Product Placement Deals | Shopping for FREE
You would be forgiven for thinking that Katie Price makes money for product placement and deals struck for appearances on What Katy Did Next. Even me, the most non-cynical* Katie Price observer was thinking “I bet she gets all those toys for free” when Katie went Christmas toy shopping at Hamleys (London’s Premier Toy Shop) in one episode of What Katie Did Next.
This is How We All Should Shop
You’ve got to admire her style. She arrives in a taxi and with the meanest looking security. This solitary bodyguard, built like a brick **** house, who should be an extra thug (at least) in any future James Bond films, becomes Katie’s larger than life shadow. Straight away she enlists the help of a group of Hamleys’ staff who, from then until they deliver all her bags to another taxi, traipse around after her and collect the mass of toys she buys. She refers to this group as her “elves”. With the elves in tow she’s like a toy locust. Toys are bought in multiples.
She buys a Scalletrix car set. The assistant attempts to give her some sales patter:
“Don’t bother with that” says Katie “you’ve sold it, just put it in there”
Over Critical - Who Do You Think You Are? You are NOT Katie Price
The bodyguard looks on amused. I start thinking – that’s the only way to go shopping but then I notice the bodyguard is chewing. There’s no way I’d let my bodyguard eat on duty, but then I notice Katie is eating some of the same (presumably) sweets and realise I’m being over-critical again. So I get back to thinking that this segment of What Katie Did Next is a product placement deal and she’ll not be paying for her Supermarket Dash of a shopping spree at Hamleys Toy Shop. But then:
Buying Toys from Hamleys
One of Katie’s elves comes up to Katie laden with various samples of Christmas wrapping paper. It is all themed. There are two sheets per bag and it costs one pound (£1 = c$1.50) per sheet. She looks at it with polite interest as the shopping elf describes the themes – some Disney, one Transformers. A peeved Katie says, words to the effect:
“No, I won’t be buying wrapping paper here” and then, as the elf assistant takes the wrapping paper away “£2 a bag, what a rip off…”
The Difference Between Real Life and product Placement
It is then that it becomes very obvious that this is not a put up job. If it were Katie would have said:
“Wow, what wonderful wrapping paper. Ideal for wrapping my Christmas Toy Gifts bought at the world’s leading toyshop which is Hamleys. Yes please I’ll have 20 packs of your exquisite wrapping paper after all, for £200 that is a bargain...”
* joke!
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