Product Placement in Movies
Sep 28th, 2010 by tiffrennick
The above picture is a fabrication of what I’m going to be talking about today, but it still gets the point across. A huge avenue for marketing (and specifically advertising) that many of us probably don’t realize even exists is in Hollywood blockbuster movies. I can just about guarantee that the next movie you watch will have some sort of discrete, or even in your face, product placements.
One example I want to draw on is the movie “Cellular” (Check it out on imdb – http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0337921/). Basically the movie is about this young fraternity type guy who gets a random phone call from a woman in distress, and he spends the movie trying to stay on the line with her while informing the police about the crime, etc. This movie is the spokesperson for Nokia. I swear that almost every 5 seconds you will see the Nokia brand name, or at least see someone with a phone in their pocket, hand, etc. Of course the makers of the movie probably didn’t care there was so many product plugs, because Nokia most likely had to pay huge amounts to get the whole movie all about them.
The above is sort of an extreme case of product plugs in movies. Other common ones include Coke and McDonalds billboards in Times Square.
This picture of Times Square is the kind of example that I actually really like. Its very subtle and yet effective. The viewer may just perceive a typical night scene of downtown New York City, but subconsciously they are internalizing that the feelings associated with this scene should most likely go with the recognizable logos. So for example, if there is an epic romantic ending of a movie in Times Square with a Coke logo in the background, the viewer is more likely to attribute the warm fuzzy feelings of the scene with Coke.
On a last note I wanted to show this Youtube video. Its from the show “Whose Line is It Anyway”. Watch at least the first minute and you’ll get the gist of what I was ranting about. 
“Introducing Lite – the new way to spell ‘Light’, but with twenty percent fewer letters.” – Jerry Seinfeld