Promotional Consideration

A subtrope of Product Placement, this is the practice by manufacturers and retailers of providing prize money or goods to the producers of a Game Show in exchange for being mentioned during the program.

It also turns up in Talk Shows, wherein the sponsors' contributions usually come in the form of hotel accommodations for the guests or clothing for the host and allow the sponsor to air a ten-second ad for their program, a form never offered in regular television advertising. Also used in a separate form where the Closed Captioning expenses for a program are paid for by a sponsor in exchange for a short ad, with Hot Pockets the main purveyor of this type of ad and sponsorship (appropriate for a product that only takes two minutes to cook).

Also done with syndicated dramas and sitcoms such as The Big Bang Theory, even though the closed captioning is already done; at this point the promotional consideration is just a Genius Bonus for the syndicator to get a few more bucks.

Promotional Consideration for this page has been provided by:
  • The Oprah Winfrey Show
  • The Price Is Right
  • Ellen
  • Top Chef, any incarnation—yes, they do say where the prize money comes from and who supplies the normal appliances the chefs use. Got embarrassing during the years General Electric (the longtime owner of Bravo and NBC, no less!) was the appliance sponsor because the fridges often failed and the ice cream machines never worked.
  • Project Runway—the supplier of accessories on that show went from Macy's to bluefly.com to piperlime.com.
  • From the 1960s through the 1980s, Spiegel and Service Merchandise were both prolific with game show prizes, most famously on The Hollywood Squares. The companies had no other advertising, and had only catalogs and a few brick-and-mortar clearance stores. Once game shows went down the tubes, so did both companies.
    • Same with Jules Jurgensen.
    • Michael C. Fina Co. is also more well known for offering game show prizes, but is still well in business.
  • The classic Consolation Prizes in television Game Shows included "Rice-a-Roni, the San Francisco treat" and "a case of Turtle Wax". As these are relatively low-value items, the manufacturers would typically pay to have the game show take this stuff off their hands, in effect buying the ten-second closing announcements as ads. This was lampshaded in "Weird Al" Yankovic's Affectionate Parody "I Lost on Jeopardy!" with a claim (delivered by game show announcer Don Pardo) that the hapless, defeated contestant doesn't even get the "promotional consideration" prizes as "a complete loser":

That's right Al--you lost!
 And let me tell what you didn't win: a twenty-volume set of the Encyclopedia International
A case of Turtle Wax, and a year's supply of Rice-a-Roni
The San Francisco treat
But that's not all! You also made yourself look like a jerk in front of millions of people!
And you brought shame and disgrace on your family name for generations to come!
You don't get to come back tomorrow!
You don't even get a lousy copy of our Home Game!
You're a complete loser!!

  • Fox Sports is the oddest example of the trope, ending every game broadcast with a blue screen featuring thanks to product manufacturers for putting ads on the game, and the voicing of the line above.
  • For years WWE programming would end with "Promotional Consideration has been paid for by the following..." read by Lord Alfred Hayes.
    • This sound clip is used near the beginning of every Wrestlecrap Radio podcast to plug its own sponsors.
  • Spoofed in You Don't Know Jack: The Ride, where each "episode" is brought to you by a fictional (and often quite silly) product or business. In the 2011 version of the game, the "Wrong Answer of the Game" is similarly sponsored by a bizarre product related to it (such as "Granny's Roach Butter").
  • Also parodied in The Fairly OddParents episode "Odd Ball", which was said to be sponsored by "Farmer Ahab's Blubber Nuggets".
  • The Simpsons: School Bully Jimbo ran for mayor. At the end of his ad, there was a note saying it was paid by his victims.
  • Doubly parodied in Futurama; the Couch Gag at the beginning of a couple of shows had sponsors of Molten Boron (with the Jingle "Nobody doesn't like molten boron!") and Torgo's Executive Powder), and in-universe, the Omicronians' ritual eating of Leela in "The Problem with Popplers" was "brought to you by Fishy Joe's new extreme walrus juice. (Ride the walrus!)"
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