I despise product placement in movies. As soon as I see a strategically overt logo hogging camera time, I'm thrown right out of that delicious suspended disbelief and into a stew of anger over greedy producers. By the same token, I hate it when I get a call from a former or current advertiser seeking editorial coverage. (Thankfully, it happens infrequently.) I always tell the caller that breaching the editorial/advertising barrier is problematic, precisely because it puts me in a "damned if I do, damned if I don't" situation. If I do, by pure coincidence, run coverage of vendors who complain that they've been unjustly ignored, they feel vindicated and believe that complaining to the editor while threatening the publisher is the golden road to more coverage. If I don't, the advertiser's self-fulfilling prophecy comes true: "I won't spend money in a publication that doesn't mention my products, and this publication doesn't do that even when I complain directly to the editor in chief."
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