“Which phone model is it?”, “Where can I get this dress?”, “What is the brand of …?” … These questions must appear, at least once, in our minds when watching TV series and movies. Nowadays, product placement has widely been used as a marketing strategy to draw viewers’ attention on the products or brands.

Ideally, this brand connection is a win-win strategy for both product and movie producers. The former can gain extra sales through improving product image and brand’s intrinsic value while the latter is benefited by a higher quality film production due to the additional product placement revenues. Yet, this ideal situation takes place only when the placement is successful.

In my opinion, a successful product placement should be based on the rule of “Natural, reasonable but not exaggerating”. In other words, the product or brand shown should fit in with the context of the shows in a proper length of time and present its value without deceptions. Let’s take Skyfall and the first Transformers as examples.

There were multitude of brands displayed in Skyfall, such as Omega watch and Sony Xepria phones. The sports timekeeping proposition of Omega fit especially well on James Bond, the agent who was required to have missions done in time. Despite the few-second appearance, the product gave a profound impression to audience with the strong character’s personality.

Omega Seamaster from Skyfall

The placement of GM cars in the first Transformers portrayed the brand with a heroic image, which attracted viewers’ eyeballs with a splendid and unbreakable image.

GM autobots from Transformers

All in all, wise and successful product placement should reflect brands’ intrinsic values and enable viewers to accept and understand the brands in a “natural, reasonable, but not exaggerating” way.

Here is a video more about product placement in Skyfall. Hope you enjoy it!
CNBC – Skyfall Product Placement