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Product placement in movies:
Quantity VS Quality?
Emmanuelle SAL
SKEMA Paris
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Summary
Introduc on ............................................................................................................................................. 3
The product placement: another way to adver se ................................................................................. 4
Defini on ............................................................................................................................................. 4
The use of the product placement ...................................................................................................... 5
The strategic evolu on of product placement .................................................................................... 5
Overexposure VS limita on ..................................................................................................................... 6
Overall exposure and realism .............................................................................................................. 6
Apple: .............................................................................................................................................. 6
Overexposure ...................................................................................................................................... 7
Sex and the City: .............................................................................................................................. 7
The Island: ....................................................................................................................................... 7
Driven: ............................................................................................................................................. 8
Limita on ............................................................................................................................................. 8
The James Bond saga: ...................................................................................................................... 8
Ray Ban: ........................................................................................................................................... 9
No product placement strategy: ...................................................................................................... 9
Neuromarke ng as a tool for product placement ................................................................................... 9
What is Neuromarke ng and its implica ons ..................................................................................... 9
Neuromarke ng and product placement .......................................................................................... 10
Brand recall and effec veness ........................................................................................................... 11
Conclusion: ............................................................................................................................................ 12
Appendixes ............................................................................................................................................ 13
Bibliography ........................................................................................................................................... 15
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Introduc on
The product placement exists since the cinema was born, according to Olivier Bouthillier (Grosset,
2011), marke ng director of Marques et Films1, a French product placement agency.
Even if we don’t remember them, there were already product placements in the USA in the beginning
of the 20th century. In 1916 with the movie She wanted a Ford (L‐KO Kompany, 1916) and with a gin’s
Gordon billboard in Blackmail (Alfred Hitchcock, 1929) (Lehu, 2006, p. 30).
Product placement is another way to adver se these days. In fact this tool is more and more used for
several reasons. First the classic adver sement as we know on TV, lost its credibility according to Al
and Laura Ries (Lehu, 2006, p. 35). Indeed people feel a acked by the communica on on TV and feel
free to avoid it. Even with internet, a lot of techniques exist to get free of adver sement. Product
Placement in cinema is a solu on for companies. This industry has been growing enormously in the
past few years. According to a study of PQ Media, in1994, the amount of product placement in media
was of 1.130 billion. In 2004 it was 3.458 billion and 90% of it was for the cinema product placement
(Lehu, 2006, p. 45).
What are the reasons for using product placement in movies so much? Is there different ways to use
product placement? Some people will say that some product placements are needed in movies to be
closer from the reality of the world of today: consumerism. Therefore we will study the legi miza on
of Apple to cover some many movies with product placements. Then we will analyze successful
movies to get a be er idea of the power of product placements regarding their amount in movies,
how people can see them, how a movie can benefits from them, and what the trends are and so on.
Finally we will go further into the analysis of neuromarke ng with product placements. Is the amount
spent in product placement it worthwhile?
This study will mainly cover product placements in American movies but we will talk some mes
about French ones because this marke ng tool is more and more used there.
1 French Product Placement Agency, h p://www.marquese ilms.com
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The product placement: another way to adver se
Defini on What is product placement? Product placement is strategic tool used in marke ng to adver se a
brand. More precisely, a product placement is a placement of a product or a brand in a movie under
different formats in exchange of money (Lehu, 2006, p. 15). Commonly people think about the James
Bond saga with the Aston Mar n or the Omega Watch. But you could be surprised of the number of
movies which have product placement. Product placement can only be a sugges on of a brand,
someone talking about it or even just visual. One of the best example of sugges on may be for Apple
in the movie Forrest Gump (Robert Zemeckis, 1994) when it just says “The fruit company” (Watson,
2011). Visually you may have seen the billboards of Hertz in Love Actually (Richard Cur s, 2003).
Product placement has no real defini on because it is con nuously evolving. According to Jean‐Marc
Lehu, it can be a logo, a brand, a product or even a packaging (Lehu, 2006, p. 16). What can be
interes ng is to mul ply the visibility with a logo and the product or also by integra ng the brand into
the scenario as The Italian Job (F. Gary Gray, 2003) with the Mini Cooper for their small sizes and
mobility. How does a product placement works? A product placement is made by a contract between
a movie (the producer essen ally or the director) and an adver ser. The costs are quite high to make
a product placement. In France a product placement in a movie may cost from 5,000 euros to
100,000 euros.
There are four dis nguished categories of product placement (Lehu, 2006, p. 20): the classic one, the
corporate placement, the evoca ve and the stealth placement.
The classic placement is the most common placement. The product or the brand is just in the field of
the camera, as the shoes Converse in I,Robot (Alex Proyas, 2004) or more recently the Porsche
Cayenne in Comme des Frères (Hugo Gélin, 2012). Some mes the product appears without asking the
adver ser, it is not very costly usually but this kind of placement can o en be invisible when a lot of
brands are placed.
The corporate placement focuses on the brand and not the product. It can be just someone talking
about the brand, or the presence of the logo of the brand. In the The Fi h element (Luc Besson, 1997)
you can clearly see the McDonald’s logo2 (Sco , 2012). This kind of placement is easy to use but if
o en not visible or memorable.
The evoca ve placement is about subtlety. The brand won’t appear. The customer should recognize a
product from its shape, design without the name of the brand. For instance in the movie Le diner de
cons (Francis Veber, 1998), you can recognize that Daniel Prevost is drinking a Kronenbourg beer
wearing adidas clothes (Sco , 2012). The advantage of this placement is the subtlety but people not
aware of the brand won’t see the placement.
Finally the stealth placement is the most difficult to recognize. There is no logo, no brand name.
People don’t see the product placement. The fashion clothes are o en stealth placement. Some
cartoons and animated movies can also use this kind of placement as Les aventures de Bernard et
Bianca (John Lounsbery, Wolfgang Reitherman, Art Stevens, 1977). The dragonfly which propels them
on a lake is named Evinrude as an engine company for speedboats (Anonymous, Placement de
Produit). A stealthy placement can also be a smell, a fragrance like Givenchy for Audrey Hepburn in
the movie Paris When it sizzles (Richard Quine, 1964) (Lehu, 2006, p. 25). These placements are
present in the credits.
2 Appendix 1, Screen Shot McDonald’s logo
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The use of the product placement Product placement are commonly use in adver sement because of several reasons. Some of them
are financial: directors and producers need to find money to make the movie. The Mo on Picture
Associa on of America has in 2004 computed the average produc on cost of a movie, which was 98
million of dollars at the me (Lehu, 2006, p. 48). They can get money with a product placement but
they can also make partnerships agreements: with a high visibility, a brand can give or loan the
products they need. In Die Another Day (Lee Tamahori, 2002), Ford gave them cars whose values are
way more expensive than a classic product placement agreement (Lehu, 2006).
Some directors use a lot product placement to finance their movies. It is the case of Steven Spielberg
with a long history. The most known is of course in E.T. The Extra‐Terrestrial (Steven Spielberg, 1982)
with the Reese’s Pieces, but you have also Minority Report (Steven Spielberg, 2002) with around
twenty major brands as Nokia, Guinness, Ben & Jerry’s, Burger King, Pepsi (Boiffils, 2011).
Some reasons concern the awareness of the brand. The product placements can be used just for the
visibility of their brand. In fact a study of Nielsen Media Research (PMinchella, 2011) shows when
people recognize a product placement they are 60% more posi ve about the brand. Others brands
prefer to integrate their brand into a scenario, it is the case of the Wilson brand in Cast away (Robert
Zemeckis, 2000). In this strategy, people can absorb the same link between the hero and the Wilson
product. It is a very good strategy ta rapidly increase the visibility and give a specific image to the
customers.
Others reasons can be the scenario itself. When they wrote the scenario of Cast Away (Robert
Zemeckis, 2000), they needed a mail company like Fedex and they accepted. In the movie Up in the
Air (Jason Reitman, 2009), most of the scenes are taken in an in the American Airlines terminals and
in the Hilton hotels (Seles, 2009). These product placements were needed for the scenario.
Finally some people think that the product placement make up for the loss with piracy and peer‐to‐
peer (Lehu, 2006, p. 51).
Regarding the categories of products placement, some are more used that others. Indeed some types
of products are more visible, and correspond to the character’s personality. The automobiles are the
best example. Aston Mar n for the James Bond saga as Skyfall (Sam Mendes, 2012), the futurist
DeLorean in Back to the Future trilogy (Robert Zemeckis, 1985, 1989 and 1990), and also the Peugeot
406 in Taxi (Gérard Pirès, 1998). The cars correspond to a specific character and by being present in
the movies, the brands can give a be er idea of their ideal customer. The product placements are a
tool to target specific customers.
The strategic evolu on of product placement Nowadays the adver sers need to make profitable and long las ng adver sement. The product
placements are indeed more long las ng than a TV commercial. In fact the strategy today is not to
replace the classic adver sement by product placement, but to create a complete 360° campaign
around the product placement. The character, actor which is linked to the product placement can this
way be used as a brand spokesperson in all the adver sements. Those kinds of campaign for the
adver sers are called Tie‐in. In the last James Bond, Skyfall (Sam Mendes, 2012), some of the classic
products placements of the saga as the Omega watch got a 360° communica on campaign around
the movie. Print ads and a TV commercial around the watch and the movie released 3. The strategies
3 Appendix 2, Omega print adver sement
6
of product placement are numerous. The brand want to increase their brand awareness, increase
consumer memory to make them recall and recognize the brand or the product.
The product placements benefit today from a long las ng audience. For instance in France they get
an average of 30 million of touch points with a brand with the cinema (350,000 to 5 million people) ,
DVD (100,000 to 2 million sold units), Canal+ (6 million people), TV (5 to 12 million of touch points)
(Lehu, 2006, p. 168), and they also now the VOD. Even though the brands want to be seen more and
faster. Different strategies are used for that. Some brands want to be seen a lot, they are playing on
the quan ty, by being present in a movie with an evoca ve, a classic, a corporate and even a stealth
placement.
Some others brands will think quality in terms of placement, integra on in the scenario, presence in
the poster like for Risky Business (Paul Brickman, 1983) with the Ray‐Ban directly on the poster of the
film and for The Love Bug, (Un amour de Coccinelle in French) (Robert Stevenson, 1968).4
Some brands which are legally not authorized to adver se on TV use a lot the product placement. It is
the case of the cigare es company like in Men in Black with the Marlboro. The liquors company are a
lot present in movies: in James Bond with Bollinger, in The Italian Job (F. Gary Gray, 2003) with Moët
Chandon, Camping (Fabien Onteniente, 2006) with Ricard, The African Queen (John Huston, 1951)
with Gordon's gin (Sauer A. , 2012), etc.
Finally brands use more and more the product placement for the sake of realism. As the world of
today is a consumerism world, it is normal to see a lot of brands related to the subject of a movie. For
instance, Steven Spielberg explained (Lehu, 2006, p. 64) that he chose deliberately brands like Gap,
Lexus, Century 21, Fox, USA Today, Guinness, Burger King, Ben & Jerry’s and others brands for the story of Minority Report (Steven Spielberg, 2002) which occur in 2054. He wanted to make sure that the
consumers know the movie occur on Earth and that it is not so different from today.
They even adapt some mes their names in animated films to develop their crea vity image.
Therefore in Shark tale (Bibo Bergeron and Vicky Jenson, 2004) they changed brands names like Gap into
Gup, Coca‐Cola in Coral‐Cola, GQ in FQ, Newsweek into Newsreef and so on (Lehu, 2006, p. 63).
Overexposure VS limita on
In this part of the study, we will go more in details into some specific movies. These informa on will
allow us to link the quan ty and the quality of the product placements regarding different strategies.
Overall exposure and realism
Apple: Apple is the brand the most visible these years in movies. Brand Channel organized the Brandcameo
product placement awards of the 2011 year (Anonymous, Announcing the 2011 Brandcameo
Product, 2012). As the year before, Apple won the overall product placement category award with a
presence in 17 of the 40 movies of the box office US 2011. From 2001 to 2011, Apple products were
in 129 movies of the 374 of the box office. One par cularity of Apple in the product placement
ac vity is that they never give any money for their products.
Why so many movies use Apple products? Is a choice of the director? Is it the brand which wants to
be everywhere?
4 Appendix 3, Official movie poster The Love bug
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Apple is so present in movies because of the consumers. Jean‐Marc Lehu said that the scenarist
prefer that the heroes use an Apple product to be more a rac ve (Grosset, 2011). The scenarist
prefer though the Apple product regarding consumer’s behaviors and preferences. According to
Mar n Lindstrom, Apple has a posi ve image on consumers, inspire them (Allin, 2010). Their product
are never aggressive, always integrated in the ac on, very subtle. Also, you will never see a bad guy
with a Mac or an apple product, Apple want to give their products only to the heroes (Allin, 2010).
But the presence of Apple in the movies is an old strategy of the company. Their marke ng strategy
has been to be innova ve, high tech and create trendy products. Therefore producers come to Apple
to ask them products, this image is very important for the movies (Rocourt, 2011).
What is surprising is that Apple never gives money for their placement. Recently in Mission:
Impossible‐ Ghost Protocol (Brad Bird, 2011), the Apple products are on the screen more than 8
minutes. This me should represent about 23 million of dollars (Dirks, 2012). Apple loan and give
some products easily but they don’t pay. S ll, Apple want to be on the screen because on a simple
fact, there are everywhere in the world so they should be also on movies.
Their strategy is to give realism to the movies like for Kick‐Ass (Ma hew Vaughn, 2010), Toy Story 3
(Lee Unkrich, 2010), and so on.5Indeed an urban meets 5000 logos every day according to Olivier
Bouthillier (Grosset, 2011), therefore realism in movies with product placement is understandable.
Overexposure Some movies have been cri cized for their numerous product placements along the movie as Sex and
the city (Michael Patrick King, 2008), The Island (Michael Bay, 2005) or Driven (Renny Harlin). Did they
need all of these brands? Did the consumers felt a acked by those product placement? Was it
worthwhile?
Sex and the City:
In this film, which succeeds to a TV series, you have just too product placements. Of course as a fashion film you expect to find some product placements but a lot of them were not there for a good reason. You have in this movie you have approximately 94 product placements with brands like Adidas, American Airlines, Apple, BlackBerry, Botox, Car er, Chanel, Chris an Dior, Dell, Entertainment Weekly, Harvard University, Heinz, Hello Ki y, , Hermès, Kit Kat, L’Oreal, Louis Vui on, M&M’s, Marie Claire, Mercedes, Motorola, Ne lix, Nike, Nivea, Sony, Starbucks, Swarovski, Tiffany & Co., (Garcia‐Mora, Sex and the City, les films, 2012)etc.
The main issue of the numerous product placement is that people won’t be able to remember and recall all of the brands. Brand channel gave to this movie in 2008 the product placement award “Film Whore” (Sauer A. , 2008) for their brands too present. Consumers don’t go to the cinema to see an adver sement. Even though the movie has been a great success.
The Island: In 2005 the movie of Michael Bay had the biggest number of individual brands and products showed prominently all along the film with 35 brands (TheFormer786, 2011). Among them there was, MSN Search, Puma, XBox, Reebok, Miller Light, General Motors, Dodge, Chrysler, (Goodman, 2012)etc. This movie has been especially cri cized for the Calvin Klein brand integra on. In the movie the characters arrive in front of a Calvin Klein store and watch an adver sement with Scarle Johansson. The problem is that this adver sement was an actual adver sement of Calvin Klein (Sauer A. , 2005).
5 Appendix 4, Apple product placements
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Normally a good product placement is a placement integrated in the story, almost invisible and which does not make consumers think about an adver sement. In this movie they did the opposite and made a commercial movie with aggressive placements.
Driven: In the movie Driven (Renny Harlin, 2001), Brandchannel counted about 102 products placement
along the movie with brands or products (Lehu, 2006, p. 159). Among them were Bosch, Coca‐Cola,
Honda, Mazda, Hilton, McDonald’s, Mercedes, PlaySta on, Shell, Sony, Speedo, Toyota, Visa or even
Volkswagen and so on (Lehu, 2006, p. 160).Some of the placement were paid and not paid. The
movie was not a big success compared to Sex and the city but a part of the explana on of the
number of product placement, was the situa on of the movie: racing. In racing sponsorship is
expected therefore some brands were logic within the movie.
Limita on Some movies choose a different strategy than the mul plicity of brands. They focus more on the
crea on of a universe, on specific characters and they really allow the brands to increase their brand
image. Some brands succeed in placing their brands very effec vely in several movies. We will see in
details the strategy of the James Bond saga, then the brand Ray Ban and also a different strategy,
having no product placement.
The James Bond saga: James bond is a character invented by Ian Fleming in 1953 (Anonymous, n.d.). This character has
been since very famous and the saga of movies is the longer of the cinema with 26 movies (Delcroix
and Tissot, 2012). The last one Skyfall (Sam Mendes, 2012) was released in 2012. James Bond does
not exist without certain products like his watch, his car, his favorite cocktail, his gun. The brands that
people link with James Bond are Omega or Rolex for the watches, Aston Mar n for the car, Walther
PPK for the guns, Bollinger for the Champagne and Mar ni for the cocktail.
Some recent cri cs target James Bond a saga of too many product placement. Die Another Day (Lee
Tamahori, 2002) has even been nicknamed as “Buy Another Day” because of the amount of product
placement (Felix and Stampler, 2012). The movie got around 100 million of dollars in product
placement with Aston Mar n but also Ford for the Thunderbird of Halle Berry, (Weaver, 2012) etc. Of
course the numerous product placements in the saga and their growing evolu on made people talk
but the movies managed to focus only on the most important products for the character. In fact in
these movies they highlight the main product placements in me and space. In Skyfall (Sam Mendes,
2012), we can easily see the Walther, the Heineken beer, the Omega watch, the Bollinger bo le of
Champagne, the Mar ni and we see perfectly the Aston Mar n which takes a big role in this opus.
The strategy of this saga has been working for 50 years. It works so much that people are complaining
when there is a scene with Heineken which does not corresponds to the character of James Bond! If
movies can manage to integrate their brands like that they will surely benefit from that in terms of
image, profits and the e‐in opera ons will be a success.
According to Jean‐Patrick Flandé, the Omega brand is ge ng a sales increase of about 35 % a er
each opus of James Bond (Lehu, 2006, p. 171).The James Bond saga recently celebrated his 40 years
of partnerships with Bollinger which launched for the occasion a vintage limited edi on of
Champagne in the shape of a Walther PPK silencer (Bencheman, 2012).
In a nutshell there are surely a lot of placements in these movies but they are focusing in the quality
of the placement. The same brands are always put forward for the image.
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Ray Ban: Ray Ban is famous for two big product placement successes: Risky Business (Paul Brickman, 1983) and
Top Gun (Tony Sco , 1986) both with Tom Cruise.
The first partnership of Ray Ban with Tom Cruise was for Risky Business (Paul Brickman, 1983). Before
the movie, the annual sales of Wayfarer were only 18,000. With the product placement of the
Wayfarer and the presence of the model on the poster, they got a er the movie a 50% increase in
sales on this model. 360,000 pairs of Wayfarers have been purchased in 1983 (Renko, 2011).
Following this success, they make another partnership with Tom Cruise for Top Gun (Tony Sco , 1986)
for the Aviators sunglasses. Again a success with an increase of the Aviators’ sales of 40% in the seven
month following the release of Top Gun (Renko, Product placement highlights – Ray‐Ban Aviator,
2010).
They again invested in Men in Black (Barry Sonnenfeld, 1997) for the model Predator 2 whose sales
increased by 300% to reach 5 million dollars a er the movie (Jhaveri, 2011). Each me Ray Ban chose
to be a central product, always present with the main characters, the heroes, and is o en present in
the official poster of the movies which increase the awareness of the brand.
No product placement strategy: Some movies with great audience and that will be a success in the box office chose a different
strategy by ge ng rid of the product placement. Usually it is a choice regarding their historical
context or a brand strategy.
Those movies are Harry Po er and the Deathly Hallows part 1 (David Yates, 2011), Cowboys & Aliens
(Jon Favreau, 2011), Puss in Boots (Chris Miller, 2011), Alice in Wonderland (Tim Burton, 2010) and
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (Rob Marshall, 2011) (Garcia‐Mora, 2012).
In Harry Po er, what was surprising is that they used a lot product placement in the previous ones
like the brand Converse. But for the last one the director wanted to keep the only product placement:
Harry Po er himself. For Cowboys & Aliens, Pirates of Caribbean, and Alice in Wonderland the
historical situa on was not very good to place products. They could have chosen a brand of whisky
for the first one but they did not. For Puss in Boots it is funny to have no product placement as we
know that Dreamworks already use some in others animated movies like the Madagascar saga.
Is the quan ty of product placement a problem in a movie? According to Jean‐Patrick Flandé, founder
of Film Media Consultant, it can be hazardous to use too many products. Indeed consumers may
reject the movie and think it is just a commercial movie and not art. To avoid satura on of product
placements, these placement need to be integrate in to the story of the movie and above all, only
seven or eight product placement maximum should stand out in a movie (Lehu, 2006, p. 170).
Qualita ve placements have showed that they may have a tremendous impact on sales and on
image.
Neuromarke ng as a tool for product placement
What is Neuromarke ng and its implica ons Neuromarke ng is a young technique from the 90’s. This technique mix marke ng and neurology. According to Mar n Lindstrom it is a tool to determine what are the consumers thinking in contact with a brand or a product (Lindstrom, 2008, p. 4).
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The goal of the marketers is to create products and adver sement that will bring money and in the same me sa sfac on to the customers. Marketers o en use focus groups to fill in ques onnaires, studies to be the closer possible to their expecta ons.
Neuromarke ng, as a new science, offers new possibili es for marketers but also for consumers. Why do we buy the cereals Chocapic of Nestlé in a store? Is it for the packaging, is it because of the adver sement, because other people are buying it? Neuromarke ng can bring light to our subconscious needs and desires (Lindstrom, 2008, p. 5).
How does it work? Several technologies can be used as the fMRI, EEG and SST. The fMRI or func onal magne c resonance imaging measure the changes in ac vity in parts of the brain. The EEG and SST (Steady State topography) work together to be able to determine why consumers are making this kind of decision, and what part of the brain told them to do it (Anonymous, Neuromarke ng).
One of the most known experience is surely the blind test Coke versus Pepsi. This neuromarke ng study found out that people were more influences by their memory, experience with the Coke brand than the taste itself of the drink (Lydecker, 2009). Even if they preferred the taste of Pepsi they will buy Coke.
The main implica ons of Neuromarke ng is to reveal what is not known today. Mar n Lindstrom made a neuromarke ng study for the smokers about the images of the packaging and their consump on habits. Why do people con nue to smoke so much even with warning messages, label, adver sement against cancer and son on? Approximately one third of the males adults in the world are smoking according to Lindstrom and 15 billion of cigare es are sold every day! In Buyology, he tells that 32 smokers from his 2,081 volunteers par cipated in the smoking study. A er ques onnaires and interviews the results gave a complete different idea of what the marketers think. In fact the warning labels on the cigare es pack have no effect on the suppression of the craving but worse, they are encouraging, s mula on the envy to smoke. (Lindstrom, 2008, p. 14)
With neuromarke ng study surely some waste of money can be avoid.
Neuromarke ng and product placement The brands that invest in product placement expect return on investment. How to be sure in advance
of the impact of your placement in a movie on the sales a er the movie?
M&M’s refused to par cipate in the movie E.T. The Extra‐Terrestrial (Steven Spielberg, 1982) that is
why Spielberg went to Hershey. Who would have thought that the Reese’s Pieces would be one of the
best product placement of all mes? They invest one million in the product placement and saw a rose
of 65% of their sales just two weeks a er the release of the movie (Conradt, 2008).
More and more organiza ons and agencies propose tracking and analyzing tools regarding the impact
of the product placement (Lehu, 2006). This is truly an issue nowadays. A lot of companies have seen
some launching of products failing. Coca Cola is one of them with their Coca‐Cola BlaK. They
launched the product in 2006 a er good marke ng research results. Consumers never really wanted
the product and they put it out of the market a er just one year (Lindstrom, 2008, p. 168). Is
Neuromarke ng a solu on in the launching of products? Can it replace the classical marke ng
research?
With the increase of product placements in movies like for Die Another Day (Lee Tamahori, 2002),
Driven (Renny Harlin, 2001) or Transformers (Michael Bay, 2007), Mar n Lindstrom thinks consumers
are overexposed to product placement and that a snow‐blindness appears when you don’t even see
the placements (Lindstrom, 2008, p. 46). In Casino Royale (Mar n Campbell, 2006), usually the
product you remember is the Aston Mar n and not Louis Vui on, the Sony Ericsson phones, the Sony
11
Blu‐ray players, the Ford cars or Fedex (Lindstrom, 2008, p. 46). The associa on of Aston Mar n in a
James Bond movie a racts the a en on and others product placements can appear as blind.
In the study of Mar n Lindstrom on product placement, the results explain that a product placement
has to be integrated into the story to be seen. It has also to be relevant like the Walther PPK in Skyfall
(Sam Mendes, 2012), the gun is given to James Bond and a joke is made around this moment. People
remember this moment of the story. Some brands with high recall like Coke or Apple may weaken
some others placements and can be compared as Lovemark, concept created by Kevin Roberts
(Anonymous, Lovemark).
Brand recall and effec veness In order to make the product placement a success, the recall and the recogni on of the brand have to
be increased.
According to a study of Ben Kozary and Stacey Baxter (Baxter and Kozary, 2010), the more subtle the
product placement is, the less they will recall it but the more they will be persuades to buy it and the
purchase inten on will increase. With a prominent product, it is the reverse, they will recall it but
won’t buy it.
How do we increase the recall of the product keeping the placement subtle in the movie?
The consumer has to remember the product or the brand not explicitly but implicitly. The implicit
memory refers to the subconscious. You may not remember the product in the movie but when you
will see the product in stores for example it will remind you something.
The memory rate is the highest in the movie theaters therefore product placement in movie have a
strategic importance. In fact when you are in the cinema, you are well seated, there is no more
background noise, the sound is good, the screen is giant, and all the components are made for you to
spend a nice moment (MICHEL‐LEFEVRE, 2003). Instead of feeling a acked by the commercial
messages in common adver sement, in cinema you are more willing to listen and remember.
To increase the memory rate and the recall of a brand, the product or brand has to be prominent.
Prominence can be in terms of space, me and number of appearances. If a product has a lot of
physical space like McDonald’s in The Fi h Element (Luc Besson, 1997), or when someone talks about
it a lot in the dialogues, it is a prominent product (Lehu, 2006, p. 124). If a brand or product combines
these three elements, the recall will be higher. The brand has to be visible also, in the camera field
and the best is integrated in the scenario. Finally what can be an element to increase the brand recall
is to create an emo onal bond as Chanel with the movie Anastasia (Don Bluth, Garo Goldman, 1997).
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Conclusion:
Product placement is nowadays one of the adver sement tools the most used for financial reasons,
audience reasons and so on. This strategy to use product placement is s ll growing in countries, with
cinema but also other formats like Music, TV series, or even video games. Coca Cola created unique
adver sements for video games to make the games more realis c. With the poten al of the cultural
ac vi es, Product Placements need to be sure that their investment is worthwhile.
Are the brands sure of the effec veness of product placement? Brands like Ray‐Ban surely saw their
profits grow a er Top Gun (Tony Sco , 1986) and Risky Business (Paul Brickman, 1983) but what for
the others brands?
The neuromarke ng study made by Mar n Lindstrom on brands show that the investment of the
brands are not always profitable and that for him the product placement never work (Lindstrom,
2008). Some brands are more visible than others and some mes there is too much brands to be able
to recall all the brands. Anyway there are some brands like Apple which could jus fy their global
presence on the sake of realism. The ques on is to know if a brand like Apple has the power to make
invisible the others brands.
Do we need to come to a regula on of the number of product placement or do the brands should try
to focus and analyze more their impact on customers on a movie? Indeed the study of Mar n
Lindstrom could also lead to more targeted placement. With focus groups, brands could be able to
get more informa on about their impact on customers regarding their product. For instance a brand
like Coca Cola could be sure that Coca Light is ge ng more the a en on of the female customers.
This neuromarke ng tool is a way for brands to be sure that their posi oning match with the
emo onal and recogni on of the customers. Neuromarke ng may determine an average amount of
product placement needed for a movie, the best products to use in specific categories of movies, the
best associa on of products and above all the best product placement for the consumers regarding
their expecta ons. This also a way for the consumers to know more about what they desire and why
they want to buy a specific product. It can be a win‐win situa on.
In a nutshell, the product placement tool is very profitable for the movies and good strategy but the
brands using them should analyze more the effects of their products in the eyes of the customers by
their category, their place in the scenario, the others brands also present. With a be er
neuromarke ng idea of the effects of product placement, this tool may become more than just
adver sement. It might create a be er brand image, improve the brand awareness and also allow the
companies to adapt their product strategy regarding the customers’ expecta ons.
The quality is be er than the quan ty of product placements.
13
Appendixes
Appendix 1: Screen shot, McDonald’s logo in The Fi h Element (Luc Besson, 1997) (Bô, 2010)
Appendix 2: Print ad for Omega, Tie‐in with Skyfall (Sam Mendes, 2012) (Wilfred, 2012)
14
Appendix 3: Official movie poster The Love Bug (Anonymous, Un amour de coccinelle)
Appendix 4 : Apple product placement in Kick Ass (Ma hew Vaughn, 2010) (Mazzacura , 2010)and Toy Story 3 (Lee Unkrich, 2010) (JB, 2010)
15
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