The Greatest Movie Ever Sold: Movie Trailer

The Greatest Movie Ever Sold. There are so many reasons why I love the look of this movie, not least:

• Super Size Me legend, Morgan Spurlock is fronting it. Guaranteed, good honest humour whilst proving a salient, sobering point along the way
• It is completely self-referential – a film proving its own point that we are over-advertised to through the medium of film and television, whilst acknowledging it wouldn’t exist without that very industry. I just love a good old paradox
• By the look of the movie posters, he actually manages to convince Californian-based pomegranate juice-makers POM Wonderful to take the $1m title sponsorship. I cannot wait to see that boardroom table discussion
• The issue of our contemporary over-dosing on product placement is placed front and centre (anyone who doubts the presence of brands in movies needs to check out Brand Channel‘s great database, Brand Cameo)
• Great title (though he will need to be forgiven for borrowing from Frank Rich’s book of the same name)

The premise is a simple one – can you make a movie using only budget acquired from sponsors and advertisers? If you’re wondering how Spurlock came up with the idea in the first place, his director’s statement in the movie’s press pack is worth a read.

(and no fewer than 12 pages of the 23-page press pack are dedicated to ‘A word from our sponsors’. So it’s a fair that bet he accomplished what he set out to…)

I think my favourite exchange in the trailer below, is from Spurlock’s conversation with politician Ralph Nader:

Spurlock: Where should I be able to go where I don’t see one bit of advertising?

[beat]

Nader: To sleep.

Not currently slated for a UK theatrical release this year, this might be one for festival screenings and a smaller-scale art-house release. But for the time being watch the trailer and enjoy:

 

Wall Street 2: Product Placement Never Sleeps

I went along to a preview of the Wall Street sequel last night. Enjoyable, certainly, but as ever (brand geek that I am) I was on the look out for product placement and my word was there a lot to choose from.

While Brand Cameo provides a very nice summary of all the brands who got screen time, I thought it would be more interesting to visually display which ones had the biggest impact on me. So I created a Wordle to represent them:

Now I’m not saying this is based on the average consumer, because I am a brand-obsessed marketer who was actively looking out for them. But I’ve created this based on the impact each brand left me with.

Of the 33 brands present on the screen, I managed unprompted recall of 7 – Bulgari, Heineken, Johnnie Walker (Blue), Lay’s, Dunkin’ Donuts, Toyota and Ducati. Another two that, on being prompted, I felt also had a prominent role were Border’s and Cracker Jack (the latter of which got a verbal reference, a minor plot-line and on-screen package presence).

In terms of credibility? The Heineken reference was absurd: in a restaurant setting, Gekko (Michael Douglas) offers Jake (Shia LeBeouf) a drink and instead of the more natural ‘Can I get you a beer?’, he offers the specific branded lager (which LeBeouf accepts), showing an unusual prior knowledge of drinks taste for an exchange between relative strangers.

(c) Twentieth Century Fox

Bulgari has a natural narrative placement in one storyline, but there is an additional black tie fundraiser scene where half the screen time is taken up with scene-setting shots focused tightly on the bejewelled ears and necks of all the female guests – no doubt who were all dressed by the luxury jeweller. Slightly gratuitous.

Ducati absolutely has a natural fit in one section of the movie, and the branding doesn’t feel overdone. Toyota more or less serves a purpose, but had no specific plotline supporting its involvement (unlike Ducati) – appearance-wise it looks like an odd choice of model for the protagonists (not the best-looking car), but on further probing I gather it is a Toyota Prius. It is the ‘lefty’[sic] Winnie (Carey Mulligan) who we see driving it (implication being it is hers rather than Jake’s) so I guess, given the Prius’s über-green credentials, it actually seems a pretty good character fit.

Other brands appear just for screen time: Dunkin’ Donuts and Lay’s being two. The offer of a Johnnie Walker Blue from Jake to his Japanese clients as a gift is a bit over-sold but more or less believable (though I remain unconvinced you would refer to the brand by name on presentation of the bottle).

The nicest brand reference is probably Cracker Jack (another Frito Lay brand) – I won’t expand too much for fear of plot-spoilers ahead of release – but their presence in the movie is believable, fits with the narrative and isn’t over-sold.

What really interests me is how much the average movie-goer would have picked up from all of these. If there’s anyone reading this who doesn’t lamely watch movies for the brand mentions, please do leave your comments below.

Iron Man 2 & Audi: a feat of brand engineering

Last night, thanks to our lovely friends at Odeon, a colleague took me along to a preview screening of the upcoming blockbuster Marvel smash, Iron Man 2. We had a blast, and could gush extensively about the two hours of quality entertainment: the mind-blowing explosive special effects, the hardcore AC/DC soundtrack and the enviable eye candy factor of every principle cast member (with the possible exception of Mickey Rourke).

But instead, as ever I want to talk about the brand stars. The victor for me was Audi – that car manufacturer now ubiquitous it seems across the action movie genre. With a stand-out presence in the movie – Tony Stark’s model of choice is a shiny R8 – the car performed admirably in its various scenes and even managed to work its way into the conversation at one point. And in a non-clunky way too. Unlike Tony’s uncomfortable reference to his watch preference, a Jaeger-LeCoultre, which could have given Daniel Craig’s Casino Royale Omega reference a run for its money).

What I found particularly admirable about Audi’s placement deal can actually be found outside the film. Frequently, entertainment rights holders make commercial partnership deals in order to take care of their marketing, and film is a prime example. One live event rights holder I met with the other day explained that 80% of his event promotion is driven by his sponsors. And Audi have stepped up to the plate.

http://www.TonyStarkInnovationChallenge.com

The Tony Stark Innovation Challenge is an Audi-created global contest throwing down the gauntlet to budding engineers and entrepreneurs who have a killer idea that could change the world. Encapsulating the innovative ethos of ‘Stark Enterprises’, the contest rewards the winner with a $15k prize to make their dream idea a reality as well as an all-expenses-paid tech-lovers trip to California. Video entries are voted for by the online community and judged by Audi executives, and, to spread that promotional net even wider, a factor of success is spreading the word via entrants’ social networks. You can even download the Stark Expo Briefing Document to find out more.

A very flash website brings this all to life, with an interactive garage area that blends the fictional ‘engineering’ behind Iron Man’s gold-titanium alloy suit with the reality of Audi engineering mechanics. Not only must the dwell time be significant (I am not a typical Iron Man fan, nor an aspiring Audi owner and yet I spent a good 6 or 7 minutes exploring the functionality), but the intended integration of Iron Man’s characteristics with that of Audi vehicle is pretty seamless. While ‘Repulsor’ technology and the ‘Mark VI A.I. system’ might not actually exist, Audi would be keen to think the pop-physics components Iron Man’s elements could, broadly speaking be applied to their own production values:

‘built on a legacy of innovation… developing the world’s most advanced materials… it is clean, powerful, and despite the best efforts of the competition it cannot be replicated.’

Brand and property values fundamentally intertwined, and in so doing, blurring the line of reality? Job done.

Oscar-winning product placement (from BrandChannel)

Unable to keep my eyes open until 4am on Monday morning, I watched this year’s Oscars in highlight format the following day online, so unfortunately missed out on the network advertising that filled the commercial gaps. I would have been expecting big things though, as according to that endless source of brand information brandchannel.com, brands paid around the $1m-per-slot mark to gain a slice of the limelight. Not quite Super Bowl figures, but still a considerable investment.

While BrandChannel offers a great summary of these (and most importantly which ones were worth the spend), I always have a greater interest in those brands that gained from their presence in the movies themselves – outside of the commercial breaks and embeded within the film production process. Fortunately, BrandChannel covers these as well.

It’s always quite amusing to survey friends and colleagues on their recollection of product placement on screen – the latter especially given that they work within marketing and are arguably more watchful of brand presence within entertainment platforms. BrandChannel’s Brand Cameo database is the most exhaustive resource I have found of brand presence in movies of the last decade. As part of this, the clever folks have taken the brands present in this year’s Oscar contenders for Best Picture and plotted them on a matrix, plotting memorable versus instantly forgettable, against those that provided significant profit versus those that did not.

Hopefully, they won’t mind me reproducing it in full here:

(c) BrandChannel.com 2010

It should be noted that Günther’s in District 9 and RDA that featured in Cameron’s epic Avatar were actually fictional brands. Now that is an interesting area in itself. Having written previously on how events, rights-holders and entertainment platforms are increasingly feeling the need to get a ‘brand stamp of approval’ on their project (even if they have to make one up), I am further convinced that we all now require a brand presence within our entertainment to validate its grounding in reality.

Though in the case of both District 9 and Avatar, paradoxically the branding was exercised to validate their grounding in un-reality.  I guess given their sci-fi nature, it seems to make more sense to create a fictional unknown brand, thereby emphasizing the futuristic setting. But nonetheless, Günther’s and RDA still fall firmly on the ‘memorable’ side of scale – despite their non-existence in our reality. Was this a missed opportunity for ‘real’ brands? Would South African-born Nando’s or thoroughly American N.A.S.A. have offered anything more? Would the producers have allowed it? Would the brand managers have wanted to association? And would the brand messages have been more – or less – memorable as a result?

I would love to know what goes in to thinking up these fictional companies. Do production execs or screenwriters work in a name that states a subtle (or not-so-subtle) socio-political message to fit with the film’s thematic development? As one District 9 viewer pointed out in a fan forum, sometimes the conotations have more meaning than at first it might appear:

‘Why were the South Africans patrons of a restaurant named Günther’s? Günther is the name of a king of Burgundy and means “warrior” or “soldier.” In effect, the South African blacks had a white warrior to thank for their sustenance.’

Either which way, we are entering an era where commerciality of movies – on and off screen – may fast become the life-blood of the industry; if, in fact we are not there already. How many years before an esteemed member of the Hollywood glitterati stands before the Academy audience and announces, ‘And the Academy Award for Best Product Placement goes to….‘?

If this year’s Oscar-winning animated short film Logorama is anything to go by, it won’t be long. For those who have not yet had the pleasure of this little piece, the entire premise is the over-branded commercialisation of modern-day America on film. Watch the trailer here. Utter genius.

(c) Logorama 2010

90210′s product placement horrors

TV product placement in its various incarnations is something that I love to keep track of. We see it with the greatest presence (and price tag) on the silver screen, but we are starting to see it more and more on the small screen too – especially in American shows targeted at a youth audience. Unfortunately, the more common it becomes, the less sophisticated the methods seem to be.

Granted, the US have very different rules on brand presence, but with the recent return of 90210 to E4, I needed to share some screen grabs of a couple of season 1 episodes where the product placement is nothing short of paid-for full-screen advertising (and thus I have tagged this post appropriately).

I love the show and I don’t usually find this kind of over-exposure offensive as such, but 90210′s integration of brand into scene is so unsubtle that it is starting to become intrusive even for me. The two prime examples (taken from the previous, first, season) are Dr.Pepper and T-Mobile’s Sidekick mobile phone.

So you could watch the clips in the context of the show, I had found the clips on YouTube, but as is increasingly the way these things go, the clips in question have been removed by a CBS copyright claims. A shame, but if you are studying product placement methods (and the clangers therein) it is almost worth buying season 1 just to spot them (I’m sure you will find more).

Dr. Pepper makes its first appearance behind the bar (and front of shot ON the bar too)...

...and gets prime placement for the close-up

It even (bizarrely) gets wall placement in the cafe to cover the reverse camera angle and (even more bizarrely) gets a reversed placement on the bar in the foreground

Naomi got so over-excited at receiving a message on her T-Mobile Sidekick that she had to taunt Annie with it...

...and the producers felt the need for the obligatory close-up

Can anyone NOT read the vertical T-Mobile branding? Well fear not, if you are blind, Naomi gives it a verbal mention too.

All that said, while I still won’t touch Dr.Pepper because it remains vile-tasting no matter how much screen time Hollywood gives it, I do now quite want a Sidekick. And I did write this blog post about it. Go figure. Maybe we can learn from the Americans yet.

Landmark decision to lift ban on television product placement

I have been meaning to post on the product placement horrors in one of my fave US teen dramas 90210 for some time, and that post is still forthcoming – but in the meantime, a quick update on recent developments in that area for the UK broadcast market.

Ever in the shadow of its more commercially open American cousin, the British broadcasting industry has always been hampered by government guidelines restricting product placement on our TV screens. Not for much longer.

Under new legislation announced by the Government on 9 February, product placement will be allowed in UK terrestrial television programmes. In his statement, Culture, Media and Sport Secretary Ben Bradshaw said that maintaining a ban on television product placement would “jeopardise the competitiveness” of UK programme makers “at a time when this crucial part of our creative industries needs all the help we can give it.”

This decision follows the introduction of the Audiovisual Media Regulations 2009 on 19 December 2009, which allowed some product placement in ‘on-demand’ television and television-like services.  However, until this week’s Government announcement, there were no exceptions to the prohibition on television product placement. The question of television product placement has proved a contentious issue, with many stakeholders expressing concerns about the potential adverse impact on the editorial independence of broadcasters and on viewers’ trust in what they see on television. The strength of opinion is evident in that the Government received almost 1480 responses during its recent consultation.

For this reason, the Government has decided to “proceed with caution” and has decided to introduce further safeguards beyond those set out in the AVMS Regulations 2009. Products and services such as alcohol, food and drinks high in fat, salt and sugar (HFSS), infant follow-on milk and gambling will all be excluded from the new product placement rules, and BBC licence funded programmes will also remain unaffected.

Further, it is significant that the new rules will not take effect immediately, as the Government want to give Ofcom the opportunity to run a public consultation and make detailed changes to its Code. However, it is anticipated that shows including product placement will be being shown on terrestrial TV by the end of the year, in what could herald a new era for television advertising and broadcasting.

Watch out for a pint of the black stuff being ordered in the Old Vic this side of Christmas.