Monday, July 05, 2004
Hollywood Product Placements Done Right.
I recently watched Steven Spielberg's The Terminal, and absolutely loved it. Other than the fact that it includes the absolutely delicious Catherine Zeta-Jones, it is a modern case study in brand development and product placement for consumer companies.
Though there were dozens of paid and bartered product promotions in the film, what struck me was how subtle the product placements were, especially for United Airlines. The only placement that made me cringe was the Hugo Boss suit, which worked right up until when Tom Hanks' character spoke about it: "I got it on sale at Hugo Boss -- $146.00." Michael Mccarthy wrote an article about the United deal in USA Today, excerpted below:
Spielberg practically makes United a supporting actor in his new DreamWorks movie: Catherine Zeta-Jones, Hanks' love interest, plays United flight attendant Amelia Warren.
The first words in the film are a United boarding announcement.
About 40 United employees from Los Angeles International appear as extras. So do United 747 planes and Red Carpet Clubs.
United has been advising DreamWorks for 18 months, as well as providing employee uniforms, gate signs and logos.
Compare this to the abominable product placements in the movie Josie and the Pussycats. The difference is in how the script handles the product, and how its woven into the context of the story.
I've spent some time helping craft product placement deals for brands within films, and I have three simple rules of thumb:
- Read the script, not the cast/crew list. Too often, companies are willing to jump into bed with a studio because of a name attached to the film. This can backfire, because consumer brand perception happens within the context of the script, not outside of it.
- Insist on context. In The Recruit, a CIA systems engineer sits down at her development desktop, and downloads sensitive code from an iMac. This is not only bad product placement, it creates brand dissonance. For a brand that's weaker than Apple, it can create a strong negative effect.
- Use promotion barter. Try not to pay for your placement -- the overall index of brand appreciation is relatively low for the money that it costs. Too often, mid-level marketing and brand managers decide to push the deal because of the glamour involved. Trust me: you won't meet any stars, and you'll end up lying to your friends about it.
The related question, of the day, however, is this: if the purpose of pay-tv like HBO and Showtime is to avoid commercials, and get programming that's value for money, what gives movie theatres the right to take money, and then make us sit through fifteen minutes of commercials before the previews? Does product placement fall within the same gray area? There exist no policies or controls in place (whether central, or honorary) to manage these forced brand exposures. My liberal friends would argue that it needs to be regulated, and controlled.
What do you think?