Truly Shameless Product Placements in Film

[Scrustle]

The Transformers movies. What I was expecting was a feature lengthed advert for Hasbro toys. What I got was a feature lengthed advert for everything in the film. It was gratuitous, especially in the first film (I've only seen the first 2). It was like 30% of the shots were set up to conveniently and clearly show the brand name of whatever happened to be in shot at the time.

Side note: Everyone knows about the racist twin robots in the second film, but does it not occur to people that the only robot in the first film with a(n obviously) black voice actor is a Pontiac?

 

[darlarosa]

Mac and Me.

 

[Lilani]

And if a sponsorship or using products that already exist in the real world help get an indie film off the ground? Hell yes, I'd welcome product placement in that case.

Don't forget that sponsoring is also a form of cencoring.
What do you do, as an indie developer, if you want to create something that your sponsors don't approve of?

Then they'll have to make the choice many filmmakers have to make, that filmmakers recently made in the cases of The Watch and Gangster Squad--do you fall in line with what the suits want, or do you go on and pursue the project you set out to create?

And you forget those kickstarters only hit it big in, what, the last year or so? I'm sure they will do wonders for getting indie films the no-strings-attached funding they need, and yes I'll agree that they are much better for the projects than corporate sponsorships, but until very recently no such alternative has ever existed. What you're doing would be like criticizing Palm Pilots for all they can't do the same year the smart phone came out. Yes, Palm Pilots are inferior to smartphones in just about every way imaginable. Except, until the smart phone, it was the best choice, because smart phones didn't exist. Make sense?

 

[twistedmic]

The movie Mission to Mars. On top of being a horrible piece of shit movie, the product placement was god-awful and horrendously blatant. Everything from logos and decals plastered all over NASA rovers and drones to using M&M's (by name) to create a double helix model in zero-g and using a pouch of DR. Pepper (at one point prominently displayed at the center of the screen for over ten seconds) to find a leak in the spaceship.

 

[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.

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

I can't believe there hasn't been mention of the Will Smith movie "iRobot" yet. That movie had ridiculous amounts of blatant product placement. Maddox even wrote an article about it back in the day...

http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=i_robot

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

I can't believe there hasn't been mention of the Will Smith movie "iRobot" yet.

The movie's name was "I, Robot", not "iRobot". This movie was made LONG before Apple appended the letter "i" to the names of literally every single product they crapped out.

I guess I've just gotten used to associating anything shitty with 'I' in front of the rest of the name to rest of Apple's lineup. Brand association!

 

[Esotera]

Oh hey there I'm just going to talk about how cool my shoes are for the next 90 minutes, did I mention that they're vintage from 2012?

I'm not really sure what the worst one I've seen is. Anything that mentions facebook/twitter really pisses me off.

 

[ChildishLegacy]

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

 

[gigastar]

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.

 

[Nielas]

I can't believe there hasn't been mention of the Will Smith movie "iRobot" yet.

The movie's name was "I, Robot", not "iRobot". This movie was made LONG before Apple appended the letter "i" to the names of literally every single product they crapped out.

The title actually comes from an anthology book by Isaac Asimov published in 1950. However, "iRobot" is not a bad modern alternate title for it.

 

[Worgen]

The Transformers movies. What I was expecting was a feature lengthed advert for Hasbro toys. What I got was a feature lengthed advert for everything in the film. It was gratuitous, especially in the first film (I've only seen the first 2). It was like 30% of the shots were set up to conveniently and clearly show the brand name of whatever happened to be in shot at the time.

Side note: Everyone knows about the racist twin robots in the second film, but does it not occur to people that the only robot in the first film with a(n obviously) black voice actor is a Pontiac?

Oddly enough I only remember a couple of the product placements in that movie, the guy holding the xbox and the stupid bumble bee thing, where he turns from a classic car into a pos.

 

[Nouw]

Real Steel had some pretty shameless product placement in it, including an 'Xbox 720.'

 

[Nouw]

Real Steel had some pretty shameless product placement in it, including an 'Xbox 720.'

Dude, that whole movie was a feature-length ad for Rockem Sockem Robots.

Haha true, true.