Product Placement Not pretending that I am the lone protestor against product placement, but in the past week it has been coming up quite often.
The NYT magazine this week had a bit on product placement and the James Bond movies. It seems that every year we have a new Bond flick with an appropriately dramatic title ("To die for cake"), curvy female eye candy, new toys, and a band of Russians with a stolen nuclear warhead. But it also seems like no one is seeing these movies. I don't know anyone who has seen the last couple of movies and am starting to think that no one is seeing them - like there are empty theatres across the country showing James Bond movies to no one. They just have to run them. It's like some sort of real-life Matrix.
Oh, yea, product placement. See, the thing is, the studios (or whoever it is) make a ton of cash on these damn films. The whole movie is product placement according to the NYT article - the amount of money they are getting from 'sponsorships' is almost equal to the cost of the movie itself allowing them to probably break even before it even hits theatres.
Pierce Brosnan, who is playing Bond for the fourth time, will be wearing an Omega wrist watch, for instance. The clear liquid in his shaken, not stirred, martinis will be Finlandia, replacing Smirnoff, for decades the spy's brand. The carrier conspicuously transporting 007 in its first-class cabin will be British Airways. That company's investment may help explain the obligatory, plot-dragging shot of a jet in midair.
My conspiracy theory of the day: I don't think anyone actually watches these movies anymore. The studio releases the film to the theatres for an obligatory amount of time, allowing a few hundred die-hard fans to see them, and then just let all the advertisements and tie-ins run their course.
I am also reading Fast Food Nation right now (I just finished Nickel and Dimed, so I am becoming a cranky boy). There are mentions in this book about corporate sponsored educational materials that schools get for free. Textbooks, workbooks, A/V stuff - all produced by large corporations who are selling oil, or soda, or fast food, or cars. It's some creepy stuff, and even creepier are the marketing goons who have figured out that they have children's undivided attention for 8 hours a day for 12 years straight. I feel sorry for parents trying to fight the good fight. Stuff to look at... The Commercialized Classroom BadAds.org
Then there is Tivo. I don't own one, but I like the idea. The ability to not be chained to your TV is an attractive one - but you have these industry types who are saying that Tivos and their ilk will completely destroy the whole advertising/commerce system as soon as consumers are able to skip over commercials. They warn that the only way for 'free' TV to survive is to get corporate sponsors or product placement, which makes me feel kind of spooky.
I guess my whole fear is not being able to tell the difference between entertainment and selling, especially in the case of children (or really dumb people). I don't want to be 90 years old in the robot rest home and my 20 year care-taker is some marketing zombie... "Mr. Robot, please don't forget to drink your delicious Tropicana Orange Juice - here I will turn on the Sony TV, I think Exxon's Nature Fun World is on now".
p.s. There is also kind of a quasi-product placement thing that happens in web logs. I guess not product placement, exactly, but... something. For instance, above I have links to books on Amazon. I guess that is kind of commercial, in the guise of entertainment (or whatever you want to call this). The commercial aspect comes in if you buy the book, Amazon will give me a dollar. Or 60 cents. Or someshit. They are rewarding me for sending people to their site - we all do it. Am I being deceitful by not telling you before you click the link? "You are going to Amazon - I will get some money if you buy something"
On the other hand, say what you will, but Amazon and others are great references for books and music. I can mention Nickel and Dimed off-handily without worrying that you won't know what I am talking about because you can just click the link and get tons of info on the book and the author and other crap - and if you buy it, Amazon rewards me with a little cash (which gets dumped into the robot crew wish-list fund by the way).
