Like that vase on the TV? Click your phone to buy it.

In a world where we are constantly exposed to thousands of products advertisement on a daily basis which results in clutter, marketers and advertisers are looking for a way to make advertisement perform two critical tasks of capturing attention and conveying meaning.

To combat the highly selective nature of consumers and thereby influence them to make purchase decision on a product, the advertising campaign must be targeted at the right segment of consumers and also conveyed through a medium that matches the selected target segment. One of the ways to achieve this is through product placement in entertainment media such as in movies, television programs and games.

The concept of product placement in media has been taken a step further by an American retailing company, Target Corporation, in what could signal a new era for product placement. The idea comes from a research that a large percentage of Americans watch television while using devices like Tablets and Smartphone and TV viewers are encouraged to purchase products on their mobile phone or tablets while watching a TV program which feature the product.

Though the concept looks workable, the down side is that the target consumer segment must not only be interested and followers of the television program, they must also be digitally skilled and tech savvy. The idea of stopping to buy a product on another screen may also lead to diverted attention from the actual TV program      

References: 
Sourced from The New York Times of 17^th March, 2014 at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/18/business/media/like-that-vase-on-the-tv-click-your-phone-to-buy-it.html?_r=0

Hawkins, D.I and Mothersbaugh, D.L., (2013). Consumer Behaviour, Building Marketing Strategy, 12^th Edition, McGraw-Hill Irwin International Edition