Ah, product placement: the branding exercise everyone loves to hate. Well, not everyone. Certainly there are those who feel it adds a veneer of reality to their favourite films, videogames and TV shows. After all, isn’t it more realistic for characters to take swigs from cans of Coke or Pepsi than some hastily made up faux brands? The problem is, the concept of subtle product placement isn’t something many advertisers (nor directors) tend to grasp. In fact, the phrase might as well be an oxymoron. Countless pieces of entertainment feature product placement that is so blatent, so forced that it actually destroys any semblance of reality and becomes one long advert for a handful of brands (usually repeat offenders). Instead of brands becoming associated with characters, the opposite occurs.
Here’s a list of the top seven (everyone does top tens) most unsubtle product placements ever:
7) Bad Boys 2
Not content with an entire scene devoted to a giant blue Pepsi truck passing by, this wise-cracking sequel tries to work product placement and celebrity endorsement together with cringeworthy results. The particular scene involves the two protagonists commandeering a new Cadillac at gunpoint, forcing the occupants to get out of the car. Of said occupants, one is Dan Marino, a famous former American football player, who was taking the car for a test drive (evidently the ‘kind of man who drives a Cadillac’). Anyway, as if we weren’t now aware of the giant plug, Will Smith proceeds to force the point further down our throats by telling us that ‘Dan Marino should definately buy this car’. Thanks Will.
6) Castaway
Despite being subjected to a five minute extolling of Fed Ex’s core values at the beginning of this film, I actually quite liked the product placement. It was realistic for a courier man to work for a big brand like Fed Ex, and there was even a certain amount of product displacement going on when Hanks’ Fed Ex plane crashes. And anyone who says that they weren’t moved by the friendship between man and volley ball is a liar. But then it all gets a bit too much in the film’s third act when Hanks returns home to a Fed Ex endorsed hero’s welcome. And the final scene, where Hanks delivers a package he was stranded with to its destination (and so emphasising Fed Ex’s reliability), is just silly. The fact that it’s delivered four years too late is never mentioned, of course.
5) Fantastic 4
In a hoarding-heavy scene outside a motorbike sporting arena, the ‘Human Torch’ character, in combusted mode, gets flung against a billboard for a Burger King Whopper and ignites the poster in the process. Flame-grilled burgers message heavily implied? check.
4) Casino Royale
‘Nice watch, Rolex?’
‘Omega’
‘Beautiful’
Then there’s the 60 second spot for a Mondeo and the notion that in Bond’s universe every electronics product is a Sony.
3) Any Transformers film
King of product placement Michael Bay must have salivated at the prospect of directing Transformers. The whole film comes pre-packaged with product placement. But for the sequel he took his love for placement to the next step with outright narcissism: a giant poster for his earlier film ‘Bad Boys 2′.
2) The Island
Michael Bay strikes again in this ‘Logan’s Run’ rip off. In a future set world we’re supposed to believe that people engage in holographic Xbox fighting tournaments (replete with dated logo) and use MSN phone booths.
1) I, Robot
This film was released in 2004. And when Will Smith isn’t telling everyone how great his 2004 Converse All Star shoes are while listening to the funky music blaring from his 2004 JVC sound system, he’s running around completely unfazed by Audi’s monopoly of the car industry.
