Truly Shameless Product Placements in Film

[Sean Hollyman]

INB4 OBLIGATORY WAYNE'S WORLD CLIP
Surprised I got there first o:

Paahahahahahaahah it's been years since I've seen that, but for some reason that made me laugh hard.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I really don't mind product placement in movies at all. If the story takes place in current times chances are people use brand products.

Unless they pull something like this...


...I couldnt care less if someone uses a Vaio laptop or drinks Coca Cola.

The way I see it, The Truman Show and Wayne's World don't really fit here. First, they are both comedies. And second, the blatant product placement is being joked or spoofed. In the Truman Show, most of the movie took place inside a continuously running t.v. show so the product placement was their version of commercials. And with Wayne's World, the entire movie was a parody/spoof and was repeatedly noted as being a movie so any product placement was way over-done and joked.

Movies like 'I, Robot' and 'Mission to Mars' were (mostly) serious and the product placement wasn't meant to be a joke.

Well ofcourse I know it was meant as a parody, I just referenced it as an example as to the lengths a movie would have to go in order for me to become annoyed by the product placement.

I'm sure there were loads of people who hated the scene in 28 Days Later were someone tosses the protagonist a pack of Maltesers. But as far as I'm concerend, why the hell not?

 

[Scarim Coral]

What about Santa Claus: The Movie? There's that scene with that homeless kid was hungry and he look out to the inside of a McDonalds jot seeing people eating their burgers and etc.
At 3.25.
So you're telling me that it's so fun chatting with your mate or family while chowing down your nuggets, burger and taking a refreshing drink of Coca Cola that it can make a homeless boy go hungry and envy?

EDIT-
Ok this isn't a film but it is indeed shameless!
Seriously in part 4 when he does become the Hulk, he didn't even smash that stupid product placement car!!!

 

[Somebloke]

The one that had me roaring with laughter was Demolition Man.

It had a bit where the characters made a big point about going to a Taco Bell resturant, that chain being the sole survivor of "the franchise wars", within the film's future setting.

I, however, live in a region where this company have no presence, so in the localised copy I watched, the words "Taco Bell" were badly dubbed over and CG overlaid with "Pizza Hut". Gotta love those italian mariachis.

 

[The Harkinator]

Oh...
It's funny how they say "Digitized Graphics from the Hit Movie!" as if that's a good thing.

I find it alarming and unprofessional that they had typos in that sentence, they missed out an S.

 

[PurpLemons]

Found a Cracked article on this, go have a looksie.
[link]http://www.cracked.com/article_16574_the-10-most-shameless-product-placements-in-movie-history.html[/link]

 

[putowtin]

harry potter and the order of the phoenix

the wizarding world reveres Converse

 

[Madman123456]

A long time ago, Product Placement was actually forbidden, at least in Germany. It was kindastupid sometimes when you had some Bottles carefully turned so that the Label faced away from the Screen and People smoking Cigarettes out of white Packs.

So i was intrigued when this Product Placement Law fell, because then would no longer see those things and Filmmakers would be making a Buck on the Side without making it jarring for the Audience.
But of course, they went over the Top. We don't see a Product with its logo half in the Screen because that's the best Angle to shoot the Scene, We don't see Bottles with labels seemingly randomly facing this way or that way.
Now the Experience is ruined in the exact opposite Way. Where earlier, we'd see Bottles all turned away from us, which was kinda stupid, we now see the Bottles with the Labels facing the Camera.

I played this MMORPG for quite some time. "Anarchy Online" was set in the far off Future on another Planet. There where big Cities with Billboards and eventually Funcom, the Company making Anarchy Online, came up with the Idea that they could use the Billboards to show actual Advertisements.

The fist Campaign was decent. The boards where advertising the movie "Aeon Flux" and they said "The Future is Flux" and the Date the Movie was coming out. Which was great, it didn't clash with the Setting of the Game.
Next Advertisement: "Nokia random number: the gaming cellphone!".
Suddenly, tools to block Advertisement came along for no Reason whatsoever.
Anarchy Online went free to play and then People who paid could switch the Ads off.
People who played for free wouldn't be staying for long because the Billboards had Sound. A Trailer for a new Action Movie with someone telling you quite loudly that you just have to see this new Movie coming out this summer will very effectively eject you from the game's Experience. The Atmosssphere is completely lost and for me, that was one of the Game's stronger Points.

So Funcom shot themselves in the Foot a bit with that one, also they stole a lot of Crap from World of Warcraft regardless if it fits into the Setting or not which may just be a Part of the Reason why no one knows what "Anarchy Online" even is. You can see some leftover Designs in the "Secret World" game Let's hope they make some Money with that one before they inevitably use the Opportunity of our modern World Setting to cram as much Advertisement in there as possible.

 

[Gottesstrafe]

On come on, how has this thread gone five posts WITHOUT a shout out to Demolition Man? You damn kids can't remember anything that doesn't feature your Nostalgia Critics and your ponies and your transmorphers and your hippity hops and dubsteps, can you?

 

[The Human Torch]

Did I win yet?

 

[Xanthious]

We must not forget Kung Pow!

 

[Paladin Anderson]

If anyone ever saw Evolution, the live action movie not the animated series it spawned in its wake, at the very end of the movie all acting goes straight out of every gap in the hypothetical house and the actors outright advertise Head & Shoulders shampoo.

Worked on my dad though, he wont get anything else.

LOL It may have worked on me too... Well... back before I started shaving my head. Was totally in love with head and shoulders. XD

 

[oliver.begg]

how can no one have posted the best/longest subway add ever, yes its.... HAPPY GILMORE!

 

[Da Orky Man]

I don't care if it's an apple or Microsoft laptop; it's an advertisement, ergo I hate it.

So you'd rather the price of making films and thus the price of seeing films skyrocket even more just so the studios can spend even more money and waste even more time building ACME brand props, for the sole purpose of being faceless on screen? When it would be much easier just to use something that already exists and either credit or cut a deal with the maker?

I mean I understand the whole wrapping the film around the product thing, but seriously? You hate ALL product placement? It's just a matter of making the film cheaper and easier to make.

And advertising is basically what keeps the internet like what it is. No advertising means every site worth anything would need a subscription model to keep running, or have a nice enough userbase to run on donations alone.

 

[Supercereal]

Talladega nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby people...

Hi im Ricky Bobby and if you don't chew big red then F*** YOU!

 

[Dfskelleton]

Here's a personal favorite:

You can't get any more blatant than this.

 

[scorptatious]

And that's downright one of the more subtle moments.

I loved that movie as a kid! XD

OT: Well I guess one example would be Oliver and Company, straight at the very begining of the movie, it showed a bird's eye view of New York and one of the billboards was showing off Coca-Cola. Although that's probably the only example I can think of from that movie.

Also, A Christmas Story.

Be sure to drink your Ovaltine!

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Often times product placement is actually appropriate, like more that 1/2 of the examples already listed are cases where it's actually appropriate.
Now if you're talking cases where it isn't appropriate I can think of a few like Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. Yes we have devastated New York and yet amazingly enough all the billboards are still working, fancy that. I guess those spirit/ghost things really like Pepsi.
Another example that comes to mind is Demolition Man. Yeah, let's all go to Taco Bell. I'd just love to see those "Franchise Wars" though. Imagine soldiers for McDonald's engaging in armed assaults against Burger King.

Another one that I found actually amusing was from Godzilla 2000. In the scene where the big UFO thing is messing with all the computers I joked to myself that they were probably all Compaq, and it turned out that they were. That made me laugh.



EDIT:
...why do I find myself playing devil's advocate on this site so often?

 

[scorptatious]

Often times product placement is actually appropriate, like more that 1/2 of the examples already listed are cases where it's actually appropriate.

Yeah that's true. I mean the Ovaltine thing in A Christmas Story does sort of play a part in the story. Not to mention it's kind of subversive, for lack of a better term for that situation.