Product Placement in Movies
December 17, 2008I recently saw The Day the Earth Stood Still, which heavily features product placement for Microsoft Surface and Windows. Surface pops up every once in a while in movies, and unlike Vista can help to drive the narrative, even if only for it’s cool, interactive, aesthetic appeal. It somehow more seamlessly integrates into the narrative, helping to visualise what’s going on. Choosing to show Vista running on government PCs is odd considering it’s usually a much more sophisticated looking interface (probably running on Linux) that doesn’t degrade from the narrative; or is it just me that thinks seeing a glowing Vista badge on the back of a laptop sticks out like a sore thumb?
Product placement usually doesn’t come across well, unless it’s subtle and has an Apple logo. The recent Bond movie, Quantum of Solace, goes almost out of its way to emphasise the exact contents of Bond’s drink. Although perhaps like the Vesper drink in Casino Royale, was akin to what was described in Flemming’s novels. The gadgets that Q offered Bond in older movies used to be imaginative and awe inspiring; like the coating on the Aston Martin Vanquish to make it appear invisible. It’s still good advertising for Aston Martin, but isn’t there for the sake of it. Now, the abundance of normal, everyday Sony Ericsson phones, Cybershot cameras and Vaio laptops popping up in Bond movies is comparatively boring.
Oh, I have to agree, product placement is getting worse, but as for Bond – the gadgets used to be “fantasy” – portable phones that could make video calls would be total fantasy in the early 90′s, today they’re available on pay-as-you-go contracts. The biggest problem I think for the makers of Bond is that technology has caught up, and overtaken their imagination. There’s very little in the way of “gadgets” that couldn’t be built for real (especailly from recent bond films – the only stand-out thing was the invisible car)
Of course, Bond now drives Ford.
You’re right, but surely they could be at least more imaginitve with products that already exist. Sort of like what they did with the invisible Aston Martin. Like what was said here, they should reintroduce Q (and Moneypenny).