How Product Placement Works

Product placement is getting far more blatant in Movies nowadays and you can think up quick examples just from the top of your head like Audi and Iron Man for example or Up In The Air‘s constant jabs with American Airlines. But let’s look a little deeper at the thinking behind it and how far things will go.

Brands are getting involved far earlier in the screen-writing process and interrogating characters and how their brands can fit into their lives, I wonder if it goes as far as introducing character traits which would enable the brand to feature, for example, give the title character a streak of environmental friendliness and let him drive a Toyota Prius. He could’ve been driving a Hummer before, but Toyota’s paying more.

The New York Times had an interesting tale of how this all works and this little snippet I found pretty interesting and just reinforces the point I made above.

“‘You’ve written Gray has a Dodge Ram,’ Mr. Yospe began, discussing a character. ‘Does it have to be a Dodge?’

‘What’s wrong with Dodge? What have you got against Dodge?’ said Mr. Orci, a soft-spoken 36-year-old.

The group began debating. In the script, Gray is described as ‘soldier-fit’ but with ‘psychic damage.’ Could someone like that drive, say, a Lincoln Navigator?”

I wonder if this level of intrinsic involvement from brands will affect the quality of the movies being made. It could border on the ridiculous. But, taking a step back, Brands are ideas in themselves. This point was alluded to earlier with the environmentally friendly guy example. Brands have the innate talent of transferring meaning to anything they are associated with. Think Armani and Gucci and you immediately get the meaning and emotion of glamour, now associate them with a character in a movie and some of that glamour rubs off. Get it? So they do play a role in making meaning far more clear simply because brands have spent years and years of advertising making sure that meaning is drilled solid into our thick skulls.

You can imagine that this is particularly useful in movies who need to convey as much meaning as possible, especially when they try to make movies from books and epically fail, most of the time.

And then you get the movies which actually make fun of the entire process and looks at itself and society in general. Cue The Joneses (trailer below). Just watch it and you’ll get the picture. On a similar note though, if anyone has read Jennifer Government, the movie is in production, I am increasingly curious as to how they are going to portray the brands in the movie as they were ripped apart and portrayed as murderous corporate bastards. Google it. It’s going to be brilliant.

Nike & RZA – Next Level Hip-Hop Advertising

I Love This. It’s a cool mix between hip-hop, basketball and the samurai/kung-fu/manga history which threads through the Wu-tang clan’s, and particularly RZA’s, career history. The music, the manga comic look and the story and tie in very well to the brands values. Mostly I like it because it all just works so well together.

Putting RZA into the mix definitely makes the entire messaging of the ad and the look and feel absolutely surreal but consistent and understandable given the target market which Nike wants to target. I wouldn’t say it was much of a risk, or at least Nike had mitigated the risk fairly well by tying in Basketball into the mix which makes perfect sense in the context it’s playing in the ad itself. basketball has always been involved with Hip-Hop, and this is just a very, very cool remix to drive home the point… along with some Confucian, self-exploratory, kung-fu philosophy thrown in for good measure.

Video: Interviews at the Social Media World Forum #smwf

Huzu, a very innovative London-based Social Media Platform agency had been in charge of the video element of the #smwf and are releasing 12 short videos covering specific topics using interviews of the main speakers at the forum. I have a short cameo somewhere near the end.

“What role does Social Media play in the overall Marketing Strategy”

Huzu at the Social Media World Forum 2010 – Interviews from Huzu on Vimeo.

My presentation at the Social Media World Forum on “Successfully Monitoring and Measuring Social Media Campaigns” is covered here. and is downloadable on Slideshare.

Successfully Monitoring and Measuring Social Media Campaigns #smwf

I presented this at the Social Media World Forum (#smwf)

The event itself was very enlightening, the insights and perspectives were inspiring. Although, I kept seeing on the #smwf back-channel (that is, the twitter conversations using the hash-tag, just in case you didn’t know) as well as on blog postings that some people were calling the event a re-hash and “saying the same thing as last time”, “not adding value”, etc. I would like to wholeheartedly disagree. There was tremendous value even if it was a re-hash, which I don’t believe it to be.

I think “Social Media Experts” who always attend these events have always heard the propositions and presentations and similar ideas floating around and hence are more akin to believing and seeing the same things over and over again. But there are MANY, MANY others who do not.

Coming from a marketing background and working across many departments, even currently, I know for a fact that in most organisations, even though employees are versed in Facebook and Twitter and whatever, they do not even know where to begin when it comes to applying Social Media for Business purposes.

The message still needs to be spread, no matter how many times it is said. The point these “Experts” need to get is that the message needs to get to the right audience. Yes further and new thinking needs to take place and take the entire Study and Philosophy to the next level, but the foundations need to be built before you start constructing high towers. These people, the organisations and their departments, are the ones eventually funding the entire Social Media enterprise anyway.

This is the context in which I made my presentation… Download it from Slideshare and go through it with the notes for a fuller explanation and understanding :)

Social Media Marketing Win: Marmite Cereal Bars

Was offered this on Facebook recently in that little Advertising block on the right hand side of your screen offering a free marmite cereal bar. So I though ‘What the hell… let’s give it a go.’ Well I got it in the post yesterday and I was impressed by how integrated the whole campaign was in terms of Marmite launching the new innovation. The objectives must certainly have been awareness and trial, with a higher focus on trial of the product since the messaging of the campaign encourages feedback on their new product.

The product itself, well, it falls under the general feeling around Marmite doesn’t it? You either love it or hate it. Well, I do like Marmite in general and the cereal bar is pretty good. It’s not overbearingly marmite, but you get the taste and it fulfils all the passport factors of being a cereal bar.

I don’t know if they’ve done any TV advertising around it, but the Outdoor is fairly ubiquitous in London and very eye-catching and engaging. I especially love the twist and the emotion it creates around even thinking of having a Marmite showergel, Fabric Softener or Perfume. In contrast, the cereal bar looks like a great idea.

Check ‘em out…

Ad Agency: DDB

An overall brilliant marketing campaign which fitted Social Media into its mix and overall strategy pretty brilliantly and was the first FMCG brand to do so. The bars were also sampled at tube stations and other places and the sample bars through facebook were obviously voluntary and you had to put in your address. So instead of Social Media i.e. Facebook Ad units being the main driver it was, in fact, only a part of the campaign for marmite to increase its reach.

Great Idea. Great Work.

Is Brad Pitt a fishfinger? – Brand Design Analysis on Inglourious Basterds

Best Agency Christmas Present I ever received… so far.

"So what the hell does that mean?" is probably going through your head. Well here’s the rub… the Poster design for Inglourious Basterds was akin to having a great shot of a fishfinger on a pack of… well.. fishfingers.  No differentiation, nothing to build the brand. Bland. Blends into the background. Status quo. Following Market conventions… Don’t agree? Let me prove it.

Exhibit A: The Inglourious Basterds Poster (Mainstream)

Exhibit B: The Valkyrie Poster

Spot the difference. None… design-wise anyway. Now you can see Brad Pitt in typical fish-finger style… blending into the background of mediocre poster history.  Why would Tarantino bow down to corporate pressure like this and risk his almost instantaneously recognised style and colouring for mass-produced crap like this?

To be fair… there were incredibly great-looking posters made alongside this one… the issue I have is that the mass-produced poster was the most ubiquitous. Which was a shit move, marketing-wise. I’d fire whoever approved it, and am highly disappointed with Tarantino for condoning it.

Anyway… here’s the great ones…

So there you have it.  On the mass poster, Brad Pitt is a fish-finger. That poster should not have been made, let alone be put up as the main attraction.  The movie was fucking awesome, regardless.

Brilliant Advertising: McDonald’s do Lobsters

I love the way they did this ad. Very creative :) Combines artful photography, functional branding and it communicates the specific targeted message very, very well.

Technorati Tags: McDonalds, Advertising, Cool, Lobster, Creative

Philips Cinema: Police vs. Crazed Robber Clowns in Bullet-time!

Philips Cinema has launched this really really cool ad that keeps you mesmerised by it throughout the entire two and some odd minutes it plays for.  The scene is a robbery at a hospital by lunatics dressed as scary-looking clowns (something I think would be very at home in a Batman-Dark Knight scenario).  The entire thing is in bullet-time in which a single moment.

I would have liked a point to the entire story (maybe I’m missing it), but I think the main point is not the content but rather the ad itself.  Obviously because this is an adventure supposedly purporting the beautiful benefits of having a Philips Cinema.

I would definitely say it’s effective advertising. I want a freaking Philips Cinema now.

Check out the ad… be blown away.

Technorati Tags: Philips, Cinema, Clowns, Cops, Shootout, Advertising, Brilliant, Cool

What Arab Boys do at Shopping Malls…

This is an interesting twist for in-store marketers… The opportunities if we only had our target markets just sitting and staring at our store displays!

Can you imagine the statements after some official gets to see this picture? It won’t be that young men should control their hormones and get a clue… it’ll be that shop owners are no longer allowed to display mannequins in their underwear in the window.

I guess with the current laws in place in a heavily restrictive society, you can’t expect anything else. A trend which may arise from this… Increased internet purchases of Blow-up dolls? Rise in female clothing retail stores, owners being young men ofcourse?

A Short History of Marketing

This is one of the simplest, most brilliant explanations of our current predicament in Marketing. Specially focusing on the relationship between branding and the consumer’s perception of brand and it’s evolution from the time products started getting packed and put onto shelves. Brilliant.

The short animation is done by Scholz & Friends.

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