Product Placement in Movies

Companies use advertisements to draw their audiences’ attention and get them interested to buy their products. However, people usually don’t like to watch the ads. People think of the ads as a break from movies, they can get up, go to another place, or they can change the channel; people hate watching ads. Therefore, companies figured another way to advertise their products, which is in movies; this process is called product placement.

According to sociology, product placement is defined as a form of advertising where branded goods or services are placed in context usually devoid of ads. Audiences are forced to look at the brands or the products in the movie. However, Audiences indirectly feel it, or they may get have the desire to buy the product that they saw in the film. Thus, companies now can reach their customers and have new ones locally and globally. The Terminal is a movie about Navorski (Tom Hanks), this movie sets inside the airport and many major brands took place during the movie, in this scene, Navorski figured out how to collects coins to get himself a Whopper meal. Navorski finally lifted the inaccurately well-dressed burger to his mouth as the sound of the music is heroically increasing. From this scene, Burger King restaurants wish you to get up, drive to the nearest Burger King and get a Whopper meal.

The product placement in movies is prevalent because it works. When a celebrity’s fans see him/her in a movie with a certain product, they want to get it so that to become like them. For example, Will Smith’s admirers may got the Ray-Ban glasses once they saw him in Men In Black with his Ray-Ban sunglass. Product placement with an attractive character may make the product placement more successful. The more the product pairs with a good-looking actress, the more people like the product.

However, in Cars movie, product placement weren’t directly paid to cars like Ferrari, Porsche etc. But they helped in the technical field of the vehicles during the film's creations. Porsche AG was the latest model for Porsche, and Prosche was the female version in Cars who fall in love with Ferrari (McQueen); McQueen is the hero in this film, and all kids’ dream is to get a Ferrari once they grow up. This film has produced cultural products that lend themselves to branding and merchandising opportunities, such as McQueen toys in McDonald’s happy meals.

The Island movie – a sci/fi-thriller movie - used many products in it, maybe to make the story more realistic! But when you see the movie, you suddenly feel compelled to buy all the luxurious stuff such as the yacht, the Cadillac car, Apple iMac, or any product from Calvin Klein etc. all of the products in the movie get exposure and promoted internationally.

The more you see a name, consciously or subconsciously, the more likely you will buy that product compared with another brand, or a no-name brand “TRUST ME”. When I saw The Devil Wears Prada movie, I wanted to get Miranda (Meryl Streep)’s Prada bag, or her amazing shoes, clothes and everything, every time I watch the movie, I get the desire to do CRAZY SHOPPING.

Product replacement in movies can help the companies to strengthen their names in the long run, because many movies from the secondary market have the opportunity to generate profit from a cultural product beyond its domestic sale in its original format. On other words, the products in the films can be seen in DVD format, airplane displays, iTunes etc.; that’s why many companies are trying to be part in scenes in movies.

The Audi RSQ car plays a central role in I, Robot movie. Mr. Bean's car, a British Leyland Mini 1000 has its own character in all Mr. Bean's movies and episodes. 

I Fell in Their Trap, Did You?

Last week, we learned about the culture industry from the critical theorists’, Adorno and Horkheimer’s, perspectives. As professor Geoff Harkness explained to us in class, “popular culture is propaganda for corporations, designed to increase their economic power and social dominance.” Basically, we as consumers are soft targets for the big corporations since they produce shows, TV programs, films or design products to entertain us, and to keep us distracted from the fact that we are overworked and exploited customers. For example, fast food tastes great but it doesn’t mean that it’s healthy, and in reality it’s destroying our bodies in the long run as we keep having more cheeseburger meals. Therefore, the popular culture is a problem because it happens to be a form of social control that turns people into mindless consumers. While learning about risk management last week, the Pretty Little Liars show popped into my head as I’m currently watching it. The show is based on a series of books that were written by the American author Sara Shepard. So what ended up happening was that the book got to be made into a TV series. The story got to be developed by a prominent writer with a record of success, Marlene King who also wrote the story for the movie Just My Luck. The producers didn’t pretty much go with the plot of the story and did change A, who happens to be the anonymous person that the four friends kept getting texts from throughout the show. This was done due to the reason below that was explained by the producer of the show, Lisa Cochran-Neilan: "If you go just by the books, your fans are gone. We've used them as source material, we've used them for backbone, but obviously, if you only went by the books, your audience knew before you started shooting what the story was.” This is exactly how they hooked their audiences up with the TV show by simply not following the story of the book as they want to attract their audience and to keep them so attached to the show as they continue to anticipate what’s going to happen next. Another point is that ABC Family is the main channel that hosts Pretty Little Liars. They are also playing other TV shows like The Secret of the American Teenager, Gilmore Girls, 10 Things I Hate About You, and other shows won’t has a good number of fans. So, they are not really afraid of losing because they know they already have big hits. In addition, Pretty Little Liars is on iTunes and Apple TV for people to either buy the whole season or purchase by episode. Another opportunity to make money was by using the name of the show for merchandising through using the name of the characters in the show and putting them on hoodies, T-shirts, iPhone covers, bags, … etc. I fell in their trap because I keep buying more episodes so I can identify who A is. But, the producers are expanding the show and keep adding other additional seasons. Not sure if I'll ever know who A is!