Ride and prejudice Why the return of product placement is nothing to worry about

It is ….. truth universally ac­knowledged, that ….. single man in …..possession of ….. good for­tune, must be in …..want of ….. Jag­uar XK 4.2-s. So might "Pride and Prejudice" have started had Jane Austen, who was paid £110 (£3,200, or $5,700, in today's money) for one of ….. bestselling novels ever, been lucky enough to live in ….. era which offered ….. mutually beneficial partnership between …..creative talent and …..commercial sponsor­ship known as …..product placement.

See how swiftly ….. hero runs in his flash new trainers? No­tice how luxuriantly ….. shower gel foams on ….. heroine's loins? That's probably because ….. companies that make those products have paid ….. producers of those programmes fat fees to portray their wares nicely. Product placement, which gave birth to ….. original soap operas created to sell washing powders, is back.

Digital technology is ….. reason. ….. viewers can now effort­lessly skip ….. ads, so ….. broadcasters and ….. companies that used to buy ….. airtime for ….. commercials are trying to find better ways to catch ….. people's attention. Product placement is one promising option, but it is controversial. It is allowed in Amer­ica but mostly banned in ….. European Union. European pro­ducers and broadcasters complain that this is unfair because their American rivals benefit from ….. source of ….. income denied to them, and senseless because American programmes anyway appear on ….. European screens. Some European producers have been breaking ….. rules. Germany's public broadcaster, for instance, has been accused of taking ….. money from ….. group promoting ….. Turkish membership of ….. eu. That must have been tough to write into ….. script (Maria: No, no, our love can never be! Klaus: Yes, yes, my heart! We are destined to be to­gether, as surely as Turkey is bound to be one with ….. eu).

….. eu is therefore planning to legalise product placement, but ….. proposal faces some opposition. ….. viewers watching ads, say ….. critics, are ….. fair game because they know they're be­ing sold ….. stuff. When they're watching ….. programmes, by con­trast, they don't realise that ….. products are being promoted. As they see ….. hero ply ….. compliant heroine with some seduc­tive libation, ….. sillier viewers may really believe that's ….. way to get sultry blondes into ….. sack; and ….. idea may seep subliminally into ….. brains even of ….. more discerning, who may, to their surprise, find themselves filling their trolleys with sickly liqueur next time they're in …. supermarket.

But if advertising that slips imperceptibly into ….. people's brains were to be banned, ….. great deal of what goes on now would be outlawed. After all, ….. drivers spinning past ….. hoardings don't necessarily consciously clock ….. message they've seen; often they file it unconsciously - as you, flicking through these pages, may well absorb ….. notion that ….. expensive watch or ….. new phone will change your life in some vague but enticing way. As for people who believe ….. literal truth of what they see in soap operas-well, no amount of ….. regulation can protect them from themselves.

Anyhow, ….. governments don't need to police ….. entertainment. Content-producers will do it themselves. When Fay Weldon, ….. novelist, wrote ….. book for Bvlgari, ….. jewellery manufacturer, ….. few years ago, it was not widely viewed as ….. literary gem. Nei­ther she, nor anybody else with ….. reputation worth keeping, has tried that again. Which is just as well: …. world would have been ….. poorer place had Mr Bingley been more interested in his ride than in ….. Bennet girls.

The Economist (BrE)