This was published 9 years ago
The Bachelorette Australia 2015: What was with those sneaky product placements?
By Ebony Bowden
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Something very unsavoury happened on The Bachelorette on Thursday night.
It wasn't the awkward three-on-one Turkish bath scene which looked like something out of Eyes Wide Shut, but some rather blatant product placement.
Fans of the series have of course seen this all before.
In this year's The Bachelor, the girls were lavished with jewellery from Zamels (who can forget that chunk of metal Sam gave Snezana?), while being ferried around in Nissan soccer mum cars.
However, Thursday night's episode took things to a gross new level, and we were almost jolted out of our Bachelorette dream-state by the dazzling array of Oral B toothpaste in Sam Frost's bathroom.
The stunning brunette was getting ready for her one-on-one date with charming Englishman Alex when we cut to a scene of perfectly arranged Oral B hygiene products.
Whitening strips? Check. Whitening toothpaste? Check. Whitening mouth wash? You get the picture.
This was followed by even more product placement as Sam spritzed herself with a relatively-unknown perfume.
Even seedier still is the fact the guys keep telling Sam how nice she smells.
When Sam made her big entrance at Thursday's cocktail party, the first thing 'professional soccer player' Michael (he's actually a real estate agent) told Sam was "you smell amazing".
That's some clever subliminal advertising, right there.
We get it. Shows have to make money, and product placement from sponsors is something which has been happening on shows like The Block for years.
The Block is one of the masters of product placement, working Suzuki cars, Mitre 10 hammers and Android phones into nearly every shot.
Got to pick up a lamp? To the Suzuki Swift. Need to find out where the plumber is? Call him on your Samsung Galaxy.
While shows like The Bachelorette aren't any different, is certainly ruins the audience experience.
Who can forget the abysmal Sex and the City 2 which assaulted fans for more than two hours with dozens of different products.
There was also The Biggest Loser last year when trainer Shannon Ponton lectured his team about the benefits of krill oil, before presenting them with some Nature's Way Super Krill Oil.
Both Ponton and Michelle Bridges are ambassadors for Nature's Way, a major sponsor of The Biggest Loser.
As The Bachelor and The Bachelorette become even bigger cash cows from Ten, there's no doubt we'll be seeing more cheeky product placement.
While we doubt it's enough to turn viewers away from the series which has become a national zeitgeist, it's hard not to feel like the networks are treating Australians as bunch of mugs.