Opinion: Perspective - Time to get product placement into perspective.(advertisers)

It's only three months since Ofcom's Stephen Carter lifted his skirt a little and revealed that he might - just might, mind - consider allowing some (official) product placement on UK television.

But you can be forgiven for feeling jaded by the subject already, so much excitement has Carter's half-promise generated. The idea caught the mounting wind circling around the growth of branded content, and in the intervening weeks it has felt as though we're staring head-on into a new utopian TV future, with advertisers invading almost every quarter.

Naturally, there has been a scramble to plant agency flags in this new sand and suddenly everyone's got an expert division (OK: one man and his cuttings file) specialising in making programmes and placing products.

Of course, it's all rather a lot of bollocks. Product placement can only ever be a pretty blunt tool, while a decent branded programme is many, many months, if not a year or two, in development. Interesting additions they may be to the advertising armoury, but no panacea, and no time soon.

But Ofcom has made some really interesting changes to the sponsorship code, both more immediate and more impactful. See page eight for a full summary, but the key points are that sponsorship credits can now be longer than five seconds, can make reference to the brand's advertising, and can carry contact details, web addresses and so on. And the credits can run alongside programme credits, anchoring the commercial message more firmly in the programming environment. On top of that, Ofcom raised the possibility that entire channels could be sponsored. This really is a major step forward. TV sponsorship is a proven commercial tool and it just got more powerful.

Whatever medium you look at, advertisers' commercial demands are changing.

Advertisers are increasingly looking for solutions tailored to their individual needs.