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During the 2008-2009 academic school year, Bruce Jeffers was a graduate student in Advertising at The University of Texas at Austin (UT), one of the top Advertising graduate programs in the U.S. This research work and thesis on product placement are the culmination of Bruce’s dedication, drive, and hard work during that year.

What you see here on this blog is a close digital representation of the actual research and final thesis document that was submitted.  This online catalogue of my thesis is currently a work in progress and will be added to as time permits.

TITLE
Dimensional Relationships and Associations of Product Placement:  Toward a Design for Comprehensive Content Analysis of Brand Appearances.

Product Placement — a technique used in advertising to display a brand, logo or product on screen in a movie, TV show, or other video in a context that is not an obvious advertisement.  Product placement is also sometimes called brand placement, branded entertainment or embedded marketing.

INSPIRATION
I remember being utterly fascinated with how Chevrolet (GM) used the feature film Transformers (2007, dir. Michael Bay) as a venue to launch and show off their new Camaro redesign.  Not only was the movie itself a huge hit, but enthusiasm over the new Chevy Camaro skyrocketed due to the car having such a prominent, positive “role” in the film.  Then I began to think, “Can a car be a ‘celebrity’?”  This insight led me to write a couple short research papers on the idea, which later blossomed into the initial concept behind my year-long Master’s Thesis on brand and product placements in the UT Advertising program.

ABOUT BRUCE
Bruce has always been fascinated by the endless creative possibilities of words and images. Over the years, this artistic interest has steered his educational and occupational paths.  Bruce took many art, writing, and design classes, and has now been honing these skills in communication and advertising fields.  He has formerly worked in large daily newspapers and media outlets, a university’s art department, an international publishing company and now for the past couple years has been in project management and art direction at an advertising agency.

Bruce graduated in 2005 with a Bachelor’s of Arts degree in Communications from the University of Central Florida, located in Orlando. He later earned a Master’s degree in Advertising from The University of Texas at Austin in 2009, during which time he completed this research work and thesis in brand/product placements under the supervision of Dr. Marina Choi, Associate Professor of Advertising.

Last updated Nov. 20, 2012.

All text published on this website is copyrighted by Bruce Jeffers, 2009, via The University of Texas at Austin.