 have difficulty distinguishing ad content from program content.
However, the Children's Advertising Review Unit makes voluntary rules regarding advertising to children, and companies typically honor these rules. While some companies have product placement strategies or policies, television generally offers few venues for kids and toy product placements. As an interesting research note, 3-5 year olds were asked to sample identical fast food. One bag had a McDonald's golden arches logo while the other bag was unmarked. With exactly the same food and only a different bag, children preferred the branded version. Even young kids are swayed by advertising and brand placements. (BusinessWire, 2007; Auty and Lewis, 2004; Edwards, 2006; Hudson, Hudson, and Peloza, 2007).
Newspapers also are under ethical scrutiny. An important ethical issue is whether or not newspapers should be allowed to use product placements. While they are under pressure to do so, they have held out so far to not blur the line between content and ads. (The Economist, 2005)
The fear is that if product placements seep into newspapers and news magazines, then editorial content may be jeopardized and credibility violated (Callahan, 2004). Still, rigid editorial content policies appear to be easing up as marketers and agencies pressure publishers to mix branded mentions into their stories (Mandese, 2006).
An additional area of ethical controversy is pharmaceutical product placements, in that, the use of pharmaceutical product placements raises some regulatory and policy questions. As noted by Ta and Frosch (2009, p. 104), “Current FCC, FTC, and FDA guidelines do not specifically address prescription drug inclusions in fictional entertainment and leave the potential for abuse.” While the FDA requires that pharmaceutical companies give both the benefits and the side effects of their drugs, this clearly will not work for product placements. However, the FDA does allow reminder ads that only mention the brand with no other information or claims. The FDA currently is reviewing all promotional activity following calls by medical groups to ban direct-to-consumer drug ads. It is not clear how product placements will fit into the review. (Edwards, 2005) The drug industry association PhRMA has published guiding principles for advertising prescription medicines: the industry should adapt its television ads to what is appropriate for the audience, health and disease awareness should be part of the promotion, products should be discussed with doctors before drug campaigns are launched, and low-income groups should be provided with information about health assistance programs. (Ta and Frosch, 2008; Business Monitor International, 2007)
However, it should be noted that while social critics and consumer interest groups may lean toward government intervention of product placements, audiences generally are accepting of product placements. They do not find them to be unethical or unacceptable as the former two groups and feel that they actually enhance the aesthetic realism of the content. Audiences were disinclined to have the government regulate brand placement regardless of medium. (Sung and de Gregorio, 2008)

La directive TVSF au sein de son article 12 présente des valeurs morales auxquelles les annonceurs doivent s’astreindre pour promouvoir leur produit, la publicité et le télé-achat ne doivent pas : « porter atteinte au respect de la dignité humaine ; comporter de discrimination en raison de la race, du sexe ou de la nationalité ; attenter à des conviction religieuse ou politiques ; encourager des comportements préjudiciables à la santé ou à l sécurité ; encourager des comportements préjudiciables à la protection de l’environnement. »
En ce qui concerne les convictions religieuses il semble que les annonceurs ont progressé, en témoigne les dernières publicités pour les industriels de l’agro-alimentaire qui se mettent à produire une alimentation en accord avec les régimes alimentaires propres aux croyances de chacun (produits Allal et Kasher). Les instances religieuses saluent les initiatives des annonceurs. Un des principes absolument fondamentaux pour le législateur français c’est le respect de l’oeuvre de l’esprit, il faut garantir aux spectateurs et aux créateurs la livraison d’une œuvre préservée de toute atteinte publicitaire. Dans le secteur cinématographique ce principe prend ton son sens, aux termes de l’article 73 de la loi du 30 septembre 1986 «la diffusion d’une oeuvre cinématographique ou audiovisuelle ne peut faire l’objet de plus d’une interruption ». « Celle-ci est même interdite au société du secteur public ainsi qu’aux services de télévision dont le fonctionnement fait appel à la rémunération de la part des usagers »30.
Ces principes éthiques expliquent surement la méfiance envers le placement de produit, longtemps la pratique était assimilée à de la publicité clandestine, une publicité jugée contraire à tous les principes de transparence. Voici donc la définition de la publicité clandestine donnée par l’article 9 du n° 92-280 du 27 mars 1992 : « Constitue une publicité clandestine la présentation verbale ou visuelle de marchandises, de services, du nom, de la marque ou des activités d'un producteur de marchandises ou d'un prestataire de services dans des programmes, lorsque cette présentation est faite dans un but publicitaire ».
a) Un encadrement basé sur la transparence des diffusions promotionnelles
Les législateurs ont souhaité concilier les impératifs économiques des industriels, avec le respect des consommateurs. A cet effet ils ont développé une certaine éthique de la promotion publicitaire. Cette éthique est principalement basée sur le respect du spectateur, qui doit être averti de la présence des annonces commerciales.
PLA