Game theory in Jersey Shore product placement

Product placement gets tricky when a celeb’s behavior sends the wrong image.

Handbag companies were not happy to see reality star Snooki on Jersey Shore vomit in their handbags and defile their brands.

And so, they fought back in an interesting way. Via NBCPhiladelphia:

Well, it ends up that fashion powerhouses like Gucci and Coach have been allegedly sending the “Jersey Shore” train wreck [Snooki] expensive designer bags.

The kicker: Coach is not sending [Snooki] Coach bags. They’re sending her Gucci bags, and any other competing designer product they can put into her Guido-grabbing hands.

Who knew the strategies of Game Theory would come so naturally to the fashionistas who think a $5,000-price tag for a handbag is a reasonable marketing move?

It’s funny how each company is fighting by trying to destroy the competitor. The logic is something like “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

On closer analysis, the game is not good for the companies. The brand war is a type of Prisoner’s dilemma.

The best outcome is if no one sent Snooki a handbag. Yet each company is motivated to send a competitor’s handbag–regardless of what the other does–and so each sends a handbag as a dominant strategy. Ultimately both pay for handbags and both brands get shown negatively on TV.

In spite of the clever strategies, the losers of this “unbranding game” are the companies. The clear winner is Snooki. Ironic, isn’t it?



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  • http://ww.franchise-info.ca michael webster

    It might be a multi player dilemma, but because there are more than two brands competing for her disloyalty, it isn’t a prisoner’s dilemma. It seems more like a coordination problem, to me.

  • http://www.economistsdoitwithmodels.com Economists Do It With Models

    Isn’t the prisoners’ dilemma just a specific form of a coordination problem?

  • http://ww.franchise-info.ca michael webster

    No, a coordination problem is usual when there are more than one nash equilibrium solutions and people need to decide or coordinate which one(s) they are going settle for.

  • Pandaemoni

    It’s not clear that the best outcome would be where no one sends Snooki a bag. It raises the question “best outcome for whom?”

    For any individual designer, the “best” outcome is when you send Snooki bags and your competitors do not, just like the Prisoner’s Dilemma. If you could arrange it so that no one sent her bags (including yourself), you then still run the risk that Snooki will independently select your bags. If she decides your work is her favorite, it might make sense to send her more bags…perhaps fancier, more expensive (or more trendy) ones than you make, in hopes of influencing her tastes away from you.

  • ExoticElectron

    I love not having TV when I read stupid stories like this.

  • Joe

    Very interesting article, for two reasons. One, the clever marketing angle; the other, is that this may quite possibly be the only time the words “Snooki” and “winner” will appear in the same sentence.

  • Anonymous

    Maybe no one noticed but JWOWW has carried at least 3 COACH bags that I saw..Don’t let COACH BS YOU Like they are TOO CLASSY A BRAND for Jersey Shore Mates. They have a COACH OUTLET STORE just a few miles up the road from Seaside & one in AC too……You know Free Advertisements with Product Placements bring in the Big Buck$ & they don’t care how much money you have in your pockets as long as you spend it in THEIR stores- not the Competition’s.!
    I cannot believe you bought into the MEDIA LIE that COACH sent Snookie (or JWOWW) a Competitor’s Brand…BS!





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