Steve and I got around to watching the first episode of the new season of the TV Show “Eureka” last night. During the mid-show commercial break, a “Made in Eureka” commercial came on for Degree deodorant. At first we thought it was in the show or a joke, but it was a real commercial. “Holy Crap!!” I shouted. I had read in Ad Age that this was going to happen and that the advertisers took advantage of the writer’s strike to get their products actually written into the plots of TV shows. Sure enough, Degree deodorant was written into the “Eureka” series as, ironically, a corporate sponsor for the fictional “Global Dynamics” R&D Lab. I thought it was hilarious and “tongue-in-cheek” cheesy just like the series itself. My husband, who takes the show more seriously than I do, thought the product placement was an eyesore. Well, TIVO be darned I supposed. Another interesting observation I made while watching “Eureka” is that the first commercial of each break was actually engaging so we forgot to skip through the commercials until a really bad one came on. Perhaps the advertisers are getting clue — people will watch entertaining commercials. As for the product placements and having products written to the plots of TV shows, my preliminary feeling is that it’s fine as long as it fits in the story. We’ll have to see how it goes though. Have any of you out there experienced other TV shows with product placements actually written into the script? If so, please do share.

Here a link to an article about the Degree product placements in “Eureka.”