“It’s the Kraft Product Placement Comedy Hour. Sponsored by Kraft Singles. Made with Milk. It’s the cheese that won World War II (Don’t ask how).” That’s some pretty sweet, overt product placement action right there and Kraft didn’t need to push at all for it. Adage explains that the 30 Rock producers came to Kraft with the idea fully formed and ready to go. Product placement is no longer dreaded, as many showrunners have been able to embrace it. It’s just part of the territory now for shows, especially savvy shows like 30 Rock or Community, who aren’t doing super well in the ratings and could use the extra money to cover production costs. A lot of this shift in opinion can actually be credited to 30 Rock, who early on was able to have fun with product placement, in a very 30 Rock way, by drawing a lot of attention to that fact that the placement was happening. An example of which happened in last week’s episode as well:
I wonder how much the hair in the mouth people had to pay for that.
