Is it a show or a commercial? Viewers beware: now that skipping the ads is so easy, products are being scripted directly into TV show.

On a recent episode of the WB's What I Like About You, the character played by the show's young star, Amanda Bynes, competes against a friend to be in a shampoo commercial. It seems like a fairly typical plot line, but in fact, it's been scripted to showcase Herbal Essences, whose products feature heavily in the episode.

Similarly, over on Fox, Bernie Mac pops Rolaids while ranting about life's injustices and his stomach pains on The Bernie Mac Show. And on ABC's Desperate Housewives, Eva Longoria's character, Gabrielle Solis, finds herself hard up for money and takes a job at a mall as a spokesmodel for the new Buick LaCrosse.

Welcome to the next generation of product placement: Brands of sodas, cars, jeans, soups, and appliances are no longer just occasional props on TV shows, as they were until about five years ago. Instead, as part of more elaborate marketing deals, advertisers are increasingly working with writers, producers, and the networks' advertising departments to incorporate products into the story lines of both scripted and reality shows.

SKIPPING THE ADS

Companies are turning to more-sophisticated kinds of product placement on television because they're worried that viewers are no longer paying attention to their ads--especially with the proliferation of devices like TiVo, which let viewers fast-forward through commercials. While such digital video recorders are currently in fewer than 10 million households, marketers are preparing for the day when millions more viewers are able to skip right past their 30second ads.

Fearing that standard commercial spots are losing their effectiveness and reach, companies are scrambling to adapt. Many are cutting their ad budgets and throwing more money into product-placement deals.

But not everyone is thrilled with the trend. Some creators of TV shows worry that "branded entertainment" could turn television characters into product promoters instead of storytellers. And the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has turned a wary eye on a practice it sees as little more than stealth advertising.

In some ways, this newfangled form of branded entertainment harks back to the beginnings of television. Half a century ago, ad agencies themselves often produced shows like The Colgate Comedy Hour and Texaco Star Theater, in which a chorus line of dapper gas-station attendants opened each show by singing the Texaco jingle ("Oh, we're the men of Texaco, we work from Maine to Mexico") before introducing the host, Milton Berle.

A combination of rising production costs and quiz-show scandals pushed the sponsors out of the show-making business by the late 1950s. As companies devised new ways to reach consumers, commercial ad spots as we know them today were born.

IMPACT OF 'SURVIVOR'

But products gradually (and subtly) found their way back into TV shows. Hoping that Hollywood's glamour would rub off on their everyday products, companies bartered their wares to television shows and feature films, giving studios free props in exchange for on-the-air product exposure. This practice also helped the networks defray costs, and made the shows feel more familiar.

Then, about five years ago, product placement became much more intense, partly because of the success of the reality show Survivor. Producer Mark Burnett sold sponsorships to advertisers in which companies would pay to have their products inserted into various scenes. The original sponsors of Survivor (including Reebok, Ericsson, and Dr. Scholl's) each paid $4 million for the privilege.

The revenue generated by these deals covered most of the show's production costs. That enabled CBS to put Survivor on the air without much financial risk. And because success in television is always accompanied by swarms of imitators, the networks latched on to this low-cost programming model.

The result? Reality shows started clogging the networks (they were cheap to produce and high in demand), and advertisers followed close behind.

REALITY VS. SCRIPTED SHOWS

During the 2004-05 television season, more than 100,000 product placements appeared on the six broadcast networks, an increase of 28 percent from the previous season, according to Nielsen Media Research. Experts say many more are on the way, particularly in scripted shows. Leslie Moonves, co-president of Viacom, which owns CBS and MTV, predicts that within one or two years, nearly every show on network television will have product placements.

The challenges and contests in reality shows readily lend themselves to product placement, say executives. Thirsty and starving contestants guzzle Mountain Dew and chow down on Doritos after outlasting their opponents in a Survivor episode, and the viewer usually accepts the products' presence. And since there is no traditional story line to interrupt, reality shows are especially easy to insert brands into.

Scripted shows, however, are trickier: Weaving brands into story lines without bugging viewers can be challenging. "The needle we have to thread is to have a brand integration that is effective enough to have resonance, but, and it's a big but, subtle enough so that it doesn't offend," says Jonathan Prince, creator of the recently canceled American Dreams on NBC, in which Campbell's soups played a significant role.

For the Campbell's tie-in, which he devised with NBC, Prince already had an idea to portray the deviousness of a character, Patty, a student in junior high school. So he came up with a continuing story line in which Patty bribed schoolmates to send entries that she ghostwrote to the Campbell's soup essay-writing contest to bolster her chances of winning. [Scholastic, the publisher of Upfront, worked with Campbell's on the contest.] Her actions had repercussions, and a lesson was learned in this family-friendly series.

Colleen Milway, global media director for the Campbell Soup Company, says the story line fit the squeaky-clean image the company wants for the brand.

While measuring a product-placement's effectiveness is still an inexact science, it is likely that embedded ads are having an impact on viewers.

Take, for example, the Pontiac Solstice's guest appearance on an episode of The Apprentice last season. In the 41 minutes after the show ended, 1,000 cars were presold, according to Steve Tihanyi, general director of marketing alliances and entertainment at General Motors.

'FULL AND FAIR DISCLOSURE'?

But advertisers know they walk a fine line. Ultimately, the industry is self-regulating: Turn off viewers, and there won't be a show left to cram with product placements.

"When a marketer uses branded entertainment to actually sell a product, the entire exercise will fail," according to Jak Severson, the CEO of Madison Road Entertainment. "Audiences are so sophisticated today, the last thing they will do is sit and be sold to during an entertainment show."

Scripted product placement faces some other foes, like Jonathan S. Adelstein, a commissioner at the FCC. "Whether it's classic payola, where a radio station gets a large plasma television to play a certain song, or a corporation pays $100,000 to get its product mentioned on the air, both the station and the network are required by law to disclose that," he says.

The networks do disclose promotional considerations on the air. But, according to Adelstein, the credits whip by so fast that the human eye cannot read them, even with TiVo.

"Is that full and fair disclosure? I don't think so," he says. "We need to make sure people are sure they're being sold to."

For Joe Davola, president of Tollin/Robbins Television, which produces Smallville and One Tree Hill for the WB network, the benefits of product placement outweigh any hypothetical downside.

"If people get insulted, they can go watch PBS or go rent an independent movie," he says. "Seriously. This is the real world. I'm not ruining television."

Top 10 Most-Placed
Products in TV Shows *

1 Coca-Cola Classic
2 Everlast apparel.
3 Everlast sporting equipment
4 Nike apparel
5 Gatorade
6 Chef Revival apparel
7 24 Hour Fitness Centers
8 Toyota cars and trucks
9 Home Depot
10 Sierra Mist

* FIGURES ARE FROM SEPT. 20, 2004. TO SEPT. 18, 2005
SOURCE: NIELSEN MEDIA RESEARCH

TV shows with the most product placements

                                            TOTAL
                                          OCCURRENCES

1. The Contender (NBC)                       7,521
2. The Apprentice (NBC)                      3,659
3. American Idol (FOX)                       3,497
4. The Amazing Race (CBS)                    3,226
5. What I Like About You (WBI                3,034
6. Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (ABC)
7. The King of Queens (CBS)                  2,394
8. America's Next Top Modet (UPN)            2,282
9. Fear Factor (NBC)                         2,141
10. Eve (UPN)                                2,132

Product-placement media spending

1974               0
'79              0.5
'84              1.0
'89              1.5
'94              2.0
'99              2.5
2004    $3.0 billion

Note: Table made from bar graph.

Lorne Manly reports on media for The New York Times.