It’s official: according the The Los Angeles Times, the Sex and the City movie (SATC) has officially been heralded as the most successful romantic comedy ever to grace the big screen, trouncing Will Smith’s Hitch of 2005 to gross $55.7million in its opening weekend. 

But as women on both sides of the Atlantic flocked to the cinemas, the eyes of brand managers worldwide flashed with dollar signs – and here is why: initial studio estimates position the demographic of the cinema audiences as 85% female and 80% over 25. In other words, a target audience of 20 and 30-something, Cosmo-drinking, fashion-conscious females was delivered on a plate to any brand willing to invest.

And invest they did, in droves. While the casting directors scoured the Hollywood talent pool for the supporting ensemble, the producers held commercial pitches like casting sessions to find just the right (read: highest bidding) brands to star in the show. One of the more controversial appointments being Skyy Vodka, who engaged in a bidding war with incumbent SATC vodka brand, Absolut, to win the role. Chief executive of Skyy, Gerry Ruvo, admitted quite simply to the FT: ”We engaged in a very competitive pitch with Absolut…and we won”.

What exactly did they win? Unfortunately for the likes of Ruvo, the initial (albeit fairly unscientific) feedback from my own focus group of girlfriends indicates that the real winner of the movie was not the traditionally, crudely placed product. Carrie drowning her sorrows with the signature blue Skyy Vodka bottle and, later, munching on a Pret sandwich in Central Park were not significant to the average viewer. More often than not, they were barely noticed.

Step forth, Bag Borrow or Steal (BBoS), the online store offering ‘borrowed luxury’ to fashionistas not able to buy the real thing. It was the credible integration of this online retailer as an aside within the main storyline that sold it to the audience. Arguably, this editorially-led incorporation of a brand into a movie is the silver screen’s version of branded content. And amongst an increasingly marketing-savvy audience, subtlety and credibility are absolutely key. While it is rumoured that Pret snuck into the movie for free (allegedly because SJP is a genuine fan) whereas Skyy certainly paid through the back teeth for the privilege, I would wager that neither Pret nor Skyy will experience the same increased popularity as BBoS in the movie’s aftermath.

At least in part, the success of SATC‘s brand integration was a result of its legions of fans who were so entrenched in the ultimate will-they-won’t-they love story, that they were more than willing to overlook the more overt product placement. It was the brand that found itself woven into the fabric of the film that impressed itself upon the viewer. Essentially, the point is this: if the girls on film demonstrably valued the brand, so could the girls watching. Carrie waving a bottle around for 10 seconds didn’t quite have the same effect.

Perhaps then, SATC marks an evolution in big-screen marketing: while Pret and Skyy were traditional product placements, BBoS was positioned as genuine branded content – with potentially far greater ROI. By super-sizing branded content for the big screen, we do run the risk of the brands becoming bigger than the content, but SATC got away with it. Just.

In the run-up to release, there were enough column inches dedicated to the film’s marketing deals to stretch from one end of Fifth Avenue to the other – far more than genuine previews of the film itself. But seeing this love for the labels far outweigh the love for the film, even before opening weekend, I couldn’t help but wonder: is the silver screen really the right arena for branded content to take hold? Does this not present a new Hollywood of ‘micro-targeting‘ – a world of film development where script editors succumb to the power of the brand manager, and storylines bend to the will of the highest bidding brand?

Although SATC may be a shining example of astute brand integration and a target audience thoroughly understood, how long before the love of labels (and the revenue they generate) overrules the love of a good movie?

By Lucie Bartlett on June 4th, 2008

Tags: Branded content, Product placement

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