Product Placement

I, like most of you I’m sure, have become quite accustom to product placement is movies and TV. Product placement is when companies pay to have their product used in a shot. A good example is all those darn Coca-Cola bottles and cups on the judges table of American Idol. Cars are a very common prop in movies that is decided by advertisers. Most of the time the placement is inconspicuous. The character gets in his car and the shot is framed in such a way that we see the Mercedes Benz logo on the steering wheel. Occasionally the company makes it well known that their product is in a movie. When I, Robot was about to be released, Audi ran an commercial displaying how they designed the futuristic car Will Smith drives in the film. And the Audi logo is featured prominently during the film.

But typically product placement is rather hush hush. The logo is seen, but it doesn’t affect the way the actor behaves or what they say. But recently I was watching Freedom Writers, starring Hillary Swank educating troubled inner-city kids. In the film, there is a scene where the kids are to make a “toast to change” and pick up their bag of assigned books for the semester. (http://www1.teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?title=Freedom_Writers_Part_8&video_id=88028 around the 40 second mark) The table behind Swank is lined with Border’s bags. I had no problem with this, just another run-of-the-mill example of product placement. But the dialogue used actually mentions Borders by name. “I want each of you to come up here and take one of these Borders bags, which contain the 4 books you will be reading this semester.” I found the unnecessary mention of the company by name off-putting. When the advertisers start determining dialogue, it draws attention to the product placement and, in my opinion, makes the film seem less credible. As if they are selling themselves out even more than usual. I was just wondering if product placement ever takes you out of the show. Or are we all immune to it by this point?