“No comments”. Marketing director of Magasin, one of Denmarks leading department stores, was absolutely quiet, when she was asked how much the christmas series “The secret of Absalon”, running on Danish Public service TV, is worth to Magasin.
It struck me: she might be happy about this, but she’s definitively not going to show it! Which is somewhat odd: normaly product placement is meant to be noticed and talked about. Not here.
This is what it’s all about: “The secret of Absalon” takes place in Magasin – the whole story and plot is based on the department store, and the remainders of the farm of the founder of Copenhagen, Bishop Absalon, which is believed to have been located right at Kongens Nytorv, exactly on the spot where Magasin is situated today.
The main character is Cecilie, a 12 year old girl and – in the gameplay – dauther of the Magasin CEO. She and her family in a wonderfull penthouse appartment on top of the Magasin building. The whole atmosphere is very nice, cousy and christmas-like – with only enough conflicts to make the story roll. It goes on screen in prime time every day at one of the two Danish major TVchannels, DR. Viewed by some 899.000 people a day (out of a total population on 5 mio. Danes).
Hey – the value of product placement like this is probably beyond our comprehension. What departments store wouldn’t give its right arm to be displayed every night in the whole christmas month? In editorial environment, displaying the department store as the center of a modern Christmas caroll?
Nevertheless Magasin has paid absolutely nothing for this. The whole idea is – it seems – wholly editorial. Supposedly it has caused a great deal of fuss in Public Service DR itself, to have the idea approved. And if I know the DR right, they’ve been so paranoid of being accused of producing public service TV – and then to chrildren – with “bought” commercial messages, that DR won’t even have accepted a cup of coffee from Magasin.
You’re missing an important point in your post: Allthough there are no clear laws about it in Denmark, product placement is generally considered to be “bad practice” and actually illegal:
http://www.forbrug.dk/markedsforing/sager/00/oevrige/product-placement/
Sure product placement in films is regulated in Danish law (that is US films with heavy product placement can perfectly legal be showed in Denmark. The regulation only applies for Danish films (which by the way seems rather unfair to the Danish film industry!).
But in the “Secret of Absalon”-case it’s exactly not about product placement: not only didn’t DR accept free coffee when shooting thefilm: it shows up that DR actually paid money for using the Magasin department store as location! (to keep their back covered so to speak).