"Pick up" Biscuits – Product Placement in the Jungle Camp

Seeing branded products in television programmes is nothing unusual. Occasionally, deliberately well-known or new products creep in – mostly products from the food sector. If certain conditions are met, so-called product placement is also permitted. Whether the line to unlawful product placement had been crossed, the Administrative Court (VG) Hannover had to decide in respect of Pick Up biscuits in the RTL Jungle Camp.

In an episode of the television series "I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!", better known as the "Jungle Camp", broadcast by RTL in 2014, viewers saw in a sequence lasting approximately one and a half minutes how the programme participants were given, as a reward for successfully completing a challenge, a metal box filled with a large pack of Leibniz "Pick up" biscuits.

The packet was held visibly in the air and the jungle inhabitants reacted with cheers. Furthermore, individual participants were shown eating the chocolate biscuit with relish and expressed themselves in a praising manner regarding the product at a later time in the interview cabin. Among other things, comments fell such as "It really has everything: caramel, chocolate and biscuit. What more could you want?" or "It's a real taste sensation".

The Lower Saxony State Media Authority (NLM) objected to the sequence. It saw in it an unlawful highlighting of the product.

Against the objection notice issued, the private broadcaster RTL defended itself with a lawsuit before the Administrative Court (VG) Hannover.

Court Decision on Pick Up in the Jungle Camp

However, the lawsuit was unsuccessful. In the judgment of 18.02.2016 – Az. 7 A 13293/15 (Press Release) the Administrative Court (VG) Hannover affirmed a breach of the Broadcasting State Treaty and thus confirmed the position of the NLM.

According to it, in a product placement the product must not be highlighted too strongly. The line to unlawful product placement was crossed here in the view of the court.

Admittedly, the initial scenes of the product placement remained within the limits of what was permissible, because in the opinion of the judges the programmatic and dramaturgical context had still been preserved. However, the statements of the individual candidates regarding the product in the interview cabin were exaggerated verbal praise of the product, which took place only after completion of the actual narrative strand. The product was thereby highlighted too strongly; the advertising purpose dominated.

Conclusion

Product placement in broadcasting is generally unlawful. But even if, exceptionally, product placement is permissible in "programmes of light entertainment", care must be taken to ensure that the product is not highlighted too strongly.