Growing Product Placement

Challenge

When I joined BENlabs, the product placement business faced a fundamental perception problem among brand marketers: the channel was seen as a “nice to have” rather than a “must have.” This perception limited growth and contributed to client churn, as product placement was often the first budget line cut when brands tightened their spending. To shift this perception, we first needed to understand what was driving it. Through research with brand marketers and close collaboration with our client service and sales teams, we identified two core barriers: marketers were interested in the channel but lacked the metrics to justify its value internally, and the rapid shift of audiences to ad-free streaming platforms had created a reach problem for which many brands hadn’t yet recognized product placement as a solution.

Solution

I translated these insights into a multi-year, omni-channel B2B marketing strategy spanning paid, earned, and owned channels. The effort began with a content partnership with advertising publication The Drum, through which we developed 'The Definitive Guide to Product Placement,' a practical playbook that directly addressed the objections our research had surfaced and gave marketers a clear framework for evaluating the channel. I secured executive visibility through major industry events including Cannes Lions and Advertising Week, and partnerships with Think LA, the Advertising Club of New York, and the ANA. In addition, opinion pieces and podcast appearances by BENlabs executives elevated the profile of our company among key decision-makers, while strategically placed op-eds in key advertising trades helped seed our perspective among our target audiences. We complemented this with earned media coverage in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Adweek, and Ad Age that raised BENlabs’ credibility with both clients and prospects. Internally, I aligned content and messaging across client service and sales teams to create a unified voice and improve funnel efficiency. Most critically, I led the expansion of BENlabs’ measurement capabilities in ways competitors could not match, directly addressing the most common barrier to adoption.

Impact

The marketing push centered on measurement proved incredibly effective: it enabled BENlabs to acquire clients such as Frito-Lay who had previously dismissed or overlooked product placement, increased budgets among existing clients, and substantially reduced churn. Over a three-year period, BENlabs’ product placement business grew revenue nearly 4x while driving record profitability to new heights for the business.