The 5 Degrees of Poor Product Placement Forced By Marketing Companies in Movies

Companies spend billions of dollars annually to promote their products, and the film industry is receiving a lot of that money to shamelessly put unrelated products ‘naturally’ within movie scenes. It began as somewhat of a subtle attempt at subconsciously influencing the audience’s thoughts and opinions of a product. Today this annoying marketing degree ploy mutated into a terrible affliction that often seems to grow films into long commercials. It seems that one is no longer able to escape from advertisements; billboards, taxis, newspapers, magazines, television, movies, and even YouTube bombards us with ads on a daily basis. Hollywood has stooped to a new low by selling out to these big brands, but new releases seem to be scraping the bottom of the idea barrel recently, anyway. Here are five tasteless product placement forced by marketing degree holders in film.

The Nonexistent

The best kind of product placement is the nonexistent kind. Some movies accidentally promote a product or an item, such as the appearance of the red stapler in Office Space. This stapler, made by Swingline, was one-of-a-kind: the company didn’t even make red staplers when it was featured in the movie. However, the demand for this item became so adept after the Office Space debut that Swingline decided to manufacturer them. This accidental marketing felt okay because it came about naturally; the character was endearing and so was his attachment to the stapler. Had the placement been bought, the relationship between man and stapler probably would have been much more forced — and unsuccessful. Nonexistent or accidental product placement is the least awful degree since genuine stories can be appreciated without feeling as if we’re being sold something.

The Subtle

There’s a subtle degree of product placement in movies that is a little more than tolerable, since it’s done so well that we may not notice it at all. Like nonexistent product placement, someone who has a tactful and skilled hand at marketing can make a product exponentially more successful depending on how its featured within the film. The Ray-Ban sunglasses in Top Gun is an excellent example of this, but the movie had an even larger (and more surprising) success when it came to product placement: The Navy. John Davis, producer, states that Top Gun was a ‘recruiting video’ for the Navy and actually helped recruiting because people wanted to be like the pilots in the film.

The Reasonable

The next degree of product placement in a film is a little more annoying, but still ranks as reasonable. The story is amusing and the product fits well within it, so the viewer doesn’t mind the marketing aspect so much. This was true of Castaway, the movie in which Tom Hanks is a FedEx employee who gets stranded on a deserted island with a bunch of packages he should be delivering instead. It’s been noticed that Hanks violates FedEx’s rules, namely the one about not opening other people’s packages. FexEx’s loss of their own cargo didn’t exactly speak volumes about the company, either. However, the story was executed exceptionally well and loved by audiences not only nationwide but worldwide — the director of global brand management at FedEx notes that business rose in Asia and Europe.

The Commercial

More and more, product placement is becoming a blatant and shameless form of ruining movies and television with advertisements. Many companies are getting bolder with their marketing degree strategies, and that means telling you to buy stuff in the loudest and most memorable way possible. Most of today’s shallow, robot-like manufactured comedies and romances contain this type of placement. The Hangover is especially guilty of this, as the opening scene is focused on a giant Monster Energy Drink can beside a drunkenly passed out man. I, Robot, was also guilty of this with their shameless promotion of Chuck Taylors and Will Smith’s attempt to inculcate how they can “withstand the test of time”" into the viewer’s brain. Tactless moves like these can ruin an otherwise enjoyable (or at least tolerable) film.

The Slanderous

The fifth degree of product placement would be slanderous, or ‘anti-promotional’. A perfect example of this would be in the movie Sideways, where two friends on a wine-tasting road trip continually bash Merlot whilst praising Pinor Noir. Audiences then followed in the footsteps of these imaginary characters and therefore, Merlot sales plummeted while Pinot Noir sales soared. Although product placement always makes us feel cheaply tricked, the slanderous type is probably the worst… right below ‘blatant’. If Hollywood focused on storytelling and stopped trying to make a feature length commercial, they wouldn’t have to keep making crappy remakes.