Diego's Marketing Blog (catchy huh?)

So today in class we talked about product placement: products or brands that appear in movies, TV shows, music videos, etc. But what product placement lecture could be complete without talking about the king of all product placements music videos? Mmmhmmm Honey B, I’m talking about Lady Gaga’s video for Telephone. You have probably already seen this video, but let’s watch it again and together count all the brands that appear on it just for fun kay?

Alright, so in order of appearance:

– Lady Gaga’s Heartbeats (earphones worn by raunchy looking immate at 1:33)

– Virgin Mobile (during the err… groping part) (and then again at 4:15 displaying a text that reads “Thanks for bailing me out Sista!”)

– Diet Coke (cans on her head! ON HER HEAD!!!)

– Hp laptop (used by the security guard)

– Plentyoffish.com (Brent Carpenter’s favorite)

– Honey Bun!!!!!!!

– Chevrolet (the Pussy Wagon!)

– Polaroid (Oh snap! Get it? Snap? God I’m lame!)

– Wonderbread (Let’s make a sandwich!)

– Miracle Whip (hhmmm… saucy!) 

Yes, so many shameless, obvious and blatant product placements. This annoys a lot of people, I don’t know if they are bothered by the obscene amount of distractions so that they feel that they are watching a commercial rather than a music video or maybe it’s the fact that they disagree with how easy it is for Lady Gaga’s record label to get money and then overdoing it. But enough about other people, I want to know what YOU think of the video:

Were you distracted by all the different product placements in the video?

a. Yes

b. No, this answer is brought to you by new Double Baconator available only at Wendy’s. It’s waaaay better than fast food, it’s Wendy’s.

Anywho, personally I think this video is fantastic because (a) it is a GOOD-quality video (nothing like what your favorite teenage popstar is doing), it is very entertaining, clever enough, and it has just the right amount of offesiveness for people to start making fuss about it; and (b) how else are you going to pay for these music videos? Sure, if Lady Gaga decided to start selling live elephants, they could probably make a few millions, but if you think about it, part of the charm in “Telephone” video is how everything is so ridiculous: cheesy script, overdone acting, silly scenes (“let’s make a sandwich”), so the obvious product placements go really well with the whole feel of the video.

Also, I did my homework and I found out that only some of the product placements were actually paid for. Virgin Mobile, Miracle Whip and plentyoffish.com (Brent Carpenter’s favorite) paid to appear in the music video, while the other ones were supposed to appear anyways (If Gaga wants Diet Coke cans on her head, Gaga GETS diet Coke cans on her head) and the compnies only agreed.

Well lastly, I don’t know if, overall, these product placements were actually effective or not, but what I do know is that it’s time for me to finish this post because I’m craving a sandwich like never before… wait a minute!!!