Most product placements in a music video

The likes of Avril Lavigne, Jennifer Lopez and Britney Spears have taken product placement to new - and sometimes blatant - levels in recent years, but Lady Gaga (USA, b. Stefani Germanotta) gave a whole new meaning to music video advertising when she released the nine-minute-plus clip for "Telephone", her 2011 duet with Beyoncé. Among the dozen or so brands clearly visible in the video are Virgin Mobile, Beats Electronics, Heartbeats earphones, Polaroid, Chanel sunglasses, Wonder bread, Kraft's Miracle Whip salad dressing, Plenty of Fish and Diet Coke, with the drink cans imaginatively utilized by Lady Gaga as hair rollers. Additionally, a number of fashion designers are given a nod as the singers show off an extravagant range of outfits. Directed by Jonas Åkerlund (Sweden) on 28 January 2010, "Telephone" is initially set in a prison, but when the flamboyantly attired Lady Gaga is pardoned the action moves to a restaurant, where she poisons diners with her sandwiches. At the end of the video, Lady Gaga and Beyoncé are seen driving off in their "Pussy Wagon".

Other examples of excessive product placement include a number of Britney Spears videos. "Hold It Against Me" (2011) and "Work Bitch" (2013), for example, both showcase her latest fragrance, respectively Radiance and Fantasy Twist, with "Hold It Against Me" additionally advertising Sony, Make-Up Forever and Plenty of Fish and "Work Bitch" giving nods to Dr Dre's Pill Speaker, Maserati, Bugatti and Lamborghini sports cars and Planet Hollywood. (Britney reportedly earned more than $500,000 from product placements alone in "Hold It Against Me".) Jennifer Lopez's "Live It Up" (feat. Pitbull, 2013) features branded products such as an Ice watch, Nokia mobile phone and Swarovski, while Ke$ha's "We R Who We R" (2010) advertises Plenty of Fish, Tequila Revolucion and Baby G watches. Some of the most blatant product placements can be found in Avril Lavigne videos, with "What the Hell" (2011) showcasing Converse trainers, Sony Ericsson's mobile phone and her own Abbey Dawn clothing line (among other things), and "Rock N Roll" (2013) kicks off with the singer saying: "Oh, my new Sony phone is ringing" before she has a 20-second conversation on the phone, with close-up shots leaving viewers in no doubt as to the brand.