Article - Product Placement
The movie industry has evolved a lot over the years and in many different ways amongst these, are how movies are financed. Many moons ago a studio would stump up the money for their latest production, but with the demise of the old studio system things changed. Product placement can now raise funds for movies.
Look at movies now and see how many products are clearly in frame, in fact you don’t even have to go to your local multiplex to see them, just switch on the TV and watch the ads. 5 seconds into the ad I’m thinking “ yes the new trailer for I, ROBOT ”10 second in I’m thinking “ this film looks great, look at the robots all over Will Smiths car” 25 seconds in, hold on what’s this, this isn’t a trailer for I, ROBOT it’s an ad for Audi, building the car of the future - today or some slick tag line like that.
Product placement is a good idea. Product gets in movie - Product gets a good image - More products sell - Movie producers get money (or free use of a product) everyone’s happy. Where it becomes a problem for me is when the product placement is too obvious or overbearing, is seeing the product helping the film? I doubt it. I don’t go to the cinema to get ideas on what product to buy next; I go to the cinema to be entertained. One film that comes to mind as having too much advertising is BACK TO THE FUTURE 2. If you have this film on video or DVD, go and stick it on and see how many ‘ads’ you can see or even worse how many are mentioned. Here are a few to get you started. Cadillac, Ford, Rolls Royce, Pizza Hut, Pepsi, Black & Decker, Mattel, Nike. They’re not hard to find.
Since BACK TO THE FUTURE 2 I have been very aware of product placement, it’s not new, it’s been there throughout the life of movies, but where and when did it start to make a financial difference. My money is on 1965 and a film based on an Ian Flemming novel, yep you guessed it, Bond or more precisely Goldfinger. After the success of DR. NO. (1962) and FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE (1964) Bond was the last word in cool, and someone so cool needs the coolest car. The car was the Aston Martin DB5, yet surprisingly as high profile as Bond was Aston Martin felt it was not the image they wanted for their prestigious coupe. After much negotiation and the production folk at United Artists paying Aston Martin for the use of their cars, Bond got his DB5.
GOLDFINGER, like the Bond films before was a huge success and after the high profile use of the DB5 Aston Martin were amazed to see there order books fill faster than they could possibly keep up with. By the time UA were ready to shoot THUNDERBALL (1967) Aston Martin were offering their cars to the producers free of charge, as were many other car companies wanting to increase their profile. Both moviemakers and ‘retailers’ were on to something. Fast forward to bond 20 Die Another Day. Watches, computers, cell phones, cars, etc are all regular placements.
Yep, Product placement is here to stay and the high cost of movies to day has seen to that, but what’s your view does it help or hinder the industry. Let me know your thoughts.
