Tracking embedded ads

Advertisers, on the other hand, are eager to know whether their money to plug their products is being well spent. Did viewers notice that the car the villain was driving was an Audi? Did a character holding a box of Wheaties really make people want to buy it? Did it make a difference how many times cups of Coca-Cola appeared on "American Idol"?

Several companies are now vying to become the place where advertisers look for those answers.

In April, Nielsen spent $225 million to acquire IAG Research, one of the biggest companies to measure the effectiveness of advertising and product placement. Nielsen is in the process of figuring out ways to combine parts of IAG with Nielsen Product Placement Service, the division that employs Martin and about 15 other "coders" to count when products appear in shows. IAG says that when combined with Nielsen, it will provide the first comprehensive service for tracking product placement.

The merger comes at a time when the Internet has upended the business of measuring advertising through its technical ability to count when viewers see an ad and respond to it. Advertisers now expect a high degree of specificity in knowing the effectiveness of their ads. That has put pressure on traditional forms of old media -- such as TV -- to improve their ability to measure how consumers respond to advertising, including product placement.

"If you can't measure it, you can't sell it," said Alan Wurtzel, president of research and media development at NBC Universal, which uses data from IAG to show advertisers whether consumers respond to their placements.

IAG comes up with its product placement ratings by asking 2.5 million people to fill out surveys online after watching their favorite shows, said co-Chief Executive Alan Gould. The surveys ask whether viewers remember the brand, think more positively about it or want to purchase it, and whether the placement disrupted their viewing experience. Gould says clients have included Toyota, Ford, Verizon and American Express.

"The marketplace for branded entertainment is going to continue to grow," he said. "And to fuel that marketplace, buyers and sellers will need an independent data source."

Others are trying different approaches to measure the effectiveness of brand placement. Frank Zazza, the product promoter who was responsible for promoting the placing of Reese's Pieces in "E.T." and putting Junior Mints in Cosmo Kramer's hands in "Seinfeld," now runs a firm called ITVX that seeks to measure viewer recall of product placement.