NMG: C4/New Look deal is advertiser funded programming not product placement

Joining the first past the post rush, Channel 4 has announced a product placement deal with high street fashion retailer New Look.

The programme format centres around a neighbourhood search for the most stylish girls on the high street, culminating in a head-to-head catwalk competition between the two most-stylish locals discovered by the presenters. Ultimately, the final winner will win a ‘life changing opportunity’ to become one of New Look’s stylists.

However, NMG’s product placement chairman John Barnard says the “programme format may breach Ofcom guidelines”.

“I’m struggling with this one. Ofcom relaxed the rules on paid for product placement but not on undue prominence or preserving editorial integrity,” he added.

In a statement, Permira, New Look’s private equity backers, said: “As part of the deal, New Look will be able to have their clothes featured in the show and on the catwalk, if they are used for editorial reasons – all of which would not have been possible before the relaxation of the rules around product placement.”

Ofcom’s ‘Guidance on Section Nine of the Broadcasting Code (2011) Commercial references in television programming’ summarises:

1.83 While such practices [contractual arrangements regarding use of products/trade marks] are acceptable in principle, broadcasters should take care to ensure that product placement arrangements do not take precedence over a programme’s editorial needs. There must be sufficient editorial justification for references to placed products, services and trade marks. In this respect, Rules 9.8 (editorial independence), 9.9 (no promotion) and 9.10 (no undue prominence) are three key protections to ensure that editorial content is not distorted for the purpose of featuring placed products, services or trade marks.

“Given that the programme’s focus is on truly representing high street fashion to its audience, it would appear that the only way to work within Ofcom’s Guidelines would be to open up brand appearances to all other fashion retailers, without charging a fee,” Barnard added.

“Taking a quick statistic from the web, New Look has about 3.3% of online fashion sales. If their high street presence was similar then simply put, only 1 in 30 fashion outfits or comments should be from New Look and other fashion retailers such as Marks & Spencer, Next, Monsoon etc should receive the other 29 in 30 appearances.”