Product Placement

This paper was prepared for Introduction to Film History, Module 1 Homework Assignment, taught by Professor Stephanie Sandifer.

Smashburger is a rapidly expanding burger restaurant concept; they have announced a summary of its 2011 accomplishments and their marketing and expansion plans for 2012. Opening their first location in 2007 and growing rapidly ever since, now in 2011 Smashburger had yet another successful year of growth and consumer acceptance. Smashburger is quickly gaining national recognition for its juicy handmade burgers that are smashed fresh and served delicious, along with its localized recipes that celebrate regional taste profiles in

A feasible solution is a global optimum if there are no other feasible points with a better objective function value in the feasible region.

In cinema’s early days, the film industry was based in New York, the nation’s theatrical center. Most movies were being filmed in New York, New Jersey, Chicago, and Florida. However, by the 1920’s, southern California had become the leading film capital due to its cheap land and labor. Films gained their popularity after Vaudeville actors striked in 1901. This left theaters scrambling for acts and films became the main event. Silent films were widely popular in the early 1920’s and were usually accompanied by live piano or organ music. Talking-pictures were first introduced in 1923, but did not become popular until 1927.

Advertising via commercials allows businesses to not only show consumers their product, but also tell them about it too. The way companies utilize

Imagine sitting down on a Saturday night to relax and watch your favorite show. As you turn to your show you begin notice that the whole thing is full of ads, everything from the billboards in the back ground, to the logo on the coffee cup that the main character is drinking out of. This is exactly the kind of thing you can expect to see in the future. In his article Damian Ward Hey argues that it is in the best interest of the television and advertising industries to keep the balance between appropriate advertising and content. He uses evidence and examples of virtual advertising that relate to the audience as well as his well-educated tone of voice to make his claim, and

In the 1920s creative art styles and pictures were being used to catch people eyes and draw them into buying the product. To advertise films, hand painted, elegant posters were being made and advertised for the newest films to hit the big

During the 1920s, American Film was at the peak of its glory. 1920s Film was the biggest form of entertainment and a weekly pastime for millions of Americans, regardless of race and social background. Silent films continued to improve and innovate the film industry. Hollywood established themselves as an American force and produced hundreds of silent films. Also, Hollywood became the birthplace of “movie stars” such as Janet Gaynor, Rudolph Valentino, and Charlie Chaplin. Movie studios such as Warner Brothers Pictures, RKO, Metro Goldwyn Mayer, and 20th Century Fox owned thousands of theaters and received public acclamation for hundreds of films produced. The 1920’s American film industry is the epitome of the ascension of Hollywood and the innovation era of film.

First of all, product placement has become an excellent method in marketing products to audiences. For example, when the film E.T. was released in 1982, it featured Reese’s Pieces in scenes of the film, and the sales for these Reese’s Pieces have gone up at an extremely high rate. Product placement has also been considered to evolve around this era, and companies have been calling for their products and brands to be a part of certain movies.

Advertising – Advertising is a form of promotion; there are various methods firms use, such as: T.V adverts, radio ads, billboards around town, leaflets given out in the street e.t.c. It’s the way firms get the knowledge that their product is around out there.

Over the course of viewing a movie, I keenly focus on real-life brands and companies that are featured throughout each scene. As a founder of a start up brand, I constantly prepare for unique market strategies and creative ideas that can provide the greatest promotion of the product. The use of brands in movies is critical to a company’s day-to-day operations, and it yields extremely high earning potential. Throughout the film Happy Gilmore, both Subway and Wilson are heavily featured in an attempt to spark interest among the consumer. I will be examining the use of Subway and Wilson in the film in an attempt to determine the effectiveness of these product placements in relation to my personal habits as a consumer.

Since even before its inception, the idea of “Hollywood” has been consistently concerned with a single underlying concept: spectacle. The earliest movies belonged to what film historians like Tom Gunning call a “cinema of attractions.” Primitive films, the earliest shorts from the late 1890s to the early 1900s, were directed at an audience looking for a new form of entertainment. The first films were screened as the final attraction of a vaudeville show, mostly in the lower-class areas of major cities. They were a far remove from the massive modern theaters we patronize nowadays. The vaudeville tradition continued into film as a showman would introduce the film as a single still image

Children spend numerous amount of time watching television, playing videogames, and using computers. For businesses, these children represent the ultimate prize, an unprecedented, powerful, and elusive new demographic to profit from. Their goals now are to insinuate their brands into these children’s lives and marketers have begun to place products directly into children entertainment by subtle “product placement”. Product placement which is the significant placement of product within movies or television programs (O'Quinn, Thomas C; Allen, Chris D; Semenik, Richard J, 2009). According to the text, advertiser love the exposure that product placement provides because many consumers have turned to solutions that avoids traditional advertising, with technology like the TiVo, the consumer can skip commercials. Competition can be intense and businesses go to ethically questionable extreme ways of pushing goods, services, and beliefs.

Another reason was its bids conversion ratio which was falling year by year which can be seen from following table:

The introduction of sound films in the late 1920’s was a divisive issue among those involved and interested in the emerging motion picture industry. Even though it wasn’t the sudden breakthrough it is often perceived to be, the addition of sound and voice to mainstream cinema revolutionized movie making and led to conflicting viewpoints as to whether or not this innovation was a positive progression for film as an art and as an industry.