Product placement is spectre haunting film-makers
by Henry Mance,
2015-11-05 12:08:22.0
"SPECTRE, the longest, most expensive Bond (film) yet, wouldn’t have been made without product placement." The Guardian, October 22
That’s fascinating. And completely implausible.
Skyfall, Spectre’s predecessor, had a reported production budget of about $200m, and made about $1.1bn at the box office. It’s safe to assume that Sony Pictures Entertainment would have made another one regardless. Product placement is just a bonus. Albeit a well-earned one — everything featured in the movies must sell out immediately.
No, just Daniel Craig.
That’s unfair.
Yes, it is. According to leaked emails, Mr Craig and director Sam Mendes actually protested about the use of a Sony Xperia phone in Spectre. "James Bond only uses the ‘best’ and, in their minds, the Sony phone is not the ‘best’," wrote one film executive. Ouch, I bet that message from Sony went down badly with, er, Sony.
It’s OK. The executive also wrote: "BEYOND the $$ factor, there is, as you may know, a CREATIVE factor." No one can argue with caps lock — even in the film industry. He had a good point: spurious product placement could damage the Bond franchise.
Like that moment in Skyfall when 007 ditched his traditional vodka martini in favour of a Carlsberg?
It was a Heineken, actually.
What? So I’ve been drinking the wrong beer for three years?
Yes.
What about in Spectre?
The product placement is much more subtle. Bond has gone back to the vodka martinis; he doesn’t even mention the brand he’s drinking. But there is an Aston Martin DB10, a Jaguar C-X75, a 1948 Rolls-Royce, a Fiat 500 and several Mercedes. Bond is also handed an Omega watch, as he has been for the past two decades. What does this Omega watch do?
"It tells the time." Take that, Apple Watch. It’s amazing that there’s still a role for good old-fashioned product placement in the age of targeted digital marketing. Only yesterday Facebook was asking for access to my underpants drawer. Actually, product placement has been booming worldwide in recent years. Part of the advantage for film-makers is that the brands help to market the film. Globally, product placement accounted for $10.6bn in spending last year, according to PQ Media. Although that’s a bit less than last year’s Facebook’s ad revenues of $11.5bn.
Why would people pay for untargeted advertising such as product placement anyway?
Advertisers are willing to pay a premium for context. Digital advertising struggles to deliver the glamour of the big screen. That’s partly why TV commercials cost more than YouTube ads to reach the same number of people. But with product placement, brands don’t have as much control over how their products will be used — and who will watch the film.
So you’re saying it is risky?
Associating yourself closely with other people’s content can occasionally backfire. Ahead of this year’s Rugby World Cup, British mobile operator O2 spent big supporting the England team. Unfortunately, England were knocked out almost immediately. Bond is never knocked out for longer than 30 seconds.
But he can’t necessarily turn around the fortunes of failing brands. Xperia phones, which featured in Skyfall, are yet to set the world on fire. And product placement is not cheap. Heineken’s slot in Skyfall cost a reported $45m.
As the saying goes, you know half your advertising budget is wasted but you don’t know.... Your backside from your elbow?
Exactly. How do brands measure success?
With difficulty. The metrics are "fairly rudimentary", and "nowhere near as good as the ones for traditional television advertising", says Chris Fill, an author on marketing. On the other hand, marketing bosses can be pretty confident that product placement raises their chance of being invited to a Bond premiere.
Lucky them. But I worry that product placement might get in the way of the plot.
Not in Spectre — I didn’t notice a plot at all. But a study in the European Journal of Marketing this year found that "greater placement prominence heightens consumers’ reactance to persuasion attempts and negatively affects their evaluations of the host brand".
What does that even mean? It means never work in academia. I also have doubts about whether Britain should commercialise its great cultural icons for a quick buck.
Were you here for Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit?
The Financial Times Limited
Daniel Craig as James Bond wears an Omega watch. Picture: THE FINANCIAL TIMES
"SPECTRE, the longest, most expensive Bond (film) yet, wouldn’t have been made without product placement." The Guardian, October 22
That’s fascinating. And completely implausible.
Skyfall, Spectre’s predecessor, had a reported production budget of about $200m, and made about $1.1bn at the box office. It’s safe to assume that Sony Pictures Entertainment would have made another one regardless. Product placement is just a bonus. Albeit a well-earned one — everything featured in the movies must sell out immediately.
No, just Daniel Craig.
That’s unfair.
Yes, it is. According to leaked emails, Mr Craig and director Sam Mendes actually protested about the use of a Sony Xperia phone in Spectre. "James Bond only uses the ‘best’ and, in their minds, the Sony phone is not the ‘best’," wrote one film executive. Ouch, I bet that message from Sony went down badly with, er, Sony.
It’s OK. The executive also wrote: "BEYOND the $$ factor, there is, as you may know, a CREATIVE factor." No one can argue with caps lock — even in the film industry. He had a good point: spurious product placement could damage the Bond franchise.
Like that moment in Skyfall when 007 ditched his traditional vodka martini in favour of a Carlsberg?
It was a Heineken, actually.
What? So I’ve been drinking the wrong beer for three years?
Yes.
What about in Spectre?
The product placement is much more subtle. Bond has gone back to the vodka martinis; he doesn’t even mention the brand he’s drinking. But there is an Aston Martin DB10, a Jaguar C-X75, a 1948 Rolls-Royce, a Fiat 500 and several Mercedes. Bond is also handed an Omega watch, as he has been for the past two decades. What does this Omega watch do?
"It tells the time." Take that, Apple Watch. It’s amazing that there’s still a role for good old-fashioned product placement in the age of targeted digital marketing. Only yesterday Facebook was asking for access to my underpants drawer. Actually, product placement has been booming worldwide in recent years. Part of the advantage for film-makers is that the brands help to market the film. Globally, product placement accounted for $10.6bn in spending last year, according to PQ Media. Although that’s a bit less than last year’s Facebook’s ad revenues of $11.5bn.
Why would people pay for untargeted advertising such as product placement anyway?
Advertisers are willing to pay a premium for context. Digital advertising struggles to deliver the glamour of the big screen. That’s partly why TV commercials cost more than YouTube ads to reach the same number of people. But with product placement, brands don’t have as much control over how their products will be used — and who will watch the film.
So you’re saying it is risky?
Associating yourself closely with other people’s content can occasionally backfire. Ahead of this year’s Rugby World Cup, British mobile operator O2 spent big supporting the England team. Unfortunately, England were knocked out almost immediately. Bond is never knocked out for longer than 30 seconds.
But he can’t necessarily turn around the fortunes of failing brands. Xperia phones, which featured in Skyfall, are yet to set the world on fire. And product placement is not cheap. Heineken’s slot in Skyfall cost a reported $45m.
As the saying goes, you know half your advertising budget is wasted but you don’t know.... Your backside from your elbow?
Exactly. How do brands measure success?
With difficulty. The metrics are "fairly rudimentary", and "nowhere near as good as the ones for traditional television advertising", says Chris Fill, an author on marketing. On the other hand, marketing bosses can be pretty confident that product placement raises their chance of being invited to a Bond premiere.
Lucky them. But I worry that product placement might get in the way of the plot.
Not in Spectre — I didn’t notice a plot at all. But a study in the European Journal of Marketing this year found that "greater placement prominence heightens consumers’ reactance to persuasion attempts and negatively affects their evaluations of the host brand".
What does that even mean? It means never work in academia. I also have doubts about whether Britain should commercialise its great cultural icons for a quick buck.
Were you here for Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit?
The Financial Times Limited
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