Product Placement: Marketing Goes Hollywood

Product placement, advertising a good or service by featuring it
within the storyline of a movie or TV show, has been around nearly
as long as motion pictures. Since the time that Wings, from 1927
and the first film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture,
contained a prominent shot of Hershey’s chocolate, companies have
worked with studios and directors to have their products shown on
the silver screen. And when the product, be it a candy bar or a new
car or even a disposable razor, is used by a dynamic action hero or
a beautiful enchantress, there is little doubt that product
placement in the right blockbuster movie will guarantee brand
exposure to millions of consumers. Thus, companies are quite
motivated to spend lots of money, or create unique products, in
order to give themselves a prominent place in movies.

For example, Heineken recently paid nearly $45 million to MGM
and Sony Pictures entertainment so that it could be prominently
featured in the 23rd installation of the James Bond film franchise,
Skyfall. This amount, which was nearly 1/3 of the entire production
budget, meant that James Bond would no longer suavely approach a
bar and order a martini, shaken not stirred, as he’s done for more
than 40 years. Instead, he would now order a Heineken beer. The
brewery certainly seems to have gotten its money worth. Even before
opening in the U.S., Skyfall made $287 million in just ten days,
and glowing reviews from American reviewers seems to indicate that
it will perform fabulously in the U.S., as well.

The luxury automaker Acura signed a multi-year, multi-picture
deal with Marvel Studios, to have its cars featured in upcoming,
comic book-based films like Thor: The Dark World, and The Avengers
2. One of the first steps of its deal with Marvel involved creating
a brand new car for The Avengers. At the end of the movie, Tony
Stark and Bruce Banner are seen getting into a purple convertible
car. The NSX Roadster, as Acura calls, it is actually a heavily
modified and redesigned 1991 Acura NSX. There is only one in
existence, built specifically for the movie, and it can only reach
a top speed of 30 mph. However, the car does have several design
elements and styling cues that are likely to be used in a future
production model of an NSX convertible. The Avengers was one of the
highest grossing films of 2012, making more than $600 million,
meaning that tens of millions of people to see Acura’s
creativity.

Not all is great, however, with having a product featured
prominently in a movie. Take, for example, the 2012 film Flight. In
this film, Denzel Washington plays an airline pilot named William
Whitaker. The flight that he is on goes wildly out of control, but
thanks to Whitaker’s quick responses, the plane lands and most of
the passengers survive. During post-crash investigations, however,
it’s discovered that Whitaker had alcohol in his system. The night
before the flight, Whitaker had an all-night, alcohol-fueled
romantic tryst with a flight attendant. Hung over and tired, he
took some cocaine to get his energy up, and then drank more in the
cockpit. Throughout the movie, both before and after the crash,
Whitaker is shown drinking, with the logo of Budweiser products
being shown quite prominently. This came as quite a surprise to AB
InBev, the brewer of Budweiser, which was not given any form of
advance notice that its product would appear in the movie.

The company’s response, understandably, is negative. “We would
never condone the misuse of our products, and have a long history
of promoting responsible drinking and preventing drunk driving,”
said Anheuser-Busch VicePresident Rob McCarthy. “It is
disappointing that Image Movers, the production company, and
Paramount chose to use one of our brands in this manner.” The
company has thus asked Paramount Studios, the makers of Flight, to
blur out or remove digitally the Budweiser logo from all DVDs,
television presentations, and online streams of the movie.

Certainly, a brewer is right to be sensitive about its products
being featured in a movie about an alcoholic. However, not all are
in agreement that this sort of product placement is a negative.
Allen Adamson, a partner with the branding firm Landor Associates,
thinks that AB InBev is being far too sensitive. “I don’t think
people seeing a character using alcohol inappropriately are going
to make the connection back to the brand or think the brand
condones the behavior….“Marketers spend a lot of time paying
companies to give them real-life exposure in films. Even if the
film is not good it is generally good for the brand.”

Questions

1. How might the external environment, specifically Paramount’s
film Flight, affect the consumers’ perceptions of Budweiser and AB
InBev?

2. What could AB InBev do to manage the external
environment?

3. How might changing social and demographic factors affect the
way that Budweiser’s placement in Flight is viewed?

4. Should Budweiser pursue legal action to prevent its logo from
being shown in the movie, why or why not?