Product Placement

Media is everywhere, it became a part of our life. We are exposed to thousands of ad messages every day and it's hard to imagine how it would feel to live without them constantly surrounding us. Today we see ads in print publications, TV commercials, emails, on different products, massively scattered in sport venues, and it’s even spreading into public spaces. In his documentary, Morgan Spurlock delivered a fascinating satire of the process of placing products into movies and tried to delve into the nature of advertising in our society.

Product placement in music videos is quite a fruitful source of money for artists who approve it. The content of many commercial pop songs, the imagery displayed in music videos and the conspicuous consumption apparent in the lifestyles of pop stars all reinforce the idea that mass consumption will lead to happiness.

I do not often pay attention to commercials on the television but recently one caught my eye advertising Taco Bell’s new breakfast menu. The commercial consisted of several gentlemen stating their names, all named Ronald McDonald, eating some of the products, and stating that they like Taco Bell’s breakfast items. All the gentlemen in the commercial participated in a focus group where they got to try the product first before giving their opinion. It was kind of like getting word of mouth advertising the way the commercial was set up. I found it amusing because Ronald McDonald is the name of the mascot of McDonalds which is in competition with Taco Bell. This was a marketing concept not an accident and it is pretty clever.

I appreciate your point of view that at times misplaced advertising devalues film and television to an extent. The real bone of contention is, how a marketed product is placed in uniformity with the demand of the specific presentation. The extra money earned by the producers through product placement gives them more economic power to make the content better. For example, being able to rent a superior sound studio for dubbing. A thorough well-thought product placement provide film and television producers another avenue of income and in-turn the product manufactures get their desired visibility.

The world Is like one big marketing ploy. Advertisements are everywhere from subtle movie appearances to billboards and everything in between. Advertisers continue to find more ways to push their products with the hopes that the next method will prove more successful than its forerunner. The articles “Illusions Are Forever” by Jay Chiat and “Champagne Taste, Beer Budget” by Delia Cleveland illustrate the result of successful advertising and how it works. Quite a few of these seldom fail to prove fruitful .The most effective forms of advertising are high-end product placement and celebrity endorsement.

In the documentary “The Greatest Movie Ever Sold,” Sprurlock’s on a mission to find a big marketing company to sponsor his movie. He goes on a wild goose chase to find the company that meets his needs as far as what he expects out of the movie; and to meet the needs of the company as well. Viewers get to see the business part of advertising and how product placement determines the success of a company. Spurlock travels these parts of advertising by filming a movie that can only be made possible with several brands in return of having them featured in the movie. Sprurlock shows people a look at what goes into product placement. His main purposed for the film is to get America to see how ad-driven our society is. While doing this, he also uses rhetoric strategies along the way.

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.

First, Susan Tyler Eastman, Gregory D Newton, and Paul D Bolls (2003) examine the impact of promotional videos’ content on TV show ratings. Their research shows that attractiveness and humorousness of promos and the way how the content is presented accounted 5-9% of the reasons for rating differences among 155 prime-time comedy shows. It also shows that these impacts are more substantial if the show is familiar and mid-rated.

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.

Product placement in film has been nothing new. Production companies would often insert advertisements and products into their film in order to gain revenue. But what happens when a fictional icon of media starts to rely on product placement? In 2013, Man of Steel was released nationwide and seemed to revive Superman, an icon embedded in American culture. In Jeremy Kirk’s review for firstshowing.net, he praises the film; “Regardless, this fresh, ironically grounded Clark Kent tale Nolan and Goyer have decided to tell is a welcome return for comic book's most iconic figure.” (Kirk, 4). However, one aspect that stood out in the film is a very specific scene in particular. Superman is fighting the villainous General Zod, who wants to make Earth like their home planet Krypton. The fight scene is enormous, but one thing stands out in particular, the advertisements. Product placement was used in the scene almost as

Product and brand exposure in films is the result of paid product placement, the provision of free products as props, or personal use by actors. Product placement implies a mutually beneficial relationship between the filmmaker and the manufacturer of the product. Initial contact may be made by the filmmaker seeking to reduce costs, increase income, and provide realism or it may be made by product placement firms seeking product exposure for companies they represent. Product placement firms have evolved over the last two decades to broker relationships between filmmakers and corporations. The usual procedure is for the product placement firm to receive scripts in advance of production from filmmakers and review the scripts for the possible use of products they represent. Normally this involves substituting a specific brand for a generic brand—that is, instead of “John meets Mary at a coffeehouse”, John might meet Mary at Curt's Coffee. The integrity of the script is maintained, a touch of realism is provided, the filmmaker has an existing location for filming, and Curt's Coffee receives extensive free exposure. The film cast and crew may also receive free lattes and muffins and possibly Curt's Coffee mugs. The product placement firm receives its fee for making the placement, and everyone connected with making the film wins.

The example I chose to use of product placement is Ray-Ban’s Wayfarer sunglass in the classic 1983 comedy, Risky Business. This film launched celebrity Tom Cruise’s career and saved Ray-Ban’s Wayfarer sunglasses from extinction. I decided to rent the movie because I had never seen it since it came out 13 years before I was born. This movie sparked my interest because whenever we have to name our groups someone always picks that movie title for their group name. On the cover of the movie you see Tom Cruise rocking the Ray-Ban sunglasses. The opening scene is black and it slowly zooms out from the center of the Ray-Ban sunglasses. He wears them throughout the movie when he is partaking in his risk business. Then at the end of the movie it does

The large red Coca-Cola cups that sat on the judges table are seen as product integration. This is due to the fact that they were paid to be there and at times they would discuss the cups and drink from them as well while filming went on. Another example of product integration on American Idol was when the host would say after each contestant finished signing "to vote use AT&T Wireless" fans would submit votes if and only if they had AT&T wireless. Another example of product integration would be the pair of blue Manolo Blahniks during one of the Sex in the City movies. One of the main characters loses the show and spends part of the film

Cinema gives a powerful environment in which to advertise. The film being shown virtually identifies the target audience and makes it very easy to schedule and buy advertising spots to match brand message to potential consumers. Better still, the audience is completely captive and in a receptive frame of mind as they wait to be entertained. A well organized media plan based closely around the films being shown can be a highly effective way of communicating brand messages to a willing audience. In-film advertising is very much alive and kicking.

When companies needs to increase its sales, profits and want all people aware about its products or services than they should advertise company products and services. Advertisement is something like a short film or written notices that is shown or presented to people to help sell products of company and attract public to buy products that available in market.