Diabolical displays of product placement in film

Welsh Megaman

What examples spring to mind?

I'll get the ball rolling with the 'Citizen Kane' of product placement...

Mac and Me!

*shudder*

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNjACYfQlbI

The in-no-way-like-E.T. kids movie that seems like one long ad for McDonalds!! How did they get away with it?!

bnt

In the future, at least according to the movie Demolition Man, radio stations play nothing but advertising jingles, and all restaurants are Taco Bell ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFiDoOgRTpk

I don't know about diabolical, but the funniest I can remember is the use of Head & Shoulders shampoo, in industrial quantities, to defeat the alien monster in Evolution. The characters even endorsed it, at least in a mock commercial:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfJb8tBTjFg

e_e

World War Z has an utterly terrible Pepsi product placement.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFcbdMrtmzc

This clip contains spoilers for the end, so if you haven't seen it, don't watch. It's at about 1:02 into that clip.

Renn

MrJoeSoap

Bond has to be the worst of the lot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8aSIjSQzAo

veetwin

Casino Royale (the newer version) comes to mind. Cars feature prominently in the movie. As far as I can tell every car seen in the movie comes from the Ford stable ie Ford, Aston Martin, Volvo, Land Rover, Jaguar etc

Goldstein

The Island. Game Over.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeVQwomIgjs

purcela

Heineken in Skyfall. Bond drinking one lying in bed beside the girl was alright, but Tanner drinking one when working with Q was ridiculously blatant.

hfallada

I don't know if it's paid for but in hbo shows everyone smokes Marlboro red and the logo always faces the cameraso you can read Marlboro.

Norwesterner

You'd think this guy would've been happy with some free product placement??
http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/tv-radio/artist-sues-lovehate-producers-29472411.html

Duggy747

Transformers had some pretty shameless ones, like the woman taking the SD card out and holding it for enough time that the camera had a nice shot of it.

Mitch Connor

Torque has an bike dueling scene taking place in an alley with MASSIVE Mountain Dew and Pepsi signs at either end. Spectacular stuff.

http://www.poetv.com/video.php?vid=61582

Just watched the scene again there - it really is some brilliant product placement - so subtle.

Crooked Jack

The internship, from start to finish, is one long advertisement for everything from google, to instagram to monster energy drinks. I felt like I should have been paid to watch it.

JohnFalstaff

purcela wrote: »

Heineken in Skyfall. Bond drinking one lying in bed beside the girl was alright, but Tanner drinking one when working with Q was ridiculously blatant.

Speaking of Heineken - this scene always cracked me up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wR8aXTFE2I0

Just don't tell Frank Booth, he's more a Pabst Blue Ribbon man...

Mitch Connor

Mitch Connor wrote: »

Torque has an bike dueling scene taking place in an alley with MASSIVE Mountain Dew and Pepsi signs at either end. Spectacular stuff.

http://www.poetv.com/video.php?vid=61582

Just watched the scene again there - it really is some brilliant product placement - so subtle.

There isn't a single thing I don't love about that entire scene.

Greyjoy

Renn wrote: »

I can't see how this qualifies for 'diabolical' product placement considering that it's a scene in the original book. The point of the scene is that the son realises the father is refusing his offer to share the drink because they may never find another one. The son has never tasted the drink before, he's grown up in the post-apocalypse without any experience of what the world was like beforehand.

delbertgrady

I have huge affection for it (despite its ludicrousness), but Moonraker is probably the worst of the Bond films, especially in the Rio sequences. Extreme close-ups of watches is one thing, but the giant 7Up billboards and coolers at the cablecar station and the incongruous British Airways billboard on a fairly isolated mountain road have all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

losthorizon

In the recent Muppets movie when they visit Kermit in his house, the Robot offers them Coca-Cola and another drink on trays plus the film Cars is advertised everywhere on Giant Posters throughout the film.
Subtle advertising of other products too constantly throughout the film.

Let down by the Muppets

irishash

I have an issue with the PP in 28 days later - According to the movie, Pepsi and associated drinks are the only fluids available, the national lottery survived the zombie plague, Terry’s chocolate orange is worthy of a mention in the script.

But the worst, the very worst, is when in the movie there is a scene, I think it's in the mansion where the army have set up camp, and an alarm is set off. The soldiers run off down a corridor that is lined with various large boxes. The camera shot is a hand held from a standing position, so they are not walking or running with actors, just tracking them from the start position through 90 degrees (hope that makes sense - in other words, the shot starts by looking down the corridor and then finishes by looking at the wall lined with boxes).

The person operating the camera obviously has to get a particular logo in the shot, because as the camera turns to track the actor, the operator overshoots the "epson" logo, and then tracks back to it.

No, don’t bother with another take, it is fine, nobody will notice.....

Everybody I have ever spoken with has noticed this "subtle" camera shot.

TouchingVirus

Superman II and Marlboro, some unreal advertising in that film

MrStuffins

purcela wrote: »

Heineken in Skyfall. Bond drinking one lying in bed beside the girl was alright, but Tanner drinking one when working with Q was ridiculously blatant.

The worst in Skyfall for me was when all the cars crash off the back of the train. M says "What was that?" and the Agent says "VW Beetles".

Uugh!

Cale

I, Robot. Shameless product placement for Chuck Taylor's.

I think Will's character goes onto mention how great they are a few times throughout the movie.

Lamper.sffc

This one from Pearl Harbour. Michael Bay has no shame.

I just cant believe they thought that product placement in a hospital when people have been killed or are being treated after the attack was appropriate.

Well I guess it is Bay and that movie does take one big steaming dump all over a piece of their own history.


Oh and this from the new White House Down movie.

The movie actually stops for the president to put on his jordans and then this scene a bit later

I dont mind subtle ones like the one in The Road. These products exist in the world and therefore should exist in movies but its the shameless ones that pull you out of the story that I dont like

MrStuffins

Also, anyone remember that dreadful Dracula 2000? Is was basically a giant ad for Virgin. I remember at one point in the movie someone gets pressed against a wall and instead of the characters being centre of the shot, they're off to the right of the screen in order to fit in a Virgin logo.

pixelburp

Sorry but the use of a c0ke in The Road is not product placement, not in the slightest. This was a film set in a dead world. The End wasn't just nigh, it had been and gone, with those remaining simply marking time. The kid knew nothing of what came before and the use of the c0ke simply emphasised just how far beyond redemption this world had become; that something as simple as a soft drink had become an alien concept, and a brief pause between the unending misery.

Like everything else, the context is important; that use of the c0ke was the one and only time we saw a brand across the entire film. It's not like the Bond franchise or Michael Bay films that obnoxiously parade brand names across the entire running time for their own self-promotion in exchange for some greenbacks; in The Road it was a small moment used to grind the audience further into the dirt.

Roar

Any film produced by Happy Madison productions tbh.

Welsh Megaman

delbertgrady wrote: »

I have huge affection for it (despite its ludicrousness), but Moonraker is probably the worst of the Bond films, especially in the Rio sequences. Extreme close-ups of watches is one thing, but the giant 7Up billboards and coolers at the cablecar station and the incongruous British Airways billboard on a fairly isolated mountain road have all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

Not sure, but am I right in thinking 'Moonraker' has the scene where a bad guy is 'disposed of' through a Marlboro billboard (with his legs sticking out of the cigarette)?

Another one I thought of is the scene in 'Men In Black 2', where Serleena and Scrad are going through 'immigration control'...Serleena is eating a BK Whopper, whilst the camera pans jjjuuusssttt ssslllloooowwww enough to get a shot of the whole Burger King restaurant in the background!

Gamayun

MrStuffins wrote: »

Also, anyone remember that dreadful Dracula 2000? Is was basically a giant ad for Virgin. I remember at one point in the movie someone gets pressed against a wall and instead of the characters being centre of the shot, they're off to the right of the screen in order to fit in a Virgin logo.

I was just about to post that. One of the characters works in Virgin megastores, wears the Virgin staff T-shirt and there's as fight scene in a car park with a Van with a giant Virgin logo in all of the shots! :P

Some notable others:

Blade Trinity: "She's just making a playlist for her iPod"
Little Nicky: Popeye's chicken, I didn't know this was a real chain until after I saw the film.
Harald and Kumar go to Whitecastle/Get the munchies: As above, I hadn't heard of Whitecastle's actuality 'til after. Cheapens the film.
Zombieland: Twinkies.

enda1

-On Radford, near the in-n-out burger.
-The in-n-out burger's on Camrose.
-Near the in-n-out burger.
-Those are good burgers, Walter.
-Shut the fuck up, Donny.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Strictly Ballroom?

PWEI

The Pepsi product placement in the Back To The Future films used always bug the hell out of me.

JohnFalstaff

pixelburp wrote: »

Sorry but the use of a c0ke in The Road is not product placement, not in the slightest. This was a film set in a dead world. The End wasn't just nigh, it had been and gone, with those remaining simply marking time. The kid knew nothing of what came before and the use of the c0ke simply emphasised just how far beyond redemption this world had become; that something as simple as a soft drink had become an alien concept, and a brief pause between the unending misery.

Like everything else, the context is important; that use of the c0ke was the one and only time we saw a brand across the entire film. It's not like the Bond franchise or Michael Bay films that obnoxiously parade brand names across the entire running time for their own self-promotion in exchange for some greenbacks; in The Road it was a small moment used to grind the audience further into the dirt.

I am impressed that in all three instances of the word you refuse to acknowledge Coke in your post.

Either you truly abhor product placement or you are a die hard Pepsi fan. Either way, kudos.

DirkVoodoo

The Wizard. An entire movie written and directed just to sell Nintendo. That is a whole other kind of product placement akin to He-Man and Transformers cartoons of that era:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xz1uHCxWxMw

I still want a power glove after 24 years!

delbertgrady

Welsh Megaman wrote: »

Not sure, but am I right in thinking 'Moonraker' has the scene where a bad guy is 'disposed of' through a Marlboro billboard (with his legs sticking out of the cigarette)?

You might be thinking of the bad guy who's pushed out of an ambulance on a gurney and crashes into a billboard advertising British Airways, so he ends up ending up sticking out of the mouth of the air hostess on the poster. That's in Moonraker.

banie01

The Goonies has a huge amount of PP in it too!
I never realised how much until i watched it again last night* as a cynical adult

From Pepsi, to Nike(i cant have been the only kid who wanted slick shoes?) to Dominoes, to Baby Ruth, Mad magazine, to Jeep,
Not counting the references to Gremlins or even Bond and the huge push for Cyndi Lauper!

*My mid 30's GF had never seen it!!!!
In fact she has missed so many seminal movies from the 80's/90's I think she may have grown up in a bunker!!!
In retrospect asking her was her original 2nd name Fritzl..... While funny in my head...
Was not worth the slap I got!

krudler

banie01 wrote: »

The Goonies has a huge amount of PP in it too!
I never realised how much until i watched it again last night* as a cynical adult

From Pepsi, to Nike(i cant have been the only kid who wanted slick shoes?) to Dominoes, to Baby Ruth, Mad magazine, to Jeep,
Not counting the references to Gremlins or even Bond and the huge push for Cyndi Lauper!

*My mid 30's GF had never seen it!!!!
In fact she has missed so many seminal movies from the 80's/90's I think she may have grown up in a bunker!!!
In retrospect asking her was her original 2nd name Fritzl..... While funny in my head...
Was not worth the slap I got!

All that stuff is what 80's kids would have been into though, that kind of product placement I dont mind. Just anchors the film in reality, there's a difference between someone drinking a can of coke in a scene and everyone in a film using Sony phones and laptops and tvs in every other scene a bit of tech is needed.

Duggy747

DirkVoodoo wrote: »

The Wizard. An entire movie written and directed just to sell Nintendo. That is a whole other kind of product placement akin to He-Man and Transformers cartoons of that era:

That movie was on a whole different level of product placement:

Awful.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

I never noticed things like that in films when I was a kid. Maybe they were trying to plant the ideas in parents heads back then rather than the kids? Compared to now when it's so obvious what they're doing, especially on TV shows with extreme closeups on the phones for text messages, or there's a scene of someone in their car just so they can voice activate the radio.

I know it's not films but I liked how 30 Rock did it...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d36wUmJGzvA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9hepxidZyo

Welsh Megaman

delbertgrady wrote: »

You might be thinking of the bad guy who's pushed out of an ambulance on a gurney and crashes into a billboard advertising British Airways, so he ends up ending up sticking out of the mouth of the air hostess on the poster. That's in Moonraker.

Bingo, that's the one. Thanks del

With regards to 'Back To The Future', I seem to recall a shameless plug for Texaco in Part II (when Marty walks around the town square).

pixelburp

Thinking about the Goonies and kids movies in general from the 80s; surely the Transformers film wins out here? It's a 90 minute feature / commercial about a line of toys after all (including New ones such as Galvatron, who I bet was available in stores for Xmas ), once you strip away the nostalgia, and no matter how many big names they cast for it...

obliviousgrudge

There was either can of Pepsi or a Pepsi vending machine in every scene in Antitrust.

Still a great film, but it was so obvious.

krudler

pixelburp wrote: »

Thinking about the Goonies and kids movies in general from the 80s; surely the Transformers film wins out here? It's a 90 minute feature / commercial about a line of toys after all (including New ones such as Galvatron, who I bet was available in stores for Xmas ), once you strip away the nostalgia, and no matter how many big names they cast for it...

Sure weren't most of the 80's cartoons in general just big toy adverts :pac: He-Man, Thundercats, Transformers, Starcomm, countless others.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

obliviousgrudge wrote: »

There was either can of Pepsi or a Pepsi vending machine in every scene in Antitrust.

Still a great film, but it was so obvious.

Yes! I remember one scene in particular where they were walking down a hallway and it was really badly lit except for the giant Pepsi vending machine at the end of it. I think the camera even lingered after the characters had left the hall.

don ramo

talladega nights:D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuAUI_0knfk

PyeContinental

PWEI wrote: »

The Pepsi product placement in the Back To The Future films used always bug the hell out of me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11BwLs3pHF4

Nice to see Marty McFly thanked this!

I don't think the product placement was an issue for me in Back To The Future.
I think this is because it was part of the joke, or at least was done in a tongue-in-cheek way. It added to the time travel aspect in that you could see what happened to brands in the future and compare the attitude to brands in the 50s compared to the current time. I think the 80s-theme cafe in the future was actually making a statement about our (then, as now) consumption-driven culture.

PyeContinental

banie01 wrote: »

The Goonies has a huge amount of PP in it too!
I never realised how much until i watched it again last night* as a cynical adult

Yes I think The Goonies is a great example of a film that shamelessly hawks the wares of companies it has made deals with. In his first appearance in the film, Chunk holds up a Pepsi paper cup (which strangely enough, contains some kind of yogurt or smoothie) to the window of the arcade hall as the car chase goes past.



The most contemptible instance of blatant product placement comes a little later in the film however, still for Pepsi who really don't seem to want to risk anything approaching subtle.

Corey Feldman is drinking ostentatiously from a (clearly empty) can of Pepsi and waving it about in front of the camera.



Just in case this isn't sufficient to meet contractual obligations and/or ensure the audience now want to drink Pepsi, Corey is obviously told to bring the can more centre-screen and hold it still while making sure the logo is properly facing the camera lens.



The product placement for Pepsi is pretty much relentless for the first part of the film.



I seem to remember there was a scene where the can was put on the table and the camera rested on it while the dialogue went on, out of focus, behind it for a while. I had to have a look, but I can't find it. I wonder was this cut out of the 25th anniversary edition? Maybe it's a sketch show that sent up this phenomenon that I'm thinking about.

*My mid 30's GF had never seen it!!!!
In fact she has missed so many seminal movies from the 80's/90's I think she may have grown up in a bunker

I have the same problem and find it infuriating when people have never seen (or sometimes heard of) films that have become part of popular culture, and therefore have no idea what you are talking about when making reference to them.

Sad Professor

With the exception of the Bond films, I think the kind of blatant product placement seen in The Goonies is mostly a thing of the past. Most directors, like Zemeckis, who had experience of these kind of product placement deals usually swore them off forever as they tended to involve giving up final cut. These days the way it seems to work is that the producers ask "permission" to use a particular brand in their film for authenticity sake, leading the company to provide them with a bunch of free props (and other freebies no doubt), saving on production costs.

This is basically what Apple does. There's a lot of MacBooks in The Social Network and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but Fincher often deliberately obscures the Apple logo. Many of the iPads and MacBooks in M:I:4 even have cases on them. They are still recognisably Apple products, but obscuring the logo like this would never be possible in a traditional product placement deal.

PyeContinental

In July 1982, Time Magazine reported that Reese's pieces experienced an immediate increase of 65% in sales due to their product placement in ET. So it seems that product placement can have a huge impact.

I'd be very interested to know what product placement in films like The Goonies did for the sales of Pepsi. I had a look, but haven't found any sales numbers for Pepsi that is specifically ascribed to product placement in films, or even some sales figures for Pepsi from the 80s.

While looking however, I found some interesting articles on the history of Pepsi and its battle with Coca Cola since its creation.

In 1886 an Atlanta chemist introduced Coca-Cola, a tasty "potion for mental and physical disorders." Pepsi-Cola followed seven years later ... By the 1950s, Pepsi was still a distant No. 2. ... In 1979, for the first time in the rivalry's history, Pepsi overtook Coke's sales in supermarkets.

Despite the aggressive product placement, all Pepsi's advertising hasn't worked in the long run. They've lost the cola wars.

It didn't last, and by 1996, Fortune declared that the cola wars had ended. Since then Pepsi, with its increasing focus on health and snacks, has as good as surrendered.

Now worldwide sales of Coca Cola are about twice that of Pepsi, and since 2011, Pepsi has actually been relegated to 3rd place by Diet Coke.
This article charts the decline of Pepsi

I think they made a really big mistake by discarding the well recognised logo from the 70s, 80s and early 90s.

The other big mistake was deciding to give up on the predominantly red colour of the can in favour of blue in the late 90s and 2000s.

The latest rebranding I think is terrible, and it seems like most people [URL="[url]http://www.logodesignlove.com/pepsi-branding-and-logo[/url]"]here[/URL] agree with me.

Outkast_IRE

obliviousgrudge wrote: »

There was either can of Pepsi or a Pepsi vending machine in every scene in Antitrust.

Still a great film, but it was so obvious.

very under appreciated film.

PyeContinental

Cracked article - The ten most shameless product placements in movie history

The top 40 product placements of all time