"We wanted to make sure [Debra Messing's character] would go through an evolution that would make her a Pond's woman," says Doug Scott, executive director of branded content and entertainment for Ogilvy North America. According to Scott, Pond's money bought it 1) a hand in shaping the story and character arcs; 2) some standard product placement; and 3) a few key "signature moments" in which an on-screen interaction with the Pond's brand triggers a thought or motivation in a character.
I read this article the other day when I happened to be browsing Slate. It's not the sort of TV I would watch, but I have two thoughts on the topic. One is that the characters in the miniseries would almost certainly be using higher-end products than those marketed by Pond's. The other is that the intended audience is probably mostly using Pond's-type products. I don't know if the heavy insertion is obnoxious or not... it just seems to be television-business-as-usual, nothing surprising or notable. We know that it's usually about marketing even when it's not entirely about marketing.
(Someone's gotta pay for the production of those shows. And when it was a cell-phone company doing product placement in Veronica Mars in a way that was totally organic to the characters, I didn't mind it, except that I thought their phones were higher-end than some of the characters would ordinarily be able to afford.)
OTOH, did anyone catch the MTV Movie Awards? They were essentially a two-and-a-half hour promo for the Transformers movie that's coming out next month, including giving the movie an award for "Best Summer Movie You Haven't Seen Yet." It was obvious, obnoxious, and embarrassing. Even for MTV.