Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Product promotion

In all the episodes of “American Idol”, the camera repeatedly turns in the direction of the tall red glasses, with the logo of Coca Cola prominently displayed. Every now and then, the judges are shown casually sipping from these glasses. As this Slate article states: “The soft-drink maker is an aggressive sponsor of American Idol, not just via plain old ad time but through paid product placement—it's not a coincidence that Cowell and the other judges are constantly hoisting red Coke cups”. Subliminal advertising of this form, where product promotion is cleverly mixed with the content of the program being sponsored, is quite common.

Apparently, such manipulation happens in films as well. The admirable “Letters of Note” website has published a copy of a letter written in 1983 to actor Sylvester Stallone, on behalf of the (now defunct) tobacco company, Brown and Williamson, agreeing to pay him a sum of $500,000 for “incorporating personal usage’ of their cigarettes in scenes in five of his forthcoming films. Stallone had also conveyed his acceptance of these terms here.

More examples of ‘product placement’ can be found here. Can you think of any Indian examples?

10 comments:

Ramya said...

Hi..hv been following ur blog for a long while..good job!

Ramya said...

tht quickly comes is tata indicom in chandramukhi!

Raj said...

Ramya, thanks. How did Tata Indicom fit into Chandramukhi?

Filbert said...

Same here. That Tata Indicom hoarding that was prominently placed in a remote village. And Sivaji films didn't have to go through the pains to ensure that the product placement 'fit' into the movie in some way :)

Anonymous said...

Pepsi did it loud and clear in the movie "Aaha". The father character is called "Pepsi" Parasuram. There was a song also with the caption "Right choice baby, Aaha". I think there was also some scene where the guests were treated with Pepsi.

Usha said...

I think these days most Indian films seem to use them especially for soft drinks, watches etc.
Here's a post on the same:
http://blogs.widescreenjournal.org/?p=164

Ramya said...

more recently tata safari endorsed via kanthasaamy!

Raj said...

Hmm, I didn't know that 'product promotion' was so rampant in Indian films.

Anonymous said...

Coke in Taal was the first active product placement.

HP said...

Shubahsh Ghai used it pretty well in his movies..
Taal is one example

Another is Yaadein which was pretty annoying..

~HP