Class Debate: Advertising By: Howie Pun Ian Burgess Matt Burgess Brian Barrett In a nutshell: • In our modern world today, we cannot escape being drawn to advertising. It is everywhere – billboards; television, internet; washrooms, but the worst by-far is advertising in films. It upsets us completely that a movie would saturate most of its scenes with Coca-Cola or Nike. It doesn’t go well with the overall appeal and it makes it unnatural and it must stop. BIRT: • The Motion: All products placement and/or advertising in films itself that does not contribute to the story or film should be banned. Basic ideas: • Arguments for: • It gives large, rich companies an unfair advantage over competition • It is subliminal advertising • It wastes time in a business where time is money • Annoys audience members when we feel the product is being shoved down our throats • Arguments against: • It is necessary for the funding of films • This gives large production companies oligopoly over the film industry • No Mute Button: Unlike television commercial, the product is imbedded in the film and people’s attention are drawn to the product without any influence to buy • Low cost • Far Reach (Global) It would be seen elsewhere Interesting Thoughts: Perception is everything... Positive Brand Association: • The sight of a celebrity handling your product is a powerful thing. Your placement will communicate feelings and messages about your brand that cannot be achieved through traditional advertising. Consumers will recall the implied celebrity endorsement during purchase - and will make decisions based upon it. Runs and Re-Runs... Cost effective • With Product Placement, you invest once and get numerous viewings through world-wide theatrical release, VHS & DVD rentals and sales, television broadcasts and syndication, or pay-TV. This kind of frequency is unprecedented in the world of traditional advertising. Our Thoughts • What ticks us off is when product placement is so blatant like in "Waynes World" or "Austin Powers." It seems that at one time it was to defer the costs of productions however as product placement gets more attention the fees get higher and higher. • Some companies pay millions of dollars while others like The Coffee Beanery in "Deep Impact" it cost the Beanery 20 empty cups. We personally feel product placement could be good when showing real products instead of Beer cans that simply say Beer. Look carefully in TV it looks like Coors but says Beer in the Coors Font or even Coke looks like Coke yet it says Cola in the Coke fonts. If you remember the old days everything was Acme. Acme Plumbing, Acme Tow . More Thoughts: But there is a time when advertising and product placement becomes too much. It's hard not to find a Starbucks coffee cup somewhere in the background of almost every movie. And last time we checked, not everyone in the world drinks Starbucks so why does everyone in the movies? The goal is still the same: to persuade viewers to buy a product because their favourite film star is shown using it, and at the same time help ease production costs for increasingly pricey film projects. It was hard to miss the Shell logo on the handle of the petrol nozzle in Roman Polanski's "The Ninth Gate". The camera lingered lovingly on it, no matter that the woman pumping the gas was the devil's own handmaiden. Then there was the picture-in-a-picture moment in "Analyze This" when Robert De Niro's angst-ridden mobster watched a television commercial for Merrill Lynch investments - and so did the film's audience. And the ubiquitous pharmaceutical industry must have gotten a lift from the product placement spot slipped into "The Sixth Sense". Remember when Bruce Willis' character opened the medicine cabinet to look for clues to his wife's state of mind and fingered a bottle of Pfizer's antidepressant Zoloft? Pro's • Everybody wins: The product company wins because the can get their product seen by millions of people even in a bad film. The Production wins because they get product, which they would have bought for the crew anyway. Sometimes the crew gets what is called a second meal. So a company like Popeyes Chicken could get in the film for simply providing a meal. Sometimes for 80 people (like in TV) or as many as 1000 ( large crew with lots of extras) . This means that the production company would have saved \$ 35-$40,000 now that is a saving. • Another pro is a sales surge from a very positive placement like Reesess in ET . There are several stories how that happened. Some say reesess paid a fortune for that spot. Well that's not true. It was a simple placement that did great. Cons • In some cases that meal that production saved $40,000 on was cut out of film. Depends on the contract sometimes they get a refund sometimes they don't. • Negative Placements: This is a very bad situation and that is lets say they actor in the scene takes a drink of soda which has a brand name and the actor says" yuck this tastes real bad. That could be devastating to a company a guarantee to lose business. Pure Examples: On the right: Tom Cruise’s get-away car in Minority Report Left: Tom Cruise’s money making pose in the futuristic Lexus that is one of MANY ads in Minority Report. More Examples: Above: Here, we clearly see James Bond’s advertisements ranging from the Rolex watch (left); the Jaguar (centre); and him endorsing Cigar smoking (right) Even more examples: • Here, on the right, we have Julia Roberts, one of the top actresses in the A-List category of Hollywood endorsing smoking • Also accompanying her is Sandra Bullock Hey, guess what? More Examples: • On the left top, is Friends, the most popular sitcom in America, here we can see an Oreo’s Box. Here, we can see how advertisers promote their product through the sports medium Chart Study for Coke and Heinz Analysis of Product Placement Quotes: "The word that comes up a lot in our work is seamless, that’s the way placements have to function to be successful, most people prefer to see a can of Pepsi or other familiar brand rather than one that says ‘soda’". (about the film Apollo 13). "When Kevin Bacon’s character is at a party to watch Apollo 11, he is holding a bottle of Budweiser and is explaining the docking procedure to a woman, using a little sexual innuendo. It’s a perfect scene because he’s laughing, she’s laughing, the audience is laughing and just the right amount of attention is brought to the bottle". Dean Ayers; Anheuser-Bush "Creativity is the key to the consumer's psyche. You can sell anything to anyone using creativity. Creative product positioning is everything especially where Product Placement is concerned. The creative process is the most important key to a successful placement". Mark Hawkins; Mars Advertising More Quotes "We never want to hit the movie goers over the head with product exposure, the best placements are natural and seamless"; Steve Ross; 20th Century Fox "Non competing industries can join with one theme that’s fun to be associated with in a popular culture". Phil Bowman; Pizza Hut Inc. "When a Star uses a recognizable product, people in the audience will pat themselves on the back and say ‘look how smart I am, I’m using the same thing as the hero in the movie’. It’s the most inexpensive way to get visibility and sales power". Gisela Dawson; The Catalyst Group "A lot of benefit is for your own employees, seeing the brand on screen takes them feel good". Maryann Seduski; ATT Lucent Technologies Fun Facts: • • • University of West Virginia research on 304 cinema-goers viewing six films with 30 placements, found that using a product on screen, such as Bond`s use of the Cagiva in GoldenEye was most effective. "ET" increased sales of Reese’s Pieces by 70% "The Firm" increased Red Strip beer sales 53% James’ Bonds "Golden Eye" sold 3600 BMW Z3 roadsters in Atlantic Blue 3 weeks before the film opened and the car was back ordered by 8000 units "Risky Business" tripled Ray-Ban Wayfarer sales from 18,000 to 360,000 in the first year to 720,000 the next year. The company was able to increase the price from \\$30 to $50. • "The Firm" increased Red Strip beer sales 53% "Days of Thunder" increased sales of Mello Yello to \\$154 million dollars "Jurassic Park" dramatically increased the sales of the Ford Explorer according to Ford Additional Info/Links http://www.productplacement.co.nz/benefits/ http://www.geocities.com/productioninfo/ http://advertising.utexas.edu/research/papers/Turcotte/Toc.html http://www.geocities.com/productplacementinformation/Articales.html http://www.kidzworld.com/site/p1886.htm http://csmweb2.emcweb.com/durable/1999/02/10/p11s1.htm http://www.featurethis.com/benefits.html http://mccoyresearch.com/product-placement-in-films.htm