Trendy magazine Monocle has started including product placement in its Manga cartoons. So characters in the cartoon strip use Prada phones, drink Carlsberg beer and drive an Audi. Watches are also sponsored.
Now Japanese sanitary goods firm Toto is going to pay for a four-part manga advertorial in an upcoming issue of the style-setting title. You can find out more about all this in our profile of iconic Monocle founder Tyler Brule in next week’s print edition of Media Week.
But it reminded me of some work that Unilever has done in the US where its products are incorporated within webisodes. These were facilitated by another icon, post-punk band Gang Of Four’s singer Jon King, who now runs a company called Story Worldwide, which claims to be operating in a "post-advertising age" where brands are turned into stories. They even went as far as commissioning a short story from Elmore Leonard that featured one of their car clients.
It’s all interesting stuff, and something that we haven’t seen much of in the UK yet. But I’m sure we will soon.
