It all starts with beer. A commercial a few years ago
capitalized on the growing trend of product placement. It was a swashbuckling
film set with musketeers and damsels in huge dresses. The producer and director
were talking, and one said that they would get free beer for placing references
to the beer in their movie. The other was thunderstruck, and promptly began to
place as many references to the beer as feasible. The capper at the end of the
ad was a beer truck bursting through the wall.
I’m not sure when the first intentional product placement
took place in a film. It’s become a running joke for some filmmakers (see: Bay,
Michael). Critics bewail it as the insidious creep of commercialism into an art
form, disregarding the fact that the movies advertise to generate revenue,
spending millions of dollars to do so. And with the ever increasing cacophony
of ads jostling for the consumer’s attention, the making of an effective ad has
become something of an art form. The movie has become more commercial, and the
commercial has become more like a mini-movie, with special effects, high
production value, and celebrities.
(A currently running ad features two actors who have starred
in major movies. It’s even unclear what the ad is about, as the two just
conduct warfare at various places around the globe. It felt like a movie
trailer, my initial reaction, until the NBA star appeared at the end. Go
figure.)
Two recent ads have shaken my hope for the future of this
country, however. (Don’t you love it when they say things like that? “This week’s
sign of the Apocalypse!”) The first features an ad for the movie Twilight:
Breaking Wind…er Dawn (excuse me, Freudian slip). It is an ad for the movie
which features the main characters driving. The reason why a movie about
vampires and werewolves is advertised with scenes in a car? The ad is also one
for Volvo. So selling the movie, a completely separate kind of product, has
been melded with a car advertisement. Now, if the movie was something related
to driving, like the recent film Drive, then it would at least make theoretical
sense to combine the two. But Vampires and Werewolves driving Volvos? Goth goes
suburban. (Though the glittering vibe of this permutation of vamps, coupled
with a nauseating romance, does sort of fit.)
But the second is, perhaps, the more egregious and
breathtaking/groundbreaking, if slightly more subtle. (It’s the subtlety, in
fact, that I find interesting. More in a moment.) The movie is actually a combo
as well, but less contradictory than the Twolvight ad. The newest iteration of
the video game Gears of War is coming out, and it features two guys talking on
the phone. One has just returned from Wal-Mart where he purchased the game at
midnight. He calls his friend who is in a hotel room, and who tells the first
guy that he the second guy flew to New York City to get the game one hour ahead
of the second guy, therefore getting a head start on the game. Fine. Certainly
not the most irrational premise to a commercial I’ve ever heard, someone spending
hundreds of dollars to fly to NYC and rent a hotel room to have an hour’s
advantage playing a video game that will be passé in seven months. But here’s
the kicker: when we see the second guy in his hotel room, in the corner there
is a Mt. Dew cube. It’s subtle but it’s there.
And this is why I feel this is the more intentional and
representative instance of product placement. Because while the mail thrust of
the Gears of Mt. Mart commercial is to sell the game and the store you can buy
it in (hence the combo), the fact that they inserted a third product (even if
it is associated with people who spend thirteen hours straight playing video
games) is the homage to slipping in a reference to BMW or Burger King in a
Michael Bay movie or TV show (a la Arrested
Development).
It's a commercial within a commercial.
It's a commercial within a commercial.
Why is this such a big deal, you ask? The onslaught of
consumerism marches on. I have the sensation that we will soon be unable to
differentiate between a commercial and a show at all, if things progress as
they seem to be doing. Don’t get me wrong: I’m more sympathetic with capitalism
than the opposite ideology, but there’s a limit to good taste and creativity. A
half hour show is barely twenty minutes of show anymore, or so it seems to me.
I know for a certainty that an average hour long show is 42 minutes. That’s
almost a third of the hour devoted to advertising! A Third! What if a third of
the newspaper was the classifieds and sales brochures? Oh wait…
Does this make sense? I feel like I’m turning into one of
those people who will eventually toss out their television and stop watching
movies made after 1995. There are a lot of creative ideas and people out there,
and I don’t think you have to compromise creativity to get people to consume
your products. Neither do I think that the bottom line must color everything. To
squeeze every last drop of profit out of something may make sense in a business
sense, but the world isn’t a business, and people aren’t solely customers. At
least, they didn’t used to be.
