Scholar Profiles
Jodi Berman
2003 - 2004 University Scholar
Mentor: Jorge Villegas
College of Journalism and Communications
"As a USP scholar, I hope to gain insight into the world of research and gain an idea of how much time and energy will go into my research if I become a professor, which is my goal."
Jodi is a senior majoring in advertising, with an outside concentration in psychology. Her academic interests include marketing, public relations, and the effects of advertising on purchase behavior. She is an Anderson Scholar and has been on the president’s honor roll five times. Jodi is the director of publicity for ACCENT and served as the director of solicitations for Gator Growl 2002. She is also the ritualist for her sorority, Alpha Epsilon Phi. During the summer of 2003, Jodi interned in the marketing department of DreamWorks SKG in New York City.
Research Description:
Product placement in Movies
The purpose of my research for the University Scholars program is to focus on product placement (i.e., a character on a TV show drinks a Coke) in mass mediated content. My research will attempt to show the effect of arousal on brand recall of a product placed in a mass media program. My main hypothesis forecasts that higher levels of arousal will reduce the level of recall of the brand placed in the program.
My research would involve a few steps. The first step would consist of showing clips of programs to determine their level of arousal to a focus group consisting of 6-10 participants. For example, in a previous study conducted by Moorman, Neijens and Smit (2002), the final scene in Rocky was found to create high levels of arousal. From the evaluations of the focus group, I will choose one clip that was extremely arousing and one that produced low levels of arousal. Then, a product will be placed digitally into each selected program. After digitally placing a product, I will show the new program to a new set of participants. The participants of the main study will be asked to watch the clip and answer a questionnaire that will contain questions of brand recall, level of arousal felt and some demographic questions. The results will be used to analyze the benefits, if any, of product placement. Product placement has become a common means of advertising for many companies.
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