Dairy giant Yili has its Shuhua brand weaved into the blockbuster movie, Transformers 3, with a one-liner, "Let me finish my Shuhua milk". But embedded advertisements, appearing in movies and TV shows with higher frequency, are a double-edged sword, says an article on Qianlong.com. Excerpts:

Embedded ads, also called covert ads, blend a product or brand into entertainment programs, especially movies and TV shows. With the development of social economy and cultural industry, embedded ads have flooded public view.

Take the Chinese movies If You Are the One and Go Lala Go for instance. The former has more than 20 embedded ads and its producers recovered 50 percent of the cost even before the film hit the screens, and the latter realized 80 percent of the cost before its premiere. In this sense, embedded ads serve as a means to make profit.

But some embedded ads downgrade the quality of movies and TV shows. They are a source of irritation to the audience, too. As Zhang Haitao, vice-director of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, has said, some Chinese films contain too many embedded ads that are forced into the stories or scenes.

Therefore, if ads are to be embedded in movies and TV shows, it is necessary to ensure that they blend naturally into storylines or scenes.

Besides, since embedded ads are still in the developing stage in China, filmmakers and TV show producers should learn from the experience of countries such as the United States, where the entertainment industry has mastered such practices.

And most importantly, the authorities should work out regulations to manage embedded ads on a legal basis.

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