Product Placement and Safety

By Bill Tricarico
Senior Risk Management Consultant
McNeil & Company, Inc.

June 2013
Have you watched a movie lately? Leading men and women use products in movies and clearly allow the camera to briefly focus on the name or logo. As we watch we see these everyday products on the big screen. Years ago, this never happened. Hollywood went out of their way to be certain not to show real life products, mostly to avoid copyright infringements or have to pay a fee for the use.

Things have changed considerably since the days before ET used those candies to help find his way home and if Reese’s Pieces just popped into your mind that’s my point. Now product placement has become big business and companies pay mil-lions for the right to have their product used on the big screen or even television so that people can relate to it. They must know something, because no one would spend all of that money without being pretty certain of the result.

What does product placement have to do with safety in your organization? Isn’t getting your organization to be safe is really a job of selling safety. You must make them understand that safety is good for everyone, both as individuals and as contributing members of your organization. You have to sell that doing things safely is paramount, far more important than doing things quickly or easily– and that can be a tough sell.

Why not take a lesson from people who pay so much to sell their product or idea– put safety into everyone’s daily routine. Properly placed safety posters which catch attention are a proven method of getting your message of safety across. How about a small dashboard sticker reminding everyone to buckle up? Or a small sticker on equipment reminding users to wear eye or hearing protection?
When providing training, are you focusing on safety? The use of personal protective equipment should come to the users mind in the same way the method of starting the tool.

Finally, how about just reminding people to be safe? When explaining how you want a job done, it may be a good idea to finish the thought with a simple, “and don’t forget to do it safely.”
The thought here is that safety doesn’t have to be limited to specific training sessions or meetings. Safety must an on-going part of your organization or the results could be devastating, so why not take a lesson from Hollywood and carefully place that product so everyone can see it.

Now if you’ll excuse me, that communicator in the latest Star Trek film looked pretty cool and I’m going to go buy a phone just like it.