Anyone else obsessed with Extreme Home Makeover?

[geoffgarcia]

You think so geoff?? I bet it's an even trade... or maybe a little bit of money paid to abc for the placement... I'm going to look into it, because now I'm curious!!!

I'm about 99.99999% positive

I have a bunch of friends that work in marketing, I majored in Communications (marketing, advertising, PR, etc) and have studied product placement in movie and television.

Its unlikely that you'll find anything online about how much Sears pays the show...they are trying to market themself as a "do good" company in the face of all the rip-off/scam scandals they've had over the last 20 years. I wouldn't be surprised in the least if there is tons of info out there on how Sears "donates" the stuff....sure they might technically donate the products/appliances as a tax-writeoff. But they are still paying out the wazoo for that placement.

I wouldn't be surprised if they pay between 20k-500kper episode in placement costs

 

[tomm10]

You think so geoff?? I bet it's an even trade... or maybe a little bit of money paid to abc for the placement... I'm going to look into it, because now I'm curious!!!

Gotta side with Geoff on this one. Companies pay BIG money for product placement. Giving away product gets you placement on a public access show. When you get to the bigtime network shows its chaching time. They are most certainly donating product and paying a good amount to be a show sponsor.

Think about this, how many times have you seen shows (Real World and the like come to mind) where they pixel out the Nike emblems on one of the characters ratty old tshirt? Why do they do that? Because no one gets a free ride. If giving the stuff away was all it took they'd have sponsors beating down their doors.

T

 

[geoffgarcia]

As a frame of reference:

Ford (auto) paid roughly half the $500,000 an episode that No Boundaries cost to produce
Revlon reportedly paid between $3 million and $7 million to be featured in ABC’s All My Children (Powell, Betsy 2)
Mercedes Benz is reputed to have spent $2 million getting their cars seen in Jurassic Park 2 and $40 million for Men in Black 2 (Wheeling 2).

The cost of product placement seems to be rising.

Product placement spots were being sold for $1 million for the first season of Survivor. By the time the second series was being prepared the cost had jumped to $12 million. (Kern 1).
http://members.lycos.co.uk/brisray/misc/mprodplac.htm

i think this is the deal:

The media-buyer helped coordinate Sears' sponsorship of ABC's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, a reported $1 million deal that puts Sears' products and workmen in six episodes that are expected to begin airing this month or next.
http://promomagazine.com/deals/marketing_shows_go/

not to bad, 166k$ per episode

 

[aquariumfishguy]

I would personally be really ticked if shoddy work was done in my house, free or not. Remember, this isn't This Old House where the crew takes over a nearly condemned house. EM handles perfectly sound houses that could just use an upgrade. In that case, if the work was sub par you could actually end up worse than you started.

... That is how I feel about it. E.M. makes the dramatic sound effects and facial expressions to make these places sound like condemned tenement buildings - when in reality, in America, these houses are your average homes found in the large cities. And that is my reasoning for saying I hope it take them longer than 7 days to do everything!

 

[dwayne]

Good points guys!

Ford pays big bucks for product placement... they are HUGE in the tv show 24 (the good guys drive Fords, the bad guys drive hummers, mercedes, chevy's) and they even sponsor the season premier commercial free -- but the first and last 4 minutes of that episode is always a looong ford commercial!!!

I guess the old saying "nothing in life is free" really is true!


~Tara