THE NAMES BOND, DUREX BOND
by Chris Reed
The new James Bond film will supposedly have the largest number of product placements ever featured in a film, generating the most amount of money for the production company, some $45m. As long as they don’t have strange and out of place Ford Focus moments or watch moments as they did in Casino Royale they might get away with it but they’re not that clever and money rules when it comes to product placement. It crosses the line from partnership (not paid for) to sponsorship/commercial arrangement where brands are getting what they want because they’re paying for it, not because of any brand synergy or partnership ideals. But there are some great matches in films that do make sense within a storyline context.
Source Code is a classic case of relevant product placement. The whole film revolves around a groundhog day 8 minutes set of sequences so it makes sense that Jake Gyllenhaal looks at his watch all the time. The fact that the watch is a premium swiss brand and they linger on it to make sure you know the brand (which ironically escapes me!) says that the watch brand paid a lot of money to get that benefit. They also have some great product placement from Dunkin Doughnuts which is featured throughout the film in bags and coffee. But if you believed that Michelle Monaghan, the female star, eats any doughnuts and remains that slim size you have to be kidding. You don’t actually see anyone eat any doughnuts but coffee plays a few key roles within the film so it makes sense on that level. Presumably if Coke or Smirnoff had paid enough the script would have changed to reflect it.
The new film Hop has more product placement than characters ranging from Hersheys to Wallmart, Kodak to Kraft foods. Nothing like marketing to kids when they least expect it!
Demolition Man from 1993 starring Wesley Snipes, Stallone and Sandra Bullock was set in the future where “all restaurants are Taco Bell”. They actually changed the restaurant to Pizza Hut when showing the movie in countries that don’t have Taco Bell proving that story line somewhat ironic!
GM have to have the best product placement ever in Transformers as they’re featured in virtually every scene and in a cool way! However no one can ever compete with the Stay Puff man in Ghostbusters for context!
Of course there had to finally be a film about product placement and who better to do that that SuperSizeMe’s Morgan Spurlock. His new film: POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold comes out soon featuring dozens of willing paid for product placements, apparently without any irony at all!
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