Product Placement in Movies

     This holiday season I watched one of my favorite christmas movies, Elf. However this year, I noticed something different. Will Ferrel's wacky antics were set among a slew of brands, such as Nike, Coke, Chanel and Clinique. In a technique known as product placement, brands pay Television and Movie makers to put their products in the movie, as a part of the props or set, to subtly (or not so subtly) advertise for the product.

     This is possibly the most prominent product placement in the movie. Buddy's little brother, Daniel, wears this hat for a large chunk of the movie and the Nike symbol is always facing the camera. It's hard to miss.

     This coke bottle is also hard to miss, as the label is also conveniently facing the camera. Its hard to believe that that was a mistake. 

     These product placements for Clinique and Chanel are less obvious, and are visible for maybe a second or two. 

These examples show how products advertised can be part of the sets, the props, or even the costumes. these products are on a long list of product placement appearances for this movie alone. I was surprised to notice these appearances after watching this movie countless times. but if these expensive placement deals go unnoticed, then why bother. Does product placement effect the products we choose to buy? I don't really think so, but they must have a reason for doing it.

Keke Palmer – See The Real Me | Clean & Clear

     This commercial is for Clean and Clear, a skin care line. The commercial targets mostly teenage girls. This is obvious because of the core explicit media message conveyed by the  commercial. The ad is focused on Keke Palmer, a teenage actress who has been in children and teen movies and starred in the Nickelodeon TV show True Jackson, VP (true jackson vp was filmed in front of a live studio audience). Keke talks about being a teenager and being pressured into being someone you're not, and trying to live up to peoples expectations of you. She goes on to encourage people to be who they want to be, and be unique. The explicit message is that you can be yourself and be proud. The implicit message is that Clean and Clear will help you reveal your real self. The commercial starts and ends with #SeeTheRealMe, telling inspired girls to go online and on twitter, and into a whole new set of media messages aimed on convincing her to use Clean and Clear products to see her "real self".

     I think it is good that girls are being encouraged not to change their identity for approval. However, my overall reaction to the commercial is that it is pretty vague. Keke never talks specifically about her "real self" that was being covered up, or how Clean and Clear helped her uncover it. Its this vagueness that really looses me. The message reaches out to girls on a large scale, but none of it reaches out and touches me. The whole thing seems kind of cliche.

Paco Rabanne - 1 Million Intense

     This commercial is for a cologne called 1 Million Intense by Paco Rabanne. The first thing that came to my mind while watching this commercial was the use of snob appeal. The color scheme switches from black and white to gold, and the male model in the commercial literally gets everything he wants with a snap of his fingers. I think this commercial aims to satisfies the need for prominence, the need to dominate, and the need for sex. The commercial establishes prominence by the lighting, the party music, the prominent appearance of the people and setting. The commercial satisfies the need to dominate by giving the male model in the commercial the power of getting everything he wants with a snap of his fingers, removing the clothes of his female counterpart and turning her gold. The presence of the female counterpart in the commercial satisfies need for affiliation, possibly even need for sex. Her whole presence is meant to give the implicit message that if you wear this cologne, you can get women to have sex with you by merely snapping your fingers. The commercial also uses imagery to associate money with the product. The commercial takes place inside what seems to be a bank vault, and everything is fancy and gold. The product itself even looks like a gold bar. In short, the commercial tells you if you buy this product, you will be a rich guy with the power to get anything you want, like sexy rich ladies.
     This commercial is pretty stupid to me. You cant smell commercials, so they have to rely on extravagant images to give you some sense of what you are getting when you buy this. But is this really what you're getting?

Sprint "cuts your bill in half"

http://youtu.be/d4CZtsHN3l4 

      This is a Sprint commercial that played while I was using Spotify. It is a short 13 second ad with a man using an electric saw to "cut his bill in half". A peppy male voice informs you that if you bring in your AT&T or Verizon bill and turn in your phone, Sprint will put you on a new plan at half the price. I think the image of a man with an electric saw is an interesting choice for Sprint. This visual sets forth an implicit message that halving your bill will be empowering, which satisfies the need to dominate. You have the power to change the price of your cell service, and you are essentially dominating your phone bill.
     Another thing I found interesting was the offer to cut the bill in half only if you are switching out of an AT&T or Verizon contract. This is an example of the bribery technique, one often used by these sorts of companies. Sprint is trying to tempt cell users out of their brand loyalty with low prices. but which is more powerful, greed or the love-mark?

Always #LikeAGirl

      While waiting for a youtube video to load, I  watched a interesting ad, for Always, a feminine care line. The ad has nothing to do with feminine care, it focuses on the common derogatory term, "fight like a girl". Instead of skipping the ad like i usually do, i watched the whole thing. The commercial interviews some teenage girls, who are told to run, throw, fight like a girl. The girls do so mockingly, while young 10 year old girls when asked the same question, run punch and throw with their best efforts. the ad tries to show how a girls self confidence lowers after puberty. The commercial urges girls to fight like a girl and believe in themselves.

     I don't know what this has to do with the product they are trying to sell, beside it being for girls. They never even mention what they are trying to sell, I had to google the brand. They are using the technique of not really endorsing the product, but associating it with something positive like girls empowerment. And it did work on me, because I was interested enough not to skip the ad.

   

Axe on Social Media

http://axe.tumblr.com

     As you may have noticed, many companies have been using social media to advertise online. Having a twitter or a tumblr account for a brand is a quick and cheap way to get people to notice your product. Advertisers even pay to have "sponsored" posts, which show up on your feed whether you follow them or not. Encountering a sponsored post that caught my attention, I followed the links to the Axe blog. The blog makes posts to advertise products, like the eye-catching/eye-straining gif you see above. This blog and many like it are just another attempt to "break out of the clutter". Many target demographics and psychographics, like teens, can be reached on social media. Social media is also a medium we have yet to associate with advertising, unlike TV.
     Despite attempts to assimilate into social media culture, I still think of accounts like this as advertisements. I would probably never follow an account like this. If I wanted to see an ad, I'd be watching TV or staring at a billboard.

Gendered Marketing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JDmb_f3E2c

     This Youtube video from channel, The Checkout, is titled Gendered Marketing. The two women in the video, one dressed in blue, and one decked in pink, set out to explain how advertisers use gender to their advantage.
     The two start by explaining children's toys. An accurate example provided is legos, which used to be advertised to all demographics. Although recently, lego released a product called lego friends, which consists of stylized lego dolls, complete with constructible teashops and dollhouses. This is an example of what is known as market segmentation. Advertisers appeal to specific groups in order to increase sales, where the only thing changing about the product between genders is the label. Products advertised to women include light colors, soft edges, and pretty flowers, while male packaging consists of dark colors hard, angular edges, and smart looking diagrams.The strange part is, often times one is more expensive than the other. For example, gillette shaving creme is 7% more expensive for women than men.

     This strategy seems to be working. The popular soap brand Dove, took to this plan by creating Dove men+care, which racked up $150 million in sales. the ad campaign did a good job at reminding the potential customer how much of a man he is, and this isn't the first product to do this.
      This kind of marketing is depressing to me, I hate seeing TV ads that reduce, at such a young age, the ambitions of a girl to just things that fit her gender. And for boys too! This advertising is not only enforcing gender roles, but creating them.

The Problem With Time Magazine's Worst Words of 2014 Poll

Article Here


     Just last week, Time Magazine put up a poll for which popular word from 2014 should be banned in 2015. The words included on the list were words such as yaaaaaaass, bae, turnt, and one of the most controversial, feminist. 

     The description of the word feminist by Time was that it was a useless label used by celebrities like, "ticker tape at a Susan B. Anthony parade," whatever that means. 

     When i first heard about this, i have to say I was pretty upset. I started to have one of those "lost all faith in humanity" moments. I was shocked and angry, and i wasn't the only one. Time Magazine recently pasted an apology on the top of the article that reads:

Editor’s Note:

TIME apologizes for the execution of this poll; the word ‘feminist’ should not have been included in a list of words to ban. While we meant to invite debate about some ways the word was used this year, that nuance was lost, and we regret that its inclusion has become a distraction from the important debate over equality and justice.

–Nancy Gibbs

     The real issue here is not the word feminist itself, but how the word is used, and what different people associate with the word. So how is the word feminist used? the dictionary definition of feminist, or denotation is, "a person who supports feminism," which doesn't really get us anywhere. We then have to take a look at the denotative definition of feminism, which is "the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men."

    There are many connotations, or associations we apply to words, that people have with feminism. Many believe that women are already equal to men, and that feminists are complaining for no reason, or trying to be above men in society. (the correct term for that definition is not feminist, but misandrist). This idea was popularized by the popular term created by Rush Limbaugh, 'feminazi'. (Its easy to be against feminists when we compare them to nazi's, right?) In this Time article feminism is portrayed as a label that takes away from the issues, implying that people who call themselves a feminist "like some politician declaring a party," do not plan to take action.

 The whole poll seemed pretty stupid to me, so what if people literally cant even! Thats not what is wrong with society. As George Orwell would say, what is wrong is that people don't care enough to see how connotation can drastically change our view on things.