PRESS EXCERPTS: Quotes, Interviews

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MAGAZINES

Madison & Vine

Alienware: "It was like winning the lottery, it was on screen for so long." (talking about PropStar's Alienware Computer placement on the TV show entitled, '24') Alienware relies on feedback from emails, website forums and company surveys to find out whether customers saw the placement. "In the surveys we tracked, where people heard about us, the placement shows up. We use product placement to get people intrigued enough to visit our website and check out our products. It gives them a sense of what our products look like, what they do and how people respond to them. It's all about Brand building.".

Mitel: "If you have a competitor who is using this vehicle to promote their equipment and you're not, you're at a disadvantage. It's pushing out the Brand more and more. We could not afford an advertising campaign of that nature. We know it [product placement] works."

Canadian Business Magazine

MTD: "It's important to keep your Brand in front of people, and this is one of the best ways to do that...PropStar is very connected in Hollywood. For the price we pay, it's very cost effective."

Mitel: "I get a lot of emails from Europe, even Australia, [from people] saying, I saw your phone...we have made sales to people who have seen the phones placed, but that's not necessarily the point. It was designed not to just be placement, he says, but to make our employees and customers feel good about seeing our phones on a show or a movie. We got great coverage and it became viral. Everyone was e-mailing saying, have you seen this show or movie?"

Macleans Magazine

Excerpt: Forward-thinking advertisers are scrambling to make themselves unzappable by inserting their Brands right into show plots. With traditional advertising, your ad runs for only as long as you've paid for it to, points out Nancie Tear, creative director of PropStar, a Vancouver brand-placement firm. The new model requires advertisers to make a one-time investment -- but their messages have the potential to be seen over and over, thanks to syndication and DVDs.

Strategy Magazine

PropStar: "The fact you're inside the show spurs other opportunities such as consumer promotions, we can negotiate promotions before a movie is ever made."

Excerpt: Including Product Placements on mainstream TV shows as part of a B2B ad effort may seem like a strange idea - but businesses watch TV too. Mitel landed exclusive roles for it's high end phones on hit TV shows like 'ER' and 'Boston Legal'... PropStar knew the shows would be good choices for the phones since both have sets that centre on work environments.

PropStar: "Competition is fierce in the phone biz. They need to be more aggressive and creative to penetrate the market." It appears to be working, a LA based medical centre started calling around to see where they could get them.

Profit Guide Magazine

PropStar: "Product placement dates from the 1950s, but has taken off in recent years as a way to avoid widespread commercial zapping. And it's not just for big-league marketers: there are numerous options for SMEs, from local cable talk shows to national decorating shows. It's also more affordable than you might expect."

Business Edge

PropStar: "We have strong contacts with the studios and we often scan scripts six months ahead of production, Tear says. We're always pitching; our clients, pitching production, for days, weeks or months in anticipation of the opportunity to place our clients."

IT Business Magazine

Mitel: We've made two sales, which would cover a year's placement, but more important are the smiles I get around the office from our own internal community. There's a complete buzz around the business, and not just here, because ER is also shown in Europe. Quantifying from a fiscal perspective is difficult, but from a morale and confidence perspective, it's easy."