Have you ever seen a character in your favorite movie eating at a certain restaurant or drinking a well known brand of soda? This kind of advertising is called product placement. You take a product and place it, inconspicuously, in front of your audience. It’s a great way to subconsciously remind people of your brand but is it right for your product?

One of the most important factors to consider is the market that will see the placement and the size of product you’re marketing. Most of the products you see in movies and television are national brands that are easy to recognize. This is because an unrecognized brand won’t benefit from placements like this. Everyone will assume it’s a made up product for the movie or show.

If you are trying to market a smaller, local brand, you may want to see if you can get placement on a local cable channel or radio show by sponsoring the show or providing free products. That way, the audience who sees you will know that you are a local business and not just be left assuming that they’re looking at a fictitious product that was made up by the show’s creators.