October 27th, 2003
Television Shows Like 'Nike Training Camp' Widen the Scope of Product Placements
By Nat Ives
The New York Times
College Sports Television, a seven-month-old, 24-hour college sports channel, has struck a marketing agreement with Nike that will include not just ad time and promotions for the company, but a regular half-hour program called "Nike Training Camp." More often than not, the program will feature only teams that have endorsement deals with Nike.
"Embedded advertising is now taking over television," said Gary Ruskin, executive director of Commercial Alert in Portland, Ore., an organization that opposes what its members see as the overcommercialization of the media. "This is just another example of that." Worse, Mr. Ruskin said, embedded advertising is deceptive because people do not realize that the ads are ads.