Have you ever noticed how much
product placement is in a film? While watching a good movie, it may not be as
quite obvious; but if you take a second look, particular products will start to
stand out at you. Product placement has been around ever since broadcasting has
existed. Even through the advancements in technology, product placement has
stuck around. In this blog post I will discuss a brief history product
placement, disclose their business morals, and share many examples of extreme
use in product placement in film.
Product
placement goes way back to the nineteenth century where novels and other books
were our only source of media. Jules
Verne, known as a prophet of science today, was one of the first to introduce
product placement after his release of his adventure novel Around the World in
Eighty Days. Due his amazing success with his novel, major companies flocked to
Jules Verne to request that he write in the name of their company in his next
novel. Product placement is still used in some books today, particularly in
major novels. Furthermore, this was one of the earliest recorded instance of
product placement and has come a long way from then.
Is it
morally acceptable to influence consumers through product placement in films in
order to sell products? Marketing has been around for years, so can we really
say it is wrong? People have always strived to manipulate one another even for
the smallest of things. It’s the soul fact
that most of us actually recognize product placements for what they are and
in-turn we are not easily influenced. To an extent, product placement is part
of our economy. For example people buy new cars and new Iphones more because of
marketing. One moral issue that has
caused controversy amongst the industry is the marketing to children. Kids
under 14 have not yet developed those filters to recognize when advertisements
are targeting them. Advertisements manipulate kids to make them want toys they
don't need and eat foods that aren't good for them. Ultimately parents are
responsible for what their child does, however Ads are not always trying to
sell food or toys. The big controversy in marketing to kids is when they try to
make tobacco appeal to teenage kids. As a result, many commercials such as the Budweiser
commercials featuring the frogs have been shut down due to it being to kid
friendly.
Through
history we have seen many different attempts at product placement. Most films
that we see try to keep product placement down to a lower key. However, in recent
films product placement has been increasing to the point to be almost obvious
in different shots. This occurs when products dominate the screen for a few
seconds or have reoccurring appearances throughout the film. For example, the
film I, Robot makes heavy use of product placements for Converse trainers,
Ovaltine, Audi, FedEx, Dos Equis, and JVC among others, all of them introduced
within the first ten minutes of the film. One particularly infamous scene
borders into an actual advertisement in which a character compliments Will
Smith's character's shoes to which he replies "Converse All-Stars, vintage
2004.”
In my conclusion, if you haven’t noticed the product
placement before, you will notice it occur the second time you watch the film.
Seeing where product placement started, there is no doubt that we will see more
in the future. As a result, product placement has changed and will change as
our form of media changes.
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