Upcoming Universal Pictures release The Lorax has over 70 product tie-ins, including the EPA and Whole Foods. That's pretty impressive and what I can only assume is a bid to exhaust ultra-conservative nutjobs whose paranoid fantasies lead them to attack even childrens' movies for fostering "liberal propeganda." After all, these attention-seeking publicity whores have a tendency to express their displeasure by calling for boycotts against sponsors of such material. With 70 partners, that's a hell of a huge writing campaign.
Not that I have a problem with publicity whores - I just prefer it be done to stimulate capitalism rather than stifle it. It should be done in the name of raising product awareness - not watchdog group awareness. You know what I'm talking about - the blatant product placement that ensures that when Marty McFly orders a drink, he makes sure we know it's Pepsi. The sort of product integration that let's us know that when the future becomes a near utopia, all restaurants will become Taco Bell. We need this sort of jarring, in-film advertisment to remind us now and then "this whole thing is a fantasy, so don't waste valuable brain matter trying to puzzle out the internal logic in a 90s Stallone film.
The more obtrusive a product placement is, the closer it comes to achieving a pure state of the Brechtian alienation effect. I admit, I don't remember enough of my college film courses to explain what that means, but it sounds pretentious enough to make me seem I know what I'm talking about. Though I can appreciate the irony that Brecht was a Marxist - which means that if he were alive today, he'd be writing me an angry letter for associating him with behavior like this:
So with that in mind - what would you consider to be the worst/most awkward example of product placement in a film? Bonus points if you can think of a better way to execute it.
Monday, February 27, 2012
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The only time I stopped watching a movie because of product placement was a Paul Reiser film where every other scene was in a McDonalds. For no good reason.
ReplyDeleteI think Josie and the Pussycats did a better job of satirizing product placement than Wayne's World did, they just weren't the first.
I've never even seen the film, but I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that the movie is BYE BYE LOVE. I remember the commercials for that one showed a lot of scenes in McDonalds.
DeleteMan, when I was 12, that Wayne's World scene felt like one of the funniest things I'd seen. Never saw Josie and the Pussycats, though.
'I, Robot' contains (among its many, many placements) three hilariously bad ones - the 'another delivery by FedEx' robot (yes an actual ROBOT), the 'hey, nice shoes!' remark to Will Smith's 'vintage' Converse All-Stars, and a comedy shot of a car pulling into frame that serves only to park the BMW logo so close to the camera it literally fills the entire screen!
ReplyDeleteBring back Wayne's World with the 'hey, it sure was nice of Virgin to fly us all the way to England...'
The close up of Will tying up the shoes when he goes running and he says, 'Yeah, I love my All-Stars'. Classic.
DeleteWait I forgot - the constant shots of Apple computers with laptops (and logo) angled towards the camera in a completely unusable way for the person doing so.
DeleteIn the latest Mission Impossible movie all the IMF technology is malfunctioning, like the ACME stuff for the Wile E. Coyote that Brad Bird turned Ethan Hunt into. Only the Apple branded objects seem to work perfectly. And the missions now are not on self-destructing tapes but on I-phones. Considering how expensive they are I hope they do not self-destruct.
ReplyDeleteWhen Truman's wife loses it and starts promoting the coffee in The Truman Show?
ReplyDeleteOh no, that's totally post-modern and the point anyway.
In 24, when whoever was running CTU that hour asked Chloe if some attack or other might affect their computers, and she replied don't worry, "the Cisco system is self-protecting".
ReplyDeleteI'd have let it slide, but she enunciated "Cisco system" with the stress on the first syllable of each word, so it sounded like a brand name rather than like a system by Cisco. The latter I can see someone saying. The former is an advert.
I like to think the actress did it on purpose.
I tend to ignore the product placement unless it's a brand I already like, except in Wayne's World where they were doing it to be funny. "Little, yellow, different."
ReplyDeleteWhen I think of product placement I remember Siskel & Ebert dedicating a whole segment of their show ranting about it, especially when it's scenes where the product in question is destroyed. Like when someone crashed into the Coke ad that used to be in Times Square. I wish I could find a clip of that but I only found ones about them ranting about Leonard Part 6.
I would not worry about Lorax and its green partners (those companies’ consumer base is not known for boycotting campaigns; they are EXPECTING to see Whole Foods ) - it is more of an issue when a mainstream company (e.g. Lowe's, Motrin brand ) is linked to a niche/polarizing issue (All American Muslim/ ads ‘belittling’ use of baby slings respectively)
ReplyDeleteThe winner of course is Ben and Jerry who managed to ‘insult’ both conservatives with Schweddy Balls and liberals with Jeremy Lin ice-cream.
As a parent taking a kid to the movies I become aware of product placement pretty quickly and sometimes it can provide some adult-directed entertainment (product placement jokes in Shrek).
I think as long as marketers know/understand the audience the product placement should be fine (I am pretty sure there are no Whole Foods/Prius/Apple footage in Act of Valor
I think Lorax should do fine (I am taking my 5 yo) and even better internationally (of course then those brands might not be recognized)
The worst/best product placecement: Jesus (a.k.a. a father of illigitemate children who still live among us (at least in France)
Hmm. I read somewhere that ET originally called for M&Ms and that the company objected because they did not want their product associated with a sci-fi film; Spielberg then substituted Reese's Pieces.
ReplyDeleteAnybody know the truth for sure?
More than you ever needed to know about E.T, Reese's Pieces, and product placement in general: http://www.snopes.com/business/market/mandms.asp
DeleteMy favorite ever was in a Van Damme movie. I think it was Timecop:
ReplyDeleteHoodlums are running through the mall and Van Damme throws a kick that stops with the bottom of his shoe about a half-an-inch from the guy's face.
Van Damme: Read it.
Hoodlum: Reebok?
Van Damme: No, between the lines.
Hoodlum: I better get the efk out of here!
Favorite product placement shot: Wolverine drinking an MGD in X-Men 2. It's so, so blatant, but somehow works.
ReplyDeleteFavorite product placement film: Minority Report. Product placement is all over that movie, and it's slick and seamless and taken for granted by all of the characters in the film.
Oh, and least favorite: Mac & Me. It was a fun idea -- ripping off E.T. in the context of what amounts to a 90-minute McDonald's ad -- but the movie is just terrible in every way.
ReplyDeleteI chuckled at Hellboy drinking a Red Bull yet rolled my eyes at them only finding Pepsi cans to use in Twister.
ReplyDeleteOh man! I had totally suppressed that moment in Twister! Yeah, that's gotta be up there.
DeleteIn the original screenplay for Back to the Future, the DeLorean ran on Coca Cola.
ReplyDeleteAnother bad one was in Inspector Gadget, where a giant billboard for Yahoo! falls down on a limo while they play the "Yahoooooooo!" jingle.
For me, the best was in Kill Bill Vol. 1, where a gun is hidden inside a box of Kaboom cereal. I always laugh at that.
I can't believe it took me until now to recall two of my favorite egregious ones: Zod throwing Superman into a Marlboro truck in Superman II and Superman retaliating by throwing him into a giant Coca-Cola sign.
ReplyDeleteSo what in-film product placement has ever subtly convinced you to buy something or switch brands?
ReplyDeleteI know what Scarface makes me want to buy... and American Psycho makes me wish I had Oliver Peoples glasses and a slightly better haircut.
When I was 6 years old, no piece of marketing got me more excited for Super Mario Bros 3 than seeing The Wizard.
ReplyDelete