Comments for Product placement gone wild

First, Thx for the great res pics.

Second: The only brand that doesn't fit among these stills is Mondeo, which is definitely wrong being a James Bond car.

Reason? The customers won't create a link in their minds between Mondeo and Bond even after the movie, because James Bond is simply an Aston Martin character.

The rest is fine for me.

I think you might have missed a subtle bit of Sony placement in the fourth pic(with the Vaio used for evil)- there's an ad for a Sony Bravia LCD TV on the web page being viewed.

Great article. I guess product placement isn't all that hard to understand, from a movie producer's perspective - but it gets a bit embarrassing when it's this obvious. What's scary is even though you don't think much of these particular products while watching the movie, you probably pick up a lot of stuff subconsciously. That's what scares me - advertisement that influences you greatly, but you can't tell yourself.

Oh well.
Nice spots. Great pics. Interesting article.

@Oli - De Lorean was also forced to fly in "Back to the Future", right?

Who owns Aston Martin? And who made the Ford Mondeo? Erm...

You'd have a whale of a time with 'The Island'. Try it. I counted at least 21 different references and that was only at the movie theatre, not with a DVD!

I think you're looking for things. I noticed the prominence of Sony phones and computers, sure -- but most of the other suspects are more subtle.

I don't really have a problem with product placement in movies, as long as it's not too blatant. If Bond's lines became "let me call them on my Sony Ericsson phone" or "Hang on I need to send in my resignation with my Sony Vaio", that would be stupid.

But everything in the modern world has a brand. If it weren't these brands, we'd see Honda or Toyota cars, a Dell or HP laptop and a Nokia or LG phone. It would be abnormal if there weren't a logo there. I know my phone, laptop and car all have prominent logos and are all recognizable brands. So what if a company paid for it to be their brand?

What's more important is that there be standards. I don't think product placement had much impact on the quality of Casino Royale. The movie was quite enjoyable otherwise. If the dialogue changed, or the characters started talking about the products in an irrelevant, out-of-character way, that would be different.