Heinz Tests Advertising Boundaries With "Programvertising"

If product placement wasn't enough, now there's content marketing. A U.K. television show called, Dinner Doctors, offers cooking suggestions to busy Moms using Heinz products. The show is produced by Heinz. While the Heinz brand name is not mentioned in the show, that is only because British law prohibits it. That's not the case in the U.S. It won't be long before we begin to see more advertiser-produced shows that can't be ad-skipped with a TiVo. Of course, the whole show can be skipped just like any other show that sucks. Ominously, Steve Heyer of Coke also thinks the day will come when networks pay advertisers to produce shows rather than the advertiser paying the network for ad time.

Is this a good thing?
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