Krissh exclaims to a child, who is in awe of his superpowers, “If you want to become like me, drink Bournvita”, Krishh, portrayed by Hrithik Roshan, had a minimum of 7 scenes where Bournvita was either offered to a guest or was placed on the dining table for the world to notice. The health drink company also had an association with the prequel to Krishh, Koi mil gaya.
In case you’ve watched Taal or Dhoom 2, you must have evidently seen Coca Cola gracing the scenes. Recently released Bollywood movies like Chennai express (Nokia Lumia) or Dabang (Suzuki Hayate) have shown us how effectively brands can be used along with the story. There have been many movies which have been made centered around particular brands, such as “Mere dad ki Maruti” using Maruti in their story-line itself.
This practice of including brands/products into the midst of a program, be it movies or a TV Series, by actually placing the products in various scenes, is referred to as Product placement.
Wikipedia defines Product placement as “any form of audiovisual commercial communication consisting of the inclusion of or reference to a product, a service or the trade mark thereof so that it is featured within a programme”. Product placement stands out as a marketing strategy because it is imperative to attach the utmost importance to “the context and environment within which the product is displayed or used’ and when it comes to movies, the director does a pretty good job to make things look interesting. Although, sometimes it does get a little overboard but nevertheless, they do end up sending the message that they intended to send across the audiences, i.e., advertise.
The audience may skip the advertisements, may not pay heed to the ones that come in between their entertainment mode, but when it comes to product placement, they are in a way held captive to watch it.
These are commercial insertions amalgamated into scenes to heighten the visibility of the brand not only to send out the “advertised message” serving as breaks in the storyline, but as an eternal part of the story. They also make it a point to modify the scenes in order to make it appealing.
There’s no hard and fast rules as to how this can be done, be it limiting it to just a mention, or keeping the brand in sight by the leads using them.
Fan-following of stars, as well as the effectiveness of the characters they portray on screen plays a key role in making the product placement effective.
It dates back to the nineteenth century in publishing. By the time Jules Verne published the adventure novel Around the World in Eighty Days (1873), he was a world-renowned writer extent transport and shipping companies lobbied to be mentioned in the story as it was published in serial form. Whether he was actually paid to do so or not remains unknown.
Product placement has come to much modifications and improvisations ever since. Hollywood has used this to its advantage. Product placement could be a source of sizable financing. The best example is Die another day (2002) which received between 120 and 160 million dollars from the associated brands in royalties and publicity support during the movie launch.
And how can we forget, Bond movies, when we are talking about Product placement?
Be it Jaguar or Aston martin, or a series of other cars, many have found screen space in the movies. Even beverages like Smirnoff find a way to shape some of the scenes in the movie.
Over the years, though the products or brands have been evaluated before being included in the films. They need to sync in with the personality of the stars, because these have a higher visibility and recall value than even the traditional advertisements.
In a study conducted, where children were shown the movie Home Alone, where Pepsi had a sizeable screen time, and after this were offered to choose between Pepsi and Coke. 67% of those who watched the Movie chose Pepsi, while only 42% who didn’t saw the movie, chose Pepsi over coke.
One of the greatest communication campaigns is definitively BMW’s The Hire online marketing campaign.
BMW launched 8 short movies directed by the best directors. This series of 8 “episodes” called, The Hire, starring Clive Owen as the lead character and the link between the different parts received tangible results and heaps of awards.
The sales of BMW did shot up, post the release of these ad-cum-short films, winning awards and laurels all across, with a viewership of 45 million in over two years.
The brands as well as movie producers keep coming up with innovative and interesting ways on incorporating them in films and companies won’t mind shelling extra to get higher visibility, which will serve them well in not just immediate future but also in the long run.