Yesterday, I went to see Safe House, the new Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds movie. Above everything else, it was a pretty bad movie, but one thing I saw a lot was product placement. In one scene, Ryan Reynolds opens a refrigerator. The camera pans the fridge starting at the top of it and as it moves down towards the bottom, cases of Red Bull sit on the bottom shelf.
This is nothing new; I'm sure we've all seen the blatant advertisements of Coke and other major brands in movies. One thing I'm curious about is how much does it cost to place a product in a movie like that. In addition, which products get chosen and which don't?
Hmmm... good question. I would think it would depend on the manner of the product placement, like whether it was in the background, in focus, whether a famous movie star actually handled the product (like a car in a James Bond movie!), or whether the product is mentioned by name. And I bet not all products you see used in movies are paid product placement; maybe the producers needed to pick from different products and chose one they favor themselves! Perhaps they just wanted to show that Ryan Reynold's character was a busy guy and asserted this by putting energy drinks in his fridge...? (I have no idea, I haven't even seen the movie.)
ReplyDeleteThat's interesting you mention this scene. I walked into my house to find a bootleg of the movie playing on our T.V. yesterday. I couldn't believe how cheesy that product placement was. If the refrigerator didn't open and have RedBull in it, my second guess was Coke. I'd think that the product placement would be more smooth, and less blatant. I didn't stick around to see the remainder of the movie, but it could have been a good one. However I didn't hear my friends say anything about it, so I guess it was mediocre.
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