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Outback's product placement trumps the rest of field

By SCOTT BARANCIK
Published June 5, 2006

Outback Steakhouse's inclusion in a May episode of NBC's The Apprentice was the week's most effective product placement, a New York research firm found.

ITVX said a 3½-minute Apprentice segment in which competing teams vied to sell the most Outback fare at a Rutgers-Navy tailgate party slaughtered other placements, including magazine Us Weekly (WB's Pepper Dennis), Acuvue contact lenses (MTV's 8th & Ocean reality show), Degree deodorant (UPN's Love Inc.) and Rubik's Cube (magician Keith Barry's CBS special).

It wasn't even close. Degree's mention on Love Inc., for example, lasted a mere 30 seconds. One character on the show told another that Degree was the secret to avoiding "ugly white streaks" on her black dress.

By comparison, the 6.7-million Americans who watched The Apprentice on May 8 heard Donald Trump call Outback a "great" restaurant, saw contestants gush predictably over a Bloomin' Onion and other Outback specialties, and took in dozens more visual and aural references to the chain, owned by Tampa's OSI Restaurant Partners Inc.

Outback wouldn't say how much the prime-time placement cost. But Apprentice contestant Allie, a University of Florida alum shown downing Outback cuisine, probably said it best.

"If we can't sell this," she declared, "then we just can't sell."

- SCOTT BARANCIK, Times staff writer

[Last modified June 5, 2006, 06:05:45]