So we're sitting here drinking our STARBUCKS blended coffee drink...
...trying to get over our Rocky Mountain jetlag and scanning the papers, when BOING! this weird story about paid product placement hits us. You may have read about it, but if you didn't, you should know that there's this new YA title coming out in August, Cathy's Book, and its authors, Sean Stewart and Jordan Weisman, have been paid "in kind" by Procter & Gamble--they'll mention Cover Girl cosmetics products in their novel, and in return, P&G will promote their books.
In one product-placement example given in the NY Times article, Stewart and Weisman switched a character's brand of lip color from Clinique to Cover Girl. Come on, burgerites, we all know that there's a big diff between those two..Clinique says one thing about a person (shops a bit upscale, cares about healthy skin) and Cover Girl says an entirely different thing (shops at drugstores, likes to have the latest shades). So, in our minds, despite what they say in the article, the novelists really HAVE agreed to change characterizations to please their marketing partners.
Um...we're all for authors getting paid and promoted...but are we alone in finding this just a step or two over the sleaze line? (Oh and BTW, bookburger's own Covergirl does NOT get paid by Cover Girl. However she would consider offers from MAC or Chanel.)
i like it when clothes brands are mentioned, but it would bug me if i knew the writer had been paid. omg don't we have enough ads everywhere else??
Posted by: hallgirl | June 13, 2006 at 07:02 PM
I think it is a shady slippery slope myself... (Wait? Do I hear Sephora calling?)
Posted by: Jennifer | June 14, 2006 at 08:59 AM
The NYTimes article made it very clear that the authors are NOT being paid by P&C.
Posted by: Sara | June 14, 2006 at 12:59 PM
Sara...you are right. They are not being paid in cash...it's more of a barter deal...I guess you could call it"cross-promotion." We at the burger know how important it is for writers to spread the word on their books...but we still think that these guys are selling out big-time in a way we wouldn't want to see our fave authors do.
Posted by: dj | June 14, 2006 at 02:58 PM
p.s. i'm editing my original post so that it's more accurate, Sara..thanks for being a sharp cookie.
Posted by: dj | June 14, 2006 at 03:01 PM