Macy's Product Placement Thanksgiving Day Parade

1. Those entertainment characters we’ve grown up with and come to love.

2. Macy’s America, Inc. Thanksgiving Day Product Placement Parade (which I hardly recognized at first clicking through the 270 photo slideshow on Zimbio) reflects a practice that has grown so common who hardly notice it anymore? And to matter-of-factly use the kiddies as brand targets like that, hmmm.

3. You’d think these corporations would have had the guts to stick their logos on the character rather than, in various cases, ridiculously scrub their IDs from their “brand spokesmen” (or use a scarf to just incidentally block them) telegraphing there’s something not-completely-right here. (If anything, by the way, the logo’s absence where you’d expect it, in a empty blue circle, for example, only makes you more mindful … it’s Pillsbury!! (Here, by the way, is Ronald “on the ground” with branding in place.)

4. If you think about it, they’re all “dough boys.”

(photo 1: Desiree Navarro/Getty Images. photo 2 & 4: Laura Cavanaugh/Getty Images North America caption: Atmosphere at the 86th Annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on November 22, 2012 in New York City.. photo 3: Mike Lawrie/Getty Images caption: Planter’s Mr. Peanut attends the 86th Annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on November 22, 2012 in New York City. linked photo Gary Hershorn/Reuters. caption: The Ronald McDonald balloon floats down Central Park West during the 86th Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York November 22, 2012.)