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Comment RSSTop Ten: Most Shameless Uses Of Product Placement In Film
22.06.08 # 6:14 # Top Ten # 68 CommentsAh, good old fashioned product placement. Being an angst fuelled youngster, product placement is one of my favourite areas in which I can pin point and rant about corporate greed in the most cliché “stick it to the system” manner possible. The basic idea of product placement is to make more money to finance your film by placing specific products within a film, such as through characters, placements in the mis-en-scene, and often even in the dialogue of the script. In a certain way, product placement can add to realism within a film, as it would be silly if people were drinking from a can marked “Beer” or a packet marked “Cigarettes” in true Orwell’s 1984 fashion.
However, in the ever growing corporate dominated world we live in, the entertainment business has been a breeding ground for corporate greed and product placement. Sometimes it really does add to a film’s overall feel, and it is easy to understand a film that is struggling to get production money needing a financial boost from a company by promising to show, or advertise, their product in their movie. Nine times out of ten, however, it really is greed, and the placement is so cringingly obvious that it almost adds a humorous effect to the dialogue and in many cases ruins a film. Allowing product placement to take place in your film definitely effects the artistic and creative direction of your film, as you are made to accommodate for the different products within dialogue or shots on location etc.
What follows is a Top Ten list of the most shameless examples of product placement, but first, some brief insightful words from the king of surrealist film making in the western world, Mr. David Lynch.
10. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Converse)
Harry Potter seems like an unlikely place for product placement, as after all it is set in the fantasy world that is Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. However, as the Potter franchise edges into the latter films of the series, up props some great opportunities for some product placement aimed directly at the kids. Young adults are the perfect demographic for Harry Potter, and indeed the new age revisited trend of Converse shoes.
The fact is; Luna Lovegood’s shoes could have been any brand, or even just some plain black shoes- but they just had to be Converse, didn’t they? What follows, is a clip from the scene in which the shoes most prominently feature. I particularly love the way that the camera pans down to reveal them like some sacred idol.
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WHAT!
How can Castaway NOT be on this list, it was a giant commercial for Fed Ex!!!!
Hmmm. yet the wizard which was centered around nintendo did not make the list
How could we forget about Evolution, the movie that is an entire ad for Head & Shoulders shampoo?
Because FedEx didn’t actually pay to be featured in the movie.
haha yeah Castaway was i my original draft, i did a lot of changes and switches, but theres so so many examples out there!
Thanks for your thoughts.
Tom
wtf man how the hell can you not include this part in Wayne’s World:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=VsjU6SUVudw
that blows all of the things in your list away.
what about talladega nights?
they had a commercial for applebee’s in the movie,
a discussion about fig newtons, they prayed for thanks for taco bell kfc and dominos, and not even mentioning all the logos on the cars
I think Transformers should definitely have a spot on this list.
Demolition Man Tacobell scene was dubbed? Not in the UK. Sure it does go on about Tacobell, and I hadn’t got a clue what Tacobell was until a few years after I’d first seen the film, but I’ve watched the film four or five times, and have never encounted a copy refering to Pizza Hut.
In Breaking and Entering (2006), they only use Apple computers (and when a laptop is used, the glowing Apple logo is always displayed. At one point, Ray Winstone walks up to use one of the many Apples and says something along the line of “don’t you just love Apples?”.
Wow.
Personally, I found the product placement for Nokia in ‘Cloverfield’ very tasteless, especially the scene on the subway platform.
How can they not put “Bye Bye Love” from 1995 in there it’s an entire movie damn near centered around McDonalds.
the worst in recent memory had to be the placement for Dodge in Fantastice Four : Rise of the Silver Surfer. The Fantasicar has a Dodge badge and the familiar grill, at which point human torch asks “This thing got a Hemi??” ON A FLYING CAR?????
I definately think that The Weather Man should’ve been on here. The ads made that movie a piece of shit.
I dont things like the James Bond one count as product placement. I mean did you expect them to make up completely new brands for everything? It makes it real.