C.C. Assignment.....

Chapter 2: Contesting the Vote

Corporate sponsors, through product placements and online communities, want to duplicate the success of popular entertainment, making viewer loyalty synonymous with brand loyalty. Widely accepted by most audiences, product placement has become a standard for most reality programming. Unfortunately, Jenkins says, "product placements may be a double edge sword." Consumer grievances towards a brand name tends to influence their opinion of the entire show (or vice-versa), along with its other corporate sponsors. Example: American Idol pushes viewers to use AT&T for their call-in voting system. The flaws of this system, and uncertainty over whether or not all votes were counted, have inspired distrust in AT&T (not to mention Coca-Cola and Ford) and put the impartiality of American Idol's producers and judges into question. At the same time online "consumption communities," created by sponsors, have given "inspirational consumers" a place to discuss their frustrations. "Sponsoring such a show ensures that companies will get talked about," says Jenkins, "but it doesn't guarantee what the audience is going to say about them." He argues that producers and sponsors need to use these "scandals" as opportunities to learn from consumers and better understand their "emotional investment" in entertainment property and product labels.