In product placement, brand recall is one of the most important measures of success.What good was a placement if the audience forgets it before ever leaving the theater?
Total Product Placement Recall presents a screen-grab of product placement from a film. Can you guess what the brand is.
This time, Bedtime Stories.
What’s Adam ridin’? Click thumbnail for the answer:
When it comes to promoting the tale of a Julliard-trained classical musician who battles mental health problems through his music, what iconic, moving tune, from all that is available, would one choose to score the trailer?
Crank 2: High Voltage’s iPhone
In product placement, brand recall is one of the most important measures of success.What good was a placement if the audience forgets it before ever leaving the theater?
Total Product Placement Recall presents a screen-grab of product placement from a film. Can you guess what the brand is.
The classic, Raising Arizona.
What brand of diapers is Hi stealing? 
Click the thumbnail for the product:
Once upon a time I wrote some for the Oddpodz blog.
Below are a few of the entries.
Reverse product placement is the amusing phenomenon wherein a fictional product featured in a film becomes a real, available consumer product. Generally, this happens because of the strength of vision behind the fictionalized product or the emotions/characteristics assigned that product by the audience.
Examples of reverse product placement include the Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. from Forrest Gump and Ralph Wiggam’s Choo Choo Choose you Valentine’s Day card from The Simpsons. Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans from Harry Potter is another example of sorts. The Belstaff-brand “hero” jacket (above) worn by Tom Cruise in War of the Worlds. (Reader’s Note: Belstaff, a master of product placement, now assumes that all of its jackets in major roles should be available for purchase thus removing them from ever needing to benefit from the reverse product placement “bump.”)
It is important to note that, like its parent term “product placement,” the phrase “reverse product placement” is widely misused. Case in point, Wikipedia on an “example” reverse product placement: “For example, in 2007, 7-Eleven rebranded 11 of its American stores and one Canadian store as “Kwik-E-Marts.” Wrong. That’s a marketing campaign.
Of course, often these reverses come about less because of a utilitarian desire for a film’s fictional product as much as amusing attempts to bring products to life which have achieved a bit of cult popularity, either directly as part of their association with the film or because of their oustanding absurdity. Separate petitions were started requesting that both the Steve Life Aquatic Zissou adidas and the Marty Back to the Future II McFly Nike sneakers be made real. The latter actually led Nike to create the limited edition Marty McFly 2015s, which are slight variations on the film’s versions.
These reverse placements can even reach the level of… idiocracy. Last year Redux Beverages was licensed to bring to life the fictional drink Brawndo: The Thirst Mutilator, an absurd energy drink from the film Idiocracy.
In contrast to the famous “product placement” example of Clark Gable going undershirtless in It Happened One Night and killing the market, nothing is a more sure bet for product placement success than than t-shirts.
Simple. Cheap. Quickly replicable. Movie-themed t-shirts are an in-joke, not as crass as a straight film promotion t-shirt. They are not to be confused with t-shirts of in-jokes from the film (such as the glut of those reading phrases like “Milk was a bad choice,” “Dapper Dan” and “Frank the Tank.”) The films that generally generate these kind of reverse t-shirt products are cult, youth films with a definite sense of identity.
“Vote for Pedro” shirts were huge following Napoleon Dynamite. Then last year saw Pineapple Express‘ shark-eating-kitten t-shirt come to life (though there was a small controversy about where the shirt’s inspiration came from that echoed another reverse placement case, that of the Bee-otch air freshener from Transformers.)
The reverse placement of t-shirts does have a grand pedigree that is going through somewhat of a revitalization period. Val Kilmer’s Real Genius was a wealth of great reverseable t-shirts that are available today, including “High on Stress,” “I ‘heart’ Toxic Waste,” “Surf Nicaragua” and “Gimme’ Head ‘Till I’m Dead.”
Jack Burton’s Big Trouble in Little China masterpiece is now widely available as is The Dude’s odd Big Lebowski Japanese baseball tee and Nigel’s Spinal Tap glowing skeleton number. (all below)
And of course, there is the granddaddy of them all, Animal House’s “College” shirt.
Now there is Adventureland and its “Games Games Games” and “Rides Rides Rides” shirts. The second I saw the trailer for Adventureland I knew both would be for sale online ASAP. And they were. Lots of places. What all three examples share is that the limitations on reproducing them are vague, with little chance of any profiteer ever needing to worry about getting licensing rights (if any could eve be had).
The Adventureland site doesn’t mention the shirt at all. And clearly with millions of dollars on the line, there is comparative little to be gained monetarily by producers recognizing these original shirt opportunities. But what about promotion value? What about being able to trade a theater ticket online for 1/2 off an official Games/Rides shirt? Or putting the logos onto a template for printing onto an iron-on printing paper (now widely available), something Napoleon Dynamite finally did.
Failing to recognize the potential popularity of these reverse products seems to represent a missed opportunity to engage fans and create message multipliers and promotion for films that need it.
“Of course it is his darkly humorous, often pithy takes on death, especially his own, that largely leave his audience chuckling in a knowing abstract rather than quieted in a sincere ponder. And yet, just how will the many, hyper-loyal PHC fans react after their beloved show is no longer helmed and permeated by Keillor’s familiar voice? What will they do when their captain does not answer, his lips pale and still?…” Brandchannel
Related: The Man on the Radio in the Red Shoes: “This independent feature-length documentary film by Peter Rosen goes behind the scenes at A Prairie Home Companion, and inside the imagination of the man who created it.” American Masters; PBS; July 1; 8:00 pm
The Magnum Desert Eagle handgun’s unique, triangular-barreled profile makes it perfect for highly stylized film violence. In turn, this exposure, none of it paid for by the brand, is invaluable. Its (maybe phallic?) appearance also makes it the favorite for heaving-bosoms heaving handguns roles. (Read my interview with Desert Eagle founder and CEO Jim Skildum. The brand also won 2008’s Product Placement Awards Lifetime Achievement Honor).
Each Friday I will try to feature a new Desert Eagle scene.
This week, Liz Hurley in Austin Powers, including a different version of the poster than the one on the DE Friday Posters edition.
17 Again opens tomorrow. Its premise is that some magical force, like a reverse Big, allows an unhappy adult to become a teenager again. But this supernatural transformation isn’t the film’s only far fetched premise. What kind of computer system would a rich gaming nerd buy? Apple, of course.
Extended, clearer view at the IMDB clip.
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