If, like me, you were unable to keep your eyes open until 4am on Monday morning, you likely watched the highlights of this year’s Oscars online the following day. Unfortunately, for the advertisers that paid around the $1m-per-slot mark to gain a highly coveted slice of the limelight, this means you missed out on the commercial gaps.

However, the chances are far greater that you will have seen those brands who advertised in the Best Picture nominated movies. Fenton’s Creamery ice cream in Disney’s Up? BMW and Taco Bell in American Football drama The Blind Side? American Airlines, Hilton Hotels or Chrysler in Up In The Air? Ringing any bells?

It’s always quite amusing to survey friends and colleagues on their recollection of product placement on screen - the latter especially given that they work within marketing and are arguably more watchful of brand presence within entertainment platforms. If you mark this against the reality (superbly documented by Brand Channel’s Brand Cameo database), I have found that by and large people’s recall is probably less than 5% of the actual brands exposed on screen.

To make things interesting, those clever Brand Cameo folks have taken the brands present in this year’s Oscar contenders for Best Picture and plotted them on a matrix: pitching memorable versus instantly forgettable, against those that provided significant profit versus those that did not.

Hopefully, they won’t mind me reproducing it in full here:

(c) BrandChannel.com 2010

Now for the really interesting bit. Of those featuring in the most memorable segmentation, both Günther’s in District 9 and RDA that featured in Cameron’s epic Avatar were actually fictional brands.

Having written previously on how events, rights-holders and entertainment platforms are increasingly feeling the need to get a ‘brand stamp of approval’ on their project (even if they have to make one up), I am now more convinced than ever that we all now require a brand presence within our entertainment to validate its grounding in reality.

Though in the case of both District 9 and Avatar, paradoxically the branding was exercised to validate their grounding in un-reality. I guess given their sci-fi nature, it seems to make more sense to create a fictional unknown brand, thereby emphasizing the futuristic setting. But nonetheless, Günther’s and RDA still fall firmly on the ‘memorable’ side of scale - despite their non-existence in our reality.

Was this a missed opportunity for ‘real’ brands? Would South African-born Nando’s or thoroughly American N.A.S.A. have offered anything more? Would the producers have allowed it? Would the brand managers have wanted to association? And would the brand messages have been more - or less - memorable as a result?

I would love to know what goes in to thinking up these fictional companies. Do production execs or screenwriters work in a name that states a subtle (or not-so-subtle) socio-political message to fit with the film’s thematic development? As one District 9 viewer pointed out in a fan forum, sometimes the connotations have more meaning than at first it might appear:

‘Why were the South Africans patrons of a restaurant named Günther’s? Günther is the name of a king of Burgundy and means “warrior” or “soldier.” In effect, the South African blacks had a white warrior to thank for their sustenance.’

Either which way, we are entering an era where commercialism of movies - on and off screen - may fast become the life-blood of the industry; if, in fact we are not there already. How many years before an esteemed member of the Hollywood glitterati stands before the Academy audience and announces, ‘And the Academy Award for Best Product Placement goes to….‘?

Judging by the above, this year it should have gone to a brand that doesn’t even exist.

If this year’s Oscar-winning animated short film Logorama is anything to go by, it won’t be long. For those who have not yet had the pleasure of this little piece, the entire premise is the over-branded commercialisation of modern-day America on film. Watch the trailer below, and try to count the brand logos. There are over 2,500 in the full piece. Utter genius.

By Lucie Bartlett on March 9th, 2010

Tags: Advertising, American football, Brand marketing, Film, Product placement

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In football especially, we’re used to seeing teams, governing bodies, brands and celebs attempt to make a few quid around major events by releasing a track which attempts to capture the zeitgeist, and there have been some brilliant moments - especially Three Lions, Nessun Dorma,  World In Motion, and the Nike-inspired A Little Less Conversation. Which brings me to The Ashes, the 2009 edition of which starts today, and two very new, and very different attempts to join the pantheon.

First up is Hey Hey Ricky by The Barmy Army (with a lot of help from Naked), which falls firmly into the ‘make a few quid’ category, the Barmy Army being, as The Times demonstrates today, something of a hand-to-mouth operation.

The track has a catchy riff (which many will recognise from the days when the BBC televised cricket) and some clever, light-hearted, Aussie-bashing lyrics. I have to say I hated the film though, with its clunky, gratuitous brand placements, and equally gratuitous Benny Hill meets Eric Prydz moments. But judge for yourself here.

Next up is The Duckworth Lewis Method, a concept album of cricket-inspired songs by Irish musos Neil Hannon (of the Divine Comedy) and Thomas Walsh (of Pugwash).

We shouldn’t be surprised, incidentally, that two Irishmen have turned their attention to cricket - after all, Ireland  bowled out the mighty 1960s West Indies for 25 back in 1969 (albeit with with more than a little help from Arthur Guinness the night before) and Samuel Beckett was a fan and played at first class level, and as such is the only Nobel Prize-winning author to feature in Wisden.

I’m sure that Sam would have approved of TDLM, and I’d be shoulder to shoulder with him. It’s barking mad, but utterly, utterly brilliant, and I unreservedly urge you to buy it.

By Tim Crow on July 8th, 2009

Tags: Branded content, Cricket, Default, Music, Product placement

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Certainly not a new topic in this forum, but yet again David Beckham is at the top of his marketing game. Tomorrow (11 June) he makes a rare public appearance in London, at Selfridges on behalf of Emporio Armani.  As Dom mentioned in his post on Becks, he’s a marketing certainty, and I have no doubt that tomorrow’s event will be mobbed.

For me DB is a fantastic sponsorship opportunity.  He’s always been a gifted footballer, and it’s fair to say he’s a bit of a looker too, but he’s certainly not short of company in that bracket.  He has that little something that no-one can quite put their finger on, an aura that surrounds him that makes him appeal to so many different people all over the world.  This is what makes Beckham so unique and has seen him take footballers beyond being just footballers.  He has become his very own brand, but his brand is one that can be so powerful when used in partnership with others, just ask his current sponsors at adidas, Cabo Sao Roque, Coty, Emporio Armani, Motorola and Sharpie.

Armani’s use of Beckham should be admired, as the brand consistently leverages a very strong relationship between the brand and the icon.  Armani’s integrated approach drives consumers affinity with the brand, and importantly offers an emotional experience beyond the ATL campaign. For fans all over the globe the opportunity to meet Beckham is a once in a life time experience and this week some of those fans will get their chance in London.  The experience will also provide a great PR platform to extend the campaign into the all important column inches.

So tomorrow sees the man at Selfridges, and whilst it will be a small duty in the life of David, I’m sure it will provide incredible excitement for those that meet him.  May even help sell a few pairs of pants too.

By Ben Wilkinson on June 10th, 2009

Tags: Advertising, Brand marketing, David Beckham, Experiential marketing, Fashion, Football, Football Sponsorship, Product placement, Public relations, Sales promotion, Sponsorship

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No, not that Wolves.

In an unlikely turn of events, a single T-shirt, sold on Amazon.com has become one of the most popular items in the online retailer’s clothing section, experiencing a 2300% sales boost in a matter of months.

But what manner of apparel could be doing such incredible business? Is it a niche limited edition…? Is it the work of an up-and-coming Harajuku enfant terrible…? Was it worn by all four Beatles during their final tour of the US? I’m afraid not.

The item in question is in fact the ‘Three Wolf Moon T-Shirt’ - the kind of outerwear normally reserved for heavy metal concerts and sci-fi conventions. If you don’t believe me, have a quick look at it here.

Nothing special, you might think (if you do think it’s something special, you might want to stop reading). In fact, thanks to a jokey post from one satisfied (alleged) owner in the product’s ‘Customer Reviews’ section, with feedback on said T-shirt including “Pros: has wolves on it…attracts women…Cons: could probably have used more wolves on the ‘guns’…”, the item has become an internet hit.

Thanks to the wonders of viral email, the product now sports over 300 reviews from satisfied customers, ranging from the humorous to the mildly disturbing. At present, Amazon has not appeared to overtly censor user comments, perhaps content that the phenomenon is translating into an unlikely sales lift.

Whatever way you look at it, there’s no denying the power of a the odd well-placed, web-based witticism - even more so, given that this has led to hundreds of people parting with their hard-earned cash on the back of it.

N.B. Crushingly for UK-based lupine aficionados, the ‘Three Wolf Moon T-Shirt’ is not currently available on our shores. Amazon.co.uk are stocking a single wolf variant, however. I guess you could always buy three of them…

By Jonathan Izzard on May 21st, 2009

Tags: Default, Fashion, New Product Development, Product placement, Sales promotion, Viral Marketing

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Building on Lucie’s post about Highland Spring’s Comedy Awards mauling, check out this footage of Tom Hanks, er, ’plugging’ Sony in a keynote presentation at the Consumer Electronics Association Show International back in January. Start watching from 1:40. My favourite moment? “They write the lies but I tell the truth.” Glorious.

By Tim Crow on March 9th, 2009

Tags: Default, Film, Product placement

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OMG! This coming Wednesday, the wildly successful CW export, Gossip Girl, returns to the UK on ITV2 for its second season. Aside from my ridiculous excitement surrounding GG’s return to our screens, the show is also an excellent example of youth marketing at its best.

For those unfamiliar with the show, Gossip Girl is a kind of Cruel-Intentions-meets-SATC for 16-24 year olds. And, for that specific and increasingly hard to reach demographic, it delivers hourly portions of marketing heaven every week for all the brands involved.

Firstly, wrapped around each 15 minute slice of the action sits the show’s sponsorship deal. The pairing of Guerlain’s Insolence fragrance with GG was well-conceived, by both the show’s producers and the brand’s marketeers. Insolence is a brand that defines its identity as ‘free, daring, unpredicatable, radiant’ and whose target female consumer embodies the ‘Insolent woman: audacious, makes her own choices and dances to a different tune…truly herself and utterly irresistable’. Values which, in turn, embed the fragrance with the sultry, aspirational qualities that fans see in the show’s female stars, and which they will no doubt seek to emulate.

As an enthused loyal fan of the first season I was a strong case study for the Guerlain sponsorship, with pretty successful results. I went from relative stranger to the brand, to sampling the product when it next caught my eye, right through to purchase. And all irrefutably due to Gossip Girl’s powers of pursuasion.

Secondly, within the show itself, each scene becomes a catwalk opportunity for every major fashion label wanting to capture the GG market. The show’s producers, savvy from the beginning to their fans’ copy-cat desires, flood the blogosphere and website forums with insider information on the designers and outlets for each of the characters’ ensembles in key scenes. Thus, GG has done for designers like Abigail Lorick (the real life fashionista behind Eleanor Waldorf’s designs in the show) what The O.C. did for a raft of indie bands from 2003 onwards: through realistic contextual integration into the narrative fabric of the show, these guys get unparalleled exposure to a whole new audience.

Thirdly, evidence of the wider cultural influence of the show seems fairly wide reaching. Knowing that probably 95% of GG’s weekly audience could only dream of browsing Henri Bendel for the back-to-school gear and party dresses sported by their counterparts on the show, UK high street brands have started to capitalize on the show’s stars’ distinctive styles. Miss Selfridge’s marked upturn in stocking preppy, WASP-ish styles (think ruffles, pearls, blazers) - that could have all been taken straight out of Blair Waldorf’s walk-in closet - is a case in point. And if their visual merchandisers are on the ball, you can bet that their Oxford Street window display will be reflecting this for the next couple of weeks.

(And if you’re still not sold, check out the NY Times story from last summer outlining the demonstrative impact of the show on retail sales in the US).

Leighton Meester as Blair Waldorf in a design by Abigail Lorick / Navy blazer with white trim from Miss Selfridge’s current collection

And finally, there is the cast - a select group of impossibly beautiful, precociously talented, walking, talking brand ambassadors for the show . The line between their real lives and the characters that they play is so imperceptible to the show’s legion of followers (even the show’s main romantic union has made the transition off screen), that all awards show appearances, publicity interviews and paparazzi shots become potential outings for the brands in the show. And you can bet your bottom dollar that the designers and brands who stock the wardrobes and dress the set allow, encourage, even pay their starlet darlings to take home their wares and showcase them off camera too.

So, if youngsters of the Z generation are all programmed to be (in the recent words of Lily Allen) ‘weapons of massive consumption’, Gossip Girl and shows like it provide all the ammunition required for brands to hit their targets dead on.

XOXO.

By Lucie Bartlett on January 19th, 2009

Tags: Brand marketing, Broadcast sponsorship, Product placement, Television

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Barack Obama may have decided against signing corporate sponsors to help fund the estimated $40m costs of official events around his inauguration, but brands are deploying an array of marketing techniques to attempt to gatecrash the moment.  Here’s a selection.

IKEA has led on experiential, via a mock motorcade touring Washington DC and an IKEA-furnished virtual Oval Office in Washington’s Grand Union station. The latter is replicated online at embracechange09.com, where consumers can add virtual IKEA furniture to the Oval Office and send their suggestions to both their friends and the White House.

Dunkin’ Donuts are selling red-white-and-blue-sprinkled ‘Stars & Stripes’ doughnuts in the chain’s stores nationwide from for 89 cents during inauguration week, and the brand’s blogger, Dunkin’ Dave, is pushing the initiative on Twitter.

Honest Tea, who struck marketing gold when Obama was seen drinking its Black Forest Berry tea on the campaign trail, has launched a limited-edition range renamed “Barack Forest Berry”, and will be sampling around DC all week.

And Audi of America is going seriously big with a raft of broadcast, online and print sponsorship initiatives, including an unprecedented broadcast sponsorship of the ABC, CBS and NBC evening news bulletins on inauguration evening, all to launch a year-long ‘Celebration of Progress’.

By Tim Crow on January 19th, 2009

Tags: Ambush campaign, Brand marketing, Branded content, Broadcast sponsorship, Default, Experiential marketing, Media, New Product Development, Product placement, Sales promotion, Sponsorship, Television

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It’s an interesting rumour that could pass as a viral hoax: “Internet will close tonight for cleaning.” “Please wire me your bank details so I can send you $10m.” “Government will regulate web content to help TV.” (Spot the real one.)

Andy Burnham’s plans to “even up” the regulatory imbalance between television and the internet can go one of two ways. Either TV will become more like the unregulated web world. Or the web will become more like the regulated TV world. Or a bit of both.

In fairness, Mr Burnham is all about promoting “innovation, risk taking, and new talent” and, although scant on details, there’s no doubt that the internet is by far the most innovative platform ever invented. But I think we now know Mr Burnham’s views on grubby commercialism like product placement, so we have to assume that plans to “tighten up” the online content will be a less-is-more approach.

If the plan is to restrict content, either through ISP certification or centrally-managed censorship, it feels we’ve heard this somewhere before: clearly recent Olympic trips to Beijing had more of an impact on the DCMS than anyone expected…

By Morgan Holt on October 27th, 2008

Tags: Branded content, China, DCMS, Default, Digital marketing, Media, Product placement, Television, Viral Marketing

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So ITV is trialling technology that fills empty spaces with brand logos. After a thoroughly unscientific poll of those I met today the general response is “Ugh!” but I think it’s unjustified - and missing the point.

When I first skim-read the article I thought ITV was proposing an on-screen advertising overlay a la YouTube, which would have been truly horrible. But no, this is a smart techno way of getting brands involved in the editorial at a time when no one wants to see them interrupt the story.

It’s a silly supposition that ITV will allow advertising brands to unsophisticatedly plaster the walls of The Rovers Return with their posters, or for Microsoft to spray its logo in the sky while Morse solves another provincial conundrum. The creative force that gets these shows on air is just too strong to let the channel screw it up so badly.

No, what strikes me is this is just product placement ‘in post’. Whether a brand pays for a neon sign to be digitally superimposed on the Woolpack door, or whether it was there during shooting - if the brand paid for it, then it’s product placement. Pure and simple. And forgive me if I missed a meeting, but doesn’t Andy Burnham have a dim view of such nefarious practices?

By Morgan Holt on October 6th, 2008

Tags: Branded content, Broadcast sponsorship, DCMS, Digital marketing, Media, New Product Development, Product placement, Television, YouTube

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James Bond’s next slice of action, The Quantum of Solace, will be hitting the big screen in the UK on 31st October this year - but, according to the escalating buzz, with a much more selective marketing fanfare than previous recent deliveries.

Sony Pictures has revealed that the 22nd outing of Hollywood’s golden franchise will, apparently, feature markedly fewer brand placements. This comes following the widespread criticism of the commercial nature of 2002’s feature, dubbed ‘Buy Another Day’ by fans and critics alike.

However, despite this supposed u-turn in limitless brand engagement, companies are chomping at the bit to announce their involvement in Quantum - so far including Ford, Heineken, Omega watches, Virgin Atlantic and Diageo-owned Smirnoff. It should also be noted that a similar announcement of ‘increased exclusivity’ was issued in advance of Casino Royale, which nevertheless emerged as equally ruthlessly commercial as its predecessor.

Ascertaining the price tag of such deals is a murky area, as the Telegraph explains:

‘The financial relationship between the brands and Bond is complex. The likes of Smirnoff’s owner Diageo does not pay cash to appear. Instead it promises to put its enormous commercial muscle behind the film - essentially paying for Bond’s advertising during launch week.’

Unsurprisingly, Sony is remaining cagey on the exact figures of the respective investments, but we can hazard an educated guess. The current estimated value of associated brands’ advertising campaigns around Quantum stand at around £50m. Buy Another Day indeed.

As ever, what these brands and (possibly with a greater degree of responsibility), Sony need to ensure is the credibility of their inclusion in the movie. Bond fans already seem fairly incredulous about the Ford Ka as the car of choice in Quantum, openly decrying Sony’s ‘obvious product placement’, pleading:

‘a Ford Ka? Come on…Bond can do better than this.’

Not quite the brand message they were aiming for, I’ll warrant.

Sony would do well to learn from previous over-branding and the wider implications it can have, especially when a rival brand takes action. Following the ridiculously blatant presence of Virgin Airways in Casino Royale (where Richard Branson happened to be passing through a security gate in the background of the action), British Airways actually cut the offending scenes from its in-flight showing of the film.

When the movie content itself is compromised, die-hard fans of a franchise are alienated and the branded content is removed altogether, surely nobody wins.

By Lucie Bartlett on August 19th, 2008

Tags: Brand marketing, Branded content, Product placement

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