CASE: THE MODERATING EFFECT OF INVOLVEMENT IN PRODUCT PLACEMENT EFFECTIVENESS

Xavier Gonzalez Garcia is a Business Administration student at a big, reputable university in England. Xavier loves to play soccer and tennis, he very much enjoys listening to music (he is a big fan of Muse), and he is fond of watching movies. He is a student with excellent research skills as evidenced by his academic record and the quality of his bachelor thesis.

The topic of Xavier's bachelor thesis was "product placement". Product placement has been defined as the marketing practice in which a firm pays to have its branded product included in entertainment media, such as video games, movies, and television programs. This relatively new form of marketing took off in 1982 with the movie E.T., in which the alien is offered a piece of Reese's Pieces. Since then the number of product placements has incresed rapidly.

After having spent the summer in his home country - Spain - Xavier has just started with his first year as a master student. During his holiday he has read more research papers on product placement which have further fueled his interest in this topic. Based on these papers and several discussions with his former bachelor thesis supervisor, dr. Casey Finneran, Xavier has decided to take on further empirical research into this issue. He has already discussed a research proposal and the theoretical background of his study with dr. Finneran, who has agreed to help him with this study. Now, he is ready to discuss the design of his study. Xavier has handed in the following outline for an experiment.

a. Xavier has indicated that he wants to give the participants a cover story. What could be the purpose of this cover story?

b. Do you think that telling a cover story is ethical? Why not)?