Product Placement In The Movies

Scenes in movies need to be filled in with everyday products

, so what better way to advertise than to have your company"s items visible on the big screen? Placement has become a giant business in the movie industry and casual enough that we, the consumers, don"t even notice the subliminal advertising we are bombarded with as we watch a show.

Advertising began in the early 1900s when films were only maybe two minutes long and silent, yet products were visible on the screen. When films grew to be of a length that we recognize to be more normal today, about the 50s, the product placement was more widely used. Throughout the next several decades, there were many clever ways of incorporating different items into movies or television.

Some of the earliest things observed were magazines and typewriters. Hershey"s Chocolate and Wrigley"s Gum were some of the food items early on. Now we are hit with the soft drink battle, fast food, brands of furniture, clothing, laundry care, body care, even the cars that are driven. Volkswagen invested $200 million into NBC Universal Films in 2002. That is how important it is to companies to get their product in front of the consumer while they are being entertained. Perhaps they are more likely to remember it, perhaps it is simply just another edge of publicity for sales...just more eyes to see them.

Something that filmmakers must decide is, how relevant is that product to the movie being produced? Does it fit the demographic? Generally a business will want to target a particular group of people by appearing in a certain movie. So placing a product for teens in a movie for middle-aged adults would be a complete waste of their budget. It needs to fit.

There are a few different kinds of placement categories. This is interesting. The next time you watch a movie, check it out and see what you can pick out. One kind, Basic Placement, is when the product is integrated casually. Such as if the character sits down and takes a swig from a bottle of Coca-Cola after work. They did not draw attention to the brand, but you can tell that is what it is. The next type, Advanced Placement, would be if that character came home from work and their scripted wife told them to go sit down and drink that nice cold Coca-Cola that was waiting for them. There, someone brought attention to the brand. It was mentioned. Advertisement Placement is when you see just that on the screen. An advertisement. Such as a taxi driving through downtown New York and it shows a billboard with milk on it.

There are those who will argue whether or not this tactic works or not. Many feel it bombards people and especially children with unnecessary brand exposure. Others feel it makes a movie more realistic. It would be things they would see each day in their own lives anyway. So who really knows? Does it make you want to drink Coca-Cola instead of Pepsi if you see it on the big screen? Or perhaps it simply promotes soft drinks in general. What we do know is that these companies tend to pay big dollars to get noticed in the theaters and the placement is quite deliberate especially in children"s movies such as Brave and other DVDs.

by: Zack Mandell

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