In 2010, German law changed towards a more liberal use of product placement. For the first time in Germany, brands were able to book product integrations on TV shows and series. Product placement became a media channel, taken into consideration by marketers, agencies and media owners.However, now, 2 years after this change, there has not been much product placement activity in Germany. Most brands stick to well-known traditional media rather than exploring the new opportunities product placement can offer.In addition, there still are restrictions: Brands are not allowed to dominate the content, the price of a product must not be mentioned and editorial staff has to agree to every brand integration beforehand. These regulations make establishing a product placement more complex and require more time than most brands are willing to invest.PANDORA was one of the first big product placements in Germany, becoming the hidden star of a full season of the new primetime show ‘The perfect model’.

Danish jewellery manufacturer PANDORA offers a broad range of bracelets and charms and enables women to design their very own jewellery. However, they don’t simply sell bracelets and charms. They sell ‘unforgettable moments’, according to the brand’s claim. Every charm represents a certain value or moment the buyer wants to remember and carry along.In Germany, this image became blurry and sales dropped massively. Our challenge: Recharge PANDORA with emotions!

The timing was perfect: the new primetime show ‘The Perfect Model’ was about to start. 20 young women fighting their way into model business, with only 1 winner. A show full of emotions, with outstanding target group affinity.Our strategy: Use the show to make PANDORA hidden star and a synonym for all unforgettable moments!The execution: In every episode, the jury – international top models Eva Padberg and Karolina Kurkovà – decides which girls move to the next round. The decision is based on 10 characteristics, e.g. visual nature or catwalk performance. Getting those characteristics is key to win the show.This is where PANDORA takes over the main role. As symbol for their entry into the final round, all candidates receive a Pandora bracelet. Every single characteristic is represented by a thematically fitting charm, e.g. a little silver-sparkling shoe charm for excellence in catwalk performance.PANDORA became the hidden star of the entire show, in 7 single episodes, and created tremendous desire among the girls: The more charms, the more perfect the model!

Lucky us: The TV station did most of the work for us! A huge out-of-home campaign announced the start of the new primetime show in major cities, in combination with a massive TV and online campaign.

At the same time, we implemented an online campaign for PANDORA to highlight the brand’s presence within the show, including bannering, an own microsite and extensive use of the brand’s Facebook page with more than 1m fans.Furthermore, all PANDORA stores were equipped with point-of-sale material drawing attention to the show and the brand’s product placement!

For PANDORA, we established a product placement never been seen before in Germany. A brand becoming the most important element of a primetime show, repeatedly featured in key scenes of all decision episodes!-57:47 minutes plot presence during the show with a logo visibility up to 7 times per episode (that is 9% of each full length of show on average)-On average, each episode reached 1.5m people on TV and additional 1.5m people on Video on Demand-39% coverage in the target audience ‘women interested in jewellery’-+40% increase in unaided brand awareness among the viewers of the perfect model, +22% among all women 20-49-+37% increase in buying intention among the viewers of the perfect model, +9% among all women 20-49-+50% sales for the featured charms-+120% sales for the bracelet-Media value of €5.6m-ROI of factor 11.4