How to Boost Sales

US executives are turning to reality television to repair the battered image of corporate America, turning a show, in which bosses work incognito alongside their most poorly-paid employees into the most successful tool for restoring brand images.

Undercover Boss was responsible for seven of the year’s 10 most effective product placements according to Nielsen, the measurement company, which looked at how well audiences recalled the brand and how much the show improved their opinion of it. Nielsen’s data show a trend towards such extended features on a single company rather than the traditional highlighting of brands in programmes such as American Idol.

"In difficult times, people are interested in watching TV programmes where there is some recognition of the difficulties they face,” says Stephen Lambert, the executive producer behind Undercover Boss and Fairy Jobmother, a UK import about getting the unemployed back to work. “At a time of great insecurity people like watching shows where people end up in a better place.”

Undercover Boss typically ends with the executive setting up a health scheme or taskforce, and rewarding employees with scholarships, holidays or, in one case, a 7-Eleven franchise.

Read more at Financial Times