Product Placement

Last weekend my roommate and I were watching television, and we noticed something a little odd.  The show was so overwhelmed with product placement, it started to detract from the actual plot.  The main character had urgent news for her best friends, so she takes her brand new Windows phone out of her pocket to call them.  They pick up THEIR new Windows phones to talk to her, and so on.  Just a coincidence?  Not a chance.  In television and movies, the camera shot never just happens to zoom in on the Toyota symbol on the grill of the car, or accidentally show a boy playing on his Apple iPod.  All of this product placement in deliberate, and companies will pay big money to have their brand shown on a television screen.

Take Hawaii Five-0.  I personally love this show, and watch it every Monday night.  But every time the character need to go anywhere, they hop in their Chevrolet, and off they go.  Especially in their Camaro.  They LOVE the Camaro.  Even during commercial breaks, you can't escape Chevrolet.  At least one commercial every break is for Chevrolet cars, and another might be for some other kind of General Motors company.  It's good for Chevy, because they are getting so much advertisement time, but it gets pretty annoying after a while.  I honestly don't care about what kind of car they drive, or what kind of cell phone they use, I just want to watch the show.

THE Hawaii Five-0 Car

The use of product placement has been so blown out of proportion in the past decade or so that you can hardly go to a movie of watch a TV show without seeing some sort of product advertising.  Another, not so obvious example is in the Spider-Man movie.  When Peter Parker first discovers his abilities, he is seen shooting webs around his room, and he tries to grab a Dr. Pepper can.  This is a great example of product placement.  The can could have been any generic type of soda, but the Dr. Pepper emblem is very clearly shown.  Companies love product placement because it endorses their product in an arena that might not otherwise show what they are selling.  And many times product placement is so subtle, that you consciously don't even realize it  is there.  And that is exactly what the companies want.  So next time you are watching a TV show or at the movie theater, see if any product placement is used, and is it actually effective?