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The Times’ Stuart Elliot reports on the second coming of “branded entertainment,” the 21^st century version of Mutual of Omaha Wild Kingdom and soap operas by Procter & Gamble. In May, cable channel Bravo will debut the latest addition to its stable of culinary competition shows, “Around the World in 80 Plates Presented by Chase Sapphire Preferred.” The name is a mouthful, to be sure, but even harder to swallow is the assertion by Susan Joseph Smith, senior VP of the media agency that negotiated the Bravo-Chase deal, that the inclusion of the credit card will be done with “a very light hand.” She says that the series “taps into card members’ passions, food and travel,” but cautions that, “when a product placement is too overt, it has a negative effect.” As Elliot writes,

Those cardholders would probably be unhappy, she acknowledged, if the show were to be filled with shots of “card swiping” and similarly obtrusive plugs.

Work of Art's Fiat challenge

The Fiat 500 is a lousy muse

Are we talking about the same Bravo network here? The network responsible for the Top Chef franchise, which positions its chef-testants against pantry shelves laden with Glad plasticware? The television home of “Work of Art,” which presents its artists with a warehouse full of disassembled Fiat 500s and enlists actual art critics to critique smiley faces with hubcap eyes and sculptures made from flayed leather seats? Prize money is supplied “courtesy of the Buitoni family of products” (it’s always a product family, never a line) and contestants are coached to narrate their experiences with plenty of brand input: “Then we jumped in our Toyota Siennas and headed to Whole Foods!” When one challenge features the cookbook “Modernist Cuisine” (priced to sell at $450) the chefs turn into enthusiastic endorsers, gushing over “the most elite cookbook that’s ever been written” and confessing that “it’s coveted by every chef across America.” You can practically see the 2438-page tome’s Amazon.com ranking creep upward.

Is that a Whole Foods shopping bag?

After all, why would cardholders be any more “unhappy” with card-swiping shots than customers of kitchen appliances are with lingering pans of the GE Monogram nameplate? Bravo apparently doesn’t consider it offensive to dishwashers when the camera slides away from the cutting board action and delivers a literal “money shot” of the sinkside bottle of Dawn. Or when contestants perform an entire challenge inside a Target store . . . using the fresh produce now available at a Target store near you!

Obvious product placements tend to get panned: The plug for Subway sandwiches by the plus-size character on “Hawaii 5-0” inspired ridicule (sample comment: “It’s not Hawaii 5-0, it’s it’s the Microsoft & Chevy hour!”), as did an episode of “The Middle” that NPR summed up as “Passat Passat Passat Passat Passat.” The show “didn’t even bother attempting to be subtle,” with each family member reveling in a different aspect — the smooth handling! the quiet interior! — of their borrowed Volkswagen. Top Chef is a little like American Idol; the advertising is so pervasive and blatant that it’s almost hard to complain about a specific instance of product placement. I can hardly object to the new deal with Chase when the Buitoni/Healthy Choice/Swanson’s bonanza wasn’t enough to change my viewing habits.

Will I watch “Around the World in 80 Plates”? Probably not. But I can’t say it’s because I’m outrageously offended at the product placement.