Smallville’s Sears, Kensington’s Wal-Mart

[Samurai8472]

One one hand I sort of see where people come from on the product placement in this movie, on the other hand product placement has always been there in one form or another. There's a scene in "Superman The Movie" where we see a behind-shot of Martha Kent looking out the window and there's a prominently placed Cheerios box on the table. We then switch to a shot in from of Martha looking out the window and the box has re-oriented itself to, again, have "Cheerios" readable. (Rather than now seeing the back of the box.) Continuity error or product placement?

People complained how in "Book of Eli" we get a look-out over a burned-out highway with product logos on trucks. Product placements? Sure. But it also makes sense for them to be there.

Again, maybe to some degree 7-11, IHOP and Sears were a *bit* front and center as far as where the action took place but it's no big deal, really. It's not like the movie stopped for a moment and had Superman turn to the screen and express his love for the Rooty Tooty Fresh and Fruity breakfast at IHOP. Mention my name and get $2 off! Like he was the host of a 1950s talk show.

And it occurs to me that it wasn't a Budweiser truck in S-II but a Marlboro cigarette truck.

Not going back to fix it, deal.

Well Said. It's like people forgot that the old Superman movies were loaded with product placement



Superman 1 had a Cheerios box placed right in view

Superman 2 had a dozen product placements

Superman 3 had KFC

"Man of Steel" has Carl's Jr Burgers and Nokia

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Product placement is one thing that makes these expensive movies possible, kiddies. Deal with it.

It was a lot less egregious in this movie than in the Reeve movies. The Cheerios cereal box (Cheerios gets a credit at the end of the film, no fooling) that Ma Kent sets out for breakfast actually changes position from shot to shot so what the brand name is clearly visible in each one. And who can forget how they featured the giant illuminated Coca-Cola sign smack in the middle of a fight scene in Superman II?

"Realism is irrelevant in a superhero movie" is a bullshit premise. Bringing as much realistic detail to bear as possible in these things creates a verisimilitude that really helps to sell the fantasy.

Buying a brand-name burger on his way to the press conference at the end of Iron Man is just about the best thing Tony Stark does in that movie.

 

[Owain Taggart]

I don't mind product placement when it's done well enough to feel natural. The kind I do have a problem with is when it becomes part of the plot, like say, an episode of a TV show written around it, characters interacting with it and even speaking its name out loud. Like for instance, one TV show had the character shopping for a new car and was all excited about the self-parking Ford Focus, mentioning all of the features they had on the car and showing the character engage the self-park. They used a whole scene of about 5 minutes for this. Another episode of the same show had them using lipton ice-tea packets, mentioning them by name and acting all impressed.

I think that product placement works best when it's subtle. If it's too obvious, it can have the opposite effect.

 

[Trekker4747]

Buying a brand-name burger on his way to the press conference at the end of Iron Man is just about the best thing Tony Stark does in that movie.

Eh, that one is bad. Tony Stark the billionaire playboy wants an "American cheeseburger" as one of the first things he gets when he gets back from (months?) in captivity in the Middle East. I guess at some point he decided he didn't need a real American cheeseburger and decided just to get drive-thru on the way to press conference instead.

I don't mind product placement when it's done well enough to feel natural. The kind I do have a problem with is when it becomes part of the plot, like say, an episode of a TV show written around it, characters interacting with it and even speaking its name out loud. Like for instance, one TV show had the character shopping for a new car and was all excited about the self-parking Ford Focus, mentioning all of the features they had on the car and showing the character engage the self-park.

I want to say that was an episode of the final season of "House", at least I remember an episode where a Focus was shown rather prominently including a commercial-like shot of the rear quarter of the car showing the Ford oval and name badge on the car's trunk deck.

 

[FreezeC77]

There was nothing done in this movie to merit the level of 'egregious' that has not been done in the past as pointed out previously.

Anyone saying otherwise is viewing the world through childhood memories and letting them impact what you accepted then vs what you accept now.

 

[Owain Taggart]

Buying a brand-name burger on his way to the press conference at the end of Iron Man is just about the best thing Tony Stark does in that movie.

Eh, that one is bad. Tony Stark the billionaire playboy wants an "American cheeseburger" as one of the first things he gets when he gets back from (months?) in captivity in the Middle East. I guess at some point he decided he didn't need a real American cheeseburger and decided just to get drive-thru on the way to press conference instead.

I don't mind product placement when it's done well enough to feel natural. The kind I do have a problem with is when it becomes part of the plot, like say, an episode of a TV show written around it, characters interacting with it and even speaking its name out loud. Like for instance, one TV show had the character shopping for a new car and was all excited about the self-parking Ford Focus, mentioning all of the features they had on the car and showing the character engage the self-park.

I want to say that was an episode of the final season of "House", at least I remember an episode where a Focus was shown rather prominently including a commercial-like shot of the rear quarter of the car showing the Ford oval and name badge on the car's trunk deck.

Heh, nope, though maybe it was since I haven't watched it, but I was thinking of Being Erica. Those were the two moments that really stood out for me, in a bad way, and struck me as rather desperate, and particularly because it had never done product placement as bluntly. Came off feeling like we were watching a commercial, not a TV show. I know you've watched the series, so that's what you were probably thinking of. It was in the 4th and last season.

 

[Trekker4747]

Buying a brand-name burger on his way to the press conference at the end of Iron Man is just about the best thing Tony Stark does in that movie.

Eh, that one is bad. Tony Stark the billionaire playboy wants an "American cheeseburger" as one of the first things he gets when he gets back from (months?) in captivity in the Middle East. I guess at some point he decided he didn't need a real American cheeseburger and decided just to get drive-thru on the way to press conference instead.

I don't mind product placement when it's done well enough to feel natural. The kind I do have a problem with is when it becomes part of the plot, like say, an episode of a TV show written around it, characters interacting with it and even speaking its name out loud. Like for instance, one TV show had the character shopping for a new car and was all excited about the self-parking Ford Focus, mentioning all of the features they had on the car and showing the character engage the self-park.

I want to say that was an episode of the final season of "House", at least I remember an episode where a Focus was shown rather prominently including a commercial-like shot of the rear quarter of the car showing the Ford oval and name badge on the car's trunk deck.

Heh, nope, though maybe it was since I haven't watched it, but I was thinking of Being Erica. Those were the two moments that really stood out for me, in a bad way, and struck me as rather desperate, and particularly because it had never done product placement as bluntly. Came off feeling like we were watching a commercial, not a TV show. I know you've watched the series, so that's what you were probably thinking of. It was in the 4th and last season.

I've not yet watched the 4th season of Being Erica, all the same the last season of House had plenty of Ford car commercials built into the episodes.

 

[Owain Taggart]

Ahh, I see. Then I guess they sound similar in how they did it. Did they also mention the name of the car?

Oh, here it is. Found the clip in question:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XT1xpTDbR8o

 

[Trekker4747]

Ahh, I see. Then I guess they sound similar in how they did it. Did they also mention the name of the car?

Oh, here it is. Found the clip in question:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XT1xpTDbR8o

Yikes. Okay, that's pretty darn bad.

I can't find a clip of the House episode, but I don't think it was quite that bad. Not nearly. Just some car commercial-like shots of the car and the name badge on it (I think it was the Focus too) there may have been some lip service to the Sync system on it. But, wow, that Being Erica clip is.... WOW.

 

[Owain Taggart]

Ahh, I see. Then I guess they sound similar in how they did it. Did they also mention the name of the car?

Oh, here it is. Found the clip in question:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XT1xpTDbR8o

Yikes. Okay, that's pretty darn bad.

I can't find a clip of the House episode, but I don't think it was quite that bad. Not nearly. Just some car commercial-like shots of the car and the name badge on it (I think it was the Focus too) there may have been some lip service to the Sync system on it. But, wow, that Being Erica clip is.... WOW.

Yeah, when that first aired, it took me out of the moment, which is exactly what you don't want in a TV show. Felt more like the characters were trying to sell a product rather than telling a story, and that's where I felt it crossed the line. Pretty shameful. Later on in the episode, they revisit that by saying she bought the car.

 

[Trekker4747]

Ahh, I see. Then I guess they sound similar in how they did it. Did they also mention the name of the car?

Oh, here it is. Found the clip in question:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XT1xpTDbR8o

Yikes. Okay, that's pretty darn bad.

I can't find a clip of the House episode, but I don't think it was quite that bad. Not nearly. Just some car commercial-like shots of the car and the name badge on it (I think it was the Focus too) there may have been some lip service to the Sync system on it. But, wow, that Being Erica clip is.... WOW.

Yeah, when that first aired, it took me out of the moment, which is exactly what you don't want in a TV show. Felt more like the characters were trying to sell a product rather than telling a story, and that's where I felt it crossed the line. Pretty shameful.

Again, sort of going back to the earliest days of television when news hosts or TV characters literally WOULD stop the story and show to pitch and product.

The House thing was just silly but it wasn't completely pulling you out of the show it was just shot like a commercial for a moment and maybe a line or two on the features of the car which, yeah, maybe can be waved away along the lines of someone just expressing the neat features of it, or something. Whatever. But when you're actually writing a scene SPECIFICALLY around selling something it changes the game. That Being Erica scene served no other point than to show off the car. The conversation she's having with [forget her name] wasn't too important and could have been covered in a plain driving scene, a walk-and-talk or them sitting at a cafe. But, no, we need a scene built around showing off the Sync system of the car and the auto-park feature. And who the hell asked the guy or gave him permission to Sync Erica's phone to the damn car anyway and how did he do that without having her phone in the first place?!

Anyway, I got my S3 and S4 DVD of the show recently and need to watch through them. (I was watching S3 on TV but got side-tracked and the "group therapy" sessions weren't interesting me too much.)

 

[Owain Taggart]

Exactly. It's a shame too because otherwise, it's a good show and it was a good episode other than that. It was just really blatant, and as you say, the scene was written for that product placement. I'd call that a new level of low.

 

[P0sitr0nic]

I remember an ep of Smallville where Chloe goes on about the good gas mileage her Yaris gets.

 

[Trekker4747]

I remember an ep of Smallville where Chloe goes on about the good gas mileage her Yaris gets.

Oy, yeah, I remember that too. Smallville had some bad moments, including and episode built around selling Stride Gum now with an extra drop of Kryptonite!

 

[Locutus of Bored]

My personal pick for most egregious product placement was this infamous episode of Eureka:

Degree For Men may not only save us from unseemly sweat stains, but also from an artificial second sun going supernova. How did the SciFi Channel show's creators feel about having to sell out so publicly? Over on the show's writers blog, Eureka unscripted, Eric Wallace - the co-writer of "Here Come The Suns," the episode where Degree saved the day and the town, alongside executive producer Jaime Paglia - described the experience:

It all began way back in October 2007 when the Sci Fi Channel announced to the Eureka staff that 1) we would have an official commercial sponsor this season, one that was kicking in a lot of dough and would therefore 2) require tons of product placement throughout Season Three. We were also told that 3) ONE EPISODE in Season Three would have to incorporate a storyline in which the actual product HAD to save Eureka somehow, or at the very least, be INDISPENSABLE to Carter’s Act 5 solve. Oooooookay… That product turned out to be Degree Absolute Protection For Men (deodorant) and “Here Comes the Suns” (originally entitled “Little Miss Sunshine”) would become that episode. And how did the staff feel about writing an episode of Eureka under so many pre-existing conditions? Well, on the one hand… Degree money meant a higher budget, which would hopefully translate into a better-looking show. On the other hand, there was the danger that this much product integration could throw our story off balance. Needless to say, great care was taken along the way during this one. Never before has any episode of our show been so scrutinized on all levels. I’d be lying if I didn’t say it wasn’t just a bit nerve racking. But, man… it was also fun as heck, too.

Fun, perhaps, but also more research-intensive than Wallace had expected. Basic research, mind you:

Along the way we got tons of Network notes about the “Degree”-ness of things. The funniest one involved the ending. Originally Carter and Zane used a spray-on Degree deodorant to protect themselves from the heat in Act 5. However, it was then pointed out that Degree is a roll on. So the spray quickly got changed to a roll-on-esque fireproof goo.

http://io9.com/5054137/eurekas-creators-dont-sweat-sponsorship-demands

They needed the budget and those were Degree's demands, so I don't blame them, but damn that season with the constant out of place Degree product placements was just excruciating to watch at times. Zane's involvement in the show that season was mostly to promote Degree deodorant from his Degree lab at Global Dynamics.



ETA: The product placement in Man of Steel on the other hand felt organic to the setting to me, and never took me out of the story. It was creating a believable background environment with some depth to it without fixating on the products themselves. You could feel like this was happening in real towns and cities in America, which I'm sure was the intent (in addition to financing the film).

 

[MacLeod]

Never really noticed the brands that appeared in "Man of Steel". But perhaps that is because whilst I migh be familiar with the name, to me they aren't really brands. It's not like their is a Sears store anywhere near me.

 

[Samurai8472]

Superman is a marketable figure. Which leads me to "Smallville"

I remember an ep of Smallville where Chloe goes on about the good gas mileage her Yaris gets.

Also Acuvea and a season 5 episode where Lois shows off a new dodge to distract a guard

Then you had stride gum


[YT]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mh6TNBwfhw[/YT]

 

[Trekker4747]

Superman is a marketable figure. Which leads me to "Smallville"

I remember an ep of Smallville where Chloe goes on about the good gas mileage her Yaris gets.

Also Acuvea and a season 5 episode where Lois shows off a new dodge to distract a guard

Then you had stride gum


[YT]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mh6TNBwfhw[/YT]

I pointed this out up thread. The Stride Gum episode was by far the worst and most egregious. I mean literally the episode was only built to sell Stride Gum, that episode had NO other point whatsoever. Stride Gum all that episode was about.

 

[sojourner]

Burn Notice. About every other episode Micheal has to do his voice over thing invariably referring to Fiona's always current model year Hyundai Genesis Coupe.

"If your tailing someone you want a car that has good handling and performance...."

 

[Owain Taggart]

My personal pick for most egregious product placement was this infamous episode of Eureka:

Ahh yes, I forgot about that one. Unfortunately, no, it didn't yield in a better looking show. These two examples from these shows, and there may be more, only create negative associations with the products. They're distracting and there's no way to avoid them since they're featured so prominently. Commercials in the show's setting shown separately would make more sense.