Product placement is back on TV today, the ban has been lifted for this form of advertising, with the first programme being This Morning today in the UK, 28 February 2011.

This is great for many companies and big brands to get their products on the TV, but there are many new rules which apply to this form of advertising.

So, references and displaying of products are now allowed in TV shows, soaps and one off drama’s, but some of the rules are that gambling services, unhealthy food like high fat, sugar and salt, tobacco, medicines, alchohol, weapons etc are not permitted for this type of advertising.

Also, product placement won’t be allowed for BBC, News, childrens programmes, current affairs and such like programmes.

The one important factor for product placement, is when any product or service is referenced or displayed on the TV, then it must clearly display the ‘P’ for 3 seconds at the beginning and the end of the programme/film to make it clear that an item is being advertised as a product.

Product placement is an advertising channel that must be controlled to ensure that it is not abused as there are many concerns that TV programmes would be full of adverts in addition to the already advertisement breaks during programmes, but this will be a great way to pay for the programmes but also to fund new ones, and in time hopefully improve the experience of watching TV. The telecoms regulator Ofcom has said that product placement must be editorially justified and not unduly prominent.  So hopefully we won’t see this form of advertising go all out of hand!

The first appearance of product placement was on this morning’s TV programme called This Morning, it was a Nescafe Dolce Gusto coffee machine which was placed in the background of the cooking feature of the programme, at the back of the kitchen, it was said on the TV News that Nescafe had paid £100,000 to display the product for three months on the show.

I’m hoping this is a good thing (in small measures), but only time will tell if we will be invaded by big brands by seeing their products displayed on films and programmes on the TV, we’ll just have to wait and see!

I hear this all the time, but if you could have a date with anyone, who would it be? A celebrity, a friend, a teacher, a scientist, an entrepreneur, a rock star, the choices are endless.

For me I did struggle a bit too when thinking about that question, as it really did depend on whether it was from a business point of view or a personal, selfish point of view, so it did mean that I had to put my thinking cap on and decide whether it would be more on a personal level.

So yes…it should be more on a personal level, and if that was the case then it was easy for me to come up with two celebrity individuals, both of them for very different reasons. Of course, as I’m male then there is more of a chance that the individuals being female, just as a young lady may choose someone like Brad Pitt, wouldn’t that be the case…!?

Ok, here we go, for me my first choice would be Natalie Imbruglia, for starters and the most obvious, she’s very attractive and naturally pretty and the curiosity for me would be to see it was still the case at first hand, is she really as good in the flesh as she is in the pictures and on TV. The other reason would be because I was brought up watching the Australian television series called Neighbours which Natalie Imbruglia appeared, playing the part of Elisabeth ‘Beth’ Brennan Willis (did she really have two surnames?), which led her to then focus on her music career, which was the type of music that really appealed to me, in fact I have two of her CD albums!

For me, Natalie Imbruglia appears to be down to earth, modest and keeps herself very private, which I belive are very good qualities in a person, I just hope she would be like that if I ever had the opportunity to meet with her in person. So, that’s one of my selections, now onto my second…!

Now, we all have that fear, of meeting someone for the first time and deciding whether to eat or drink with them, but how awful would it be if you find that you have nothing to talk about and nothing in common to discuss or debate about…!? Well, that’s why my second selection would be Fearne Cotton, the girl can chat for England, she’s funny, young and quite creative, but she also has some very good qualities such as making you feel at ease, she is very down to earth and appears to be very laid back, the conversations she hold never appears to be strained nor does she appear to struggle, it all comes very naturally for her, so that seems like a great evening to me…also if you’re lucky, she’s a bit of a party girl and there might be drinks and a late night too, so hopefully an eventful night, and of course, she’s pretty cute too…!!

So now the question for you is…if you could choose anyone, who would you go on a date with…!?