...Product placement has been around for years, but now the practice is growing rapidly in daytime television. Butterball turkeys, Nascar shirts and Kleenex tissue have all taken recent star turns. Not only do the characters on "All My Children" smell good, but they also have been swilling a lot of Florida orange juice -- and not because they're thirsty.

...Soap operas, a carry-over from radio that started on TV a half-century ago as platforms to sell detergent, are also serving as guinea pigs for networks to test how far they can go with product plugs before viewers revolt. Soap audiences are notoriously obsessive about their favorite programs, so feedback is swift to arrive...

Because advertisers are increasingly insistent that characters discuss their products -- a jug of Tide sitting in the background no longer does the trick -- the work of implementing these deals falls to beleaguered staff writers. Striking the proper balance is tricky: Items must be embedded naturally enough so they don't raise the ire of marketing-savvy viewers, yet overtly enough to satisfy clients. And, as in the case of the Wal-Mart perfume, over-the-top soap-opera storylines can be an awkward fit. "Let's say a character is tied to the railroad tracks," says Ms. McTavish. "I can't just have him sit up and drink a Lipton Iced Tea."

Writers also must deal with companies that have their own ideas about manipulating scripts. When ConAgra Foods and CBS agreed to incorporate Butterball turkeys into Thanksgiving plot lines on "As the World Turns" the meat processor thought it would be nice to have one of the program's most popular characters help serve up the birds. There was a small problem with that plan, however: She was eloping at the time.

...At ABC, Ms. McTavish says the 10 writers she supervises have figured out "clever little ways" to tuck placements into scripts. Throwing a few lines to a minor character is a favorite technique -- that's how she solved the perfume crisis. So is writing products into less-vital expository scenes. And don't get too self-important, she advises. "You have to play fast and loose," she says. "You can write in anything if you're clever enough."