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Check out the video below, and Ben’s latest album, ‘Inclusions,’ which launched today and is awesome.

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No one can deny that too many instances of product placement are obtrusive, blatant, and insulting to our intelligence. We, as the audience, find ourselves thinking, ‘Really??? They think we’re not going to notice that?’ Take the over-the-top series of Days of Our Lives product placements that hit the Web last fall.

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Painful, yes. But I’m guessing Chex Mix got a lot more eyeballs than they paid for when that clip went viral.

Still, obnoxious and interruptive ads are not the way of the future. While these clips were somewhat entertaining when they popped up on your news feed, imagine if all television shows had their characters reaching for (and unashamedly selling) their favorite picnic snack?

And yet advertisers are left with fewer and fewer options these days, thanks to new technology and the widespread implementation of the DVR. The empowered audience that we’ve become is determined and willing to avoid ads at all costs. So what choice do advertisers and writers have? Because in the end, in order for us to get the chance to enjoy the content we consume, someone needs to pay for it.

The latest effort in highlighting the absurdity and reality of the product placement world is the documentary, The Greatest Movie Ever Sold. Filmmaker Morgan Spurlock, of Super Size Me fame, sets out to, in his own words, “…make a film about product placement, marketing and advertising where the entire film is funded by product placement, marketing and advertisement.” In fact, he even sold the title of the film, whose formal name is actually POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold. Check out the recently released trailer below.

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But luckily for audiences and writers everywhere, there is an alternative to this type of crass and intruding product placement that Days of Our Lives brazenly uses and Spurlock satirizes. The key is to make it so flawlessly integral to the story, that its presence is not questioned. And while this approach is obviously not as easy as grabbing the nearest box of Cheerios to shove in your actor’s hands, the results are paramount to any other option. Audiences are satisfied with the fact that they aren’t being rudely interrupted with commercials or obtuse product integration, content creators are happy that they can continue to make awesome work, and advertisers are thrilled that their brand is being featured at the center of the story. As technology continues to progress, making brands part of the story, and not part of any viral mocking campaign, is crucial. Hey, no one felt offended when Cast Away pushed the Wilson-volleyball-turned-companion in our faces, did they? He was simply another character in the story.

That all changed when Tim Berners-Lee created the world wide web protocol. Now besides physical reality, at any given moment, consumers can access multiple layers of digital reality that include geographically relevant information, games, gifting, narratives and who-knows-what-else moving forward.

What that means is that a lot of one-way monologue media — television, radio and print included — are being asked to think about behaving in a two-way, oftentimes unscripted dialogue with a person on multiple formats. It’s a blended reality world.

What this transmedia now means for content creators and those that underwrite it are:

1. It’s here to stay. People media platform-shift and expect content to follow and react/behave appropriately

2. Platforms matter. Certain platforms have more validity for certain demographics than others

3. Stories must travel. Storytelling should be designed to live on all formats from its original conceit – not as an afterthought

So now what? The value of traditional advertising model is less reliable in a diffused, fragmented media landscape that is more about participation than interruption. No less than Forrester suggests that building more direct relationships with content allows brands to become part of the value chain – and to become more involved in a participatory dialogue with a community around that content. Brands still need to reach audiences, and entertainment is still the best way to provide value for their attention.

While traditional TV and music sponsorship helps a brand’s positioning, it is still a one-way model that may not take into consideration new time-shifting behaviors. Partnerships that go beyond inventory and product placement can reach audiences that other media can’t (social media for example). And then there’s ownership. Dare we dream that a brand can bring back serious theater and performance. Given the right metrics and targeting, the web might the right place to see “August: Osage County” if you can’t get to Broadway.

In fact, my dad, who is totally useless when it comes to technology (“oh yes, the mouse, I can see it move on the screen!”) was so blown away by the experience that he’s convinced it’s black magic — in fact, so much so he’s refusing to use the ‘damn tinternet’ ever again.

So, well done, boys at Google Chrome and of course, Arcade Fire. It’s really an amazing example of the magic that happens when you take a killer entertainment property and partner with an awesome brand.

ARGFest was an amazing event that brought together an insanely talented group of practitioners and players in the transmedia space. I forged some great working relationships with new folks over the weekend.

We feel real fear as Jason approaches the unwitting teenager. Terror when we hear the haunting shark melody from Jaws, without even seeing a shark. Why? We feel euphoric when the officer becomes a gentleman. The hero gets the girl. We know the whole time that these characters are only words on a page or light on a screen.

Why do we believe in these fictional beings and feel emotions toward them, even when they are as implausible as Darth Vader or Superman?

Neuroscientists are beginning to unravel the mystery. Norman Holland, author of Literature and the Brain explains thusly:

In both the act of creation by the writer and our re-creation of the work as readers and audience members, we are passive and receptive. Totally involved in perception, we shut down our systems for motor action and the planning of motor actions. For the creator, that means reduced norepinephrine.  For us, just sitting in an armchair reading or in a theater watching, we believe in fictional characters and events because reality testing is tied to motor activity. Because we are not planning to move, we stop doubting. We feel real emotions toward these fictional characters because the dorsal “where-how” and the ventral “what” systems in our brains are getting conflicting information.

Which leads us to the relatively new practice of Neuromarketing. We may try to hide our lust for goods, but our brain can’t.

Neuromarketing is using brain imaging technology to understand the decisions that underlie consumer behavior. Brain science has advanced quite a bit in the past decade and we now have a much better idea of just how people make decisions.

One of the key lessons learned from brain science is that when we ask people about their reasons for things, we’re only getting a small part of the brain processes that underlie their decision making. A lot of times the information we get is really a reconstruction or rationalization. I’ve seen this using lots of traditional primary research methodologies. We may want to avoid saying we buy things because they appeal to our sense of pride or vanity or some other deadly sin. One of the most fundamental insights in brain science is that most of the processes that underlie our decisions are unavailable to our conscious mind. They’re done on the basis of intuition or unconscious processing. This leads to research findings that are maddeningly “inconclusive”.

So what does this all mean for storytelling, marketing and branding?

In social psychological terms, anecdotes are more powerful persuaders than advertisements. The lawn mower my neighbor recommends is better than the one I see on TV commercial. As long as the source is likable and credible. What we’re really talking about is simply relationships and trust.

A story, especially a good story, allows the audience to disengage a little from reason. A great book can have us suspend disbelief and accept all kinds of outrageous possibilities. With a good brand story, if it engages us emotionally, if we like the source, if we attribute to the brand some positive characteristics, then there is a halo effect extending over the product/s for sale. The story has provided value and built trust with the brand.

All the positive feelings we now have lower frontal lobe activity, reducing critical thinking, making us more easily accept what we’re watching, hearing and feeling. We’re then more likely to engage in some active behavior; consideration set ranking, discussing, shopping, buying, recommending it to a friend, writing blog posts about it, becoming brand loyal, becoming brand fanatical.

End of story.