Punch You In The Face Product Placement

Dubbed “punch you in the face” by the Las Vegas Sun, KVVU, a Fox news affiliate in Las Vegas has begun using product placement as a non traditional source of revenue. After 7am, when the “hard” news is done with, two McDonald’s iced coffees magically appear in front of the morning news anchors. For the rest of the show, the coffees sit there, blatant and silent, not being mentioned or touched by the shows hosts. They probably wouldn’t want to drink them either - they’re fake. Each cup is a 7 or so pound plastic model of an iced coffee, designed to always look icy fresh. All in all, kind of bizarre. Wouldn’t a traditional sponsorship be a little less awkward? Critics are also surprised that the supposedly unbiased news world is being so heavy handed with the advertising.

The Las Vegas Sun reports:

Kelly McBride, the ethics group leader for Poynter Institute, the nonprofit journalism training organization, isn’t convinced. Product placement in a newsroom, she worries, represents the “slippage” of news into advertisement, a descent into a dark world where conglomerate companies control coverage.

If so, the slippage is also occurring at stations in Chicago, Seattle and New York.

And when Las Vegas is done suffering this dry-your-eyeballs-out-of-their-sockets summer heat, Bradshaw says KVVU might switch to ceramic mugs with massive McLogos filled with fake black gold McDonald’s coffee. (BUY!)

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