Two of the talks that I attended today stick out the most to me. Both were obviously related to entertainment, but they came at it from different angles.
The first talk was a panel discussing brands working their way into major movies or television shows and becoming associated with the character or franchise. For example, James Bond always has the same type of car, or Jason Borne always wears a Rolex watch. These brands have found a way to integrate themselves with major productions without marketing their product in your face. It is essentially free marketing for the brand. However, I have to think that there may be some risk for the brand if they are willing to let their name be attached to a large move franchise. WhR if the actor gets bad publicity? What is the movie is a flop or ends up being controversial? These must be different aspects the brands need to consider. So this has me wondering: do the screen writers reach out to the brands or to the brands reach out to the screen writers in these cases? I feel that both options could be possible, depending on what the director has in mind for the character or maybe a brand is willing to almost sponsor some part of movie production to have their product used.
The second one that resonated with me was actually a pop up talk that was planned yesterday apparently. This talk discussed different aspects of music and how that affects advertisements or how the music itself can be an “advertisement” in a way for a movement. The most interesting example they screened was when Chance The Rapper released his new song, “We the People” in a Nike advertisement for the USA Olympic basketball teams. The lyrics to this song basically is about pride for your country and what it means to you. This one collaborative video did many things: it advertised for Nike, it advertised for the olympics, it advertised Chance The Rapper’s new single. In addition, all three entities were portrayed in a positive light and gave an essence of country pride while also supporting the United States Olympic teams. This genius collaboration would be nothing without the music or the face behind the music. This just happened to be the perfect song for the advertisement and the perfect because the Olympic basketball team target market is aligned with the rapper’s fan base. If a different song with a different artist was used, this advertisement would not have been nearly as effective.
Most brand integration is not free. Brands pay to have their products in movies, so they must not view it as much of a risk. Remember the discussion in that first article I posted in which the author cited the Lego Movie and the best possible use of brand integration? I prefer that to someone in a bar casually sipping a Coors in so that the label is subtly readable. That throws me out of the story. How desperate are brands to find ways beyond traditional advertising to get their message out there? And are there ethics involved?
ReplyDeleteGood questions. I would bet the screenwriter has little to do with the introductions of brands into the story—I'm not positive on this, but I believe there are usually middlemen that help integrate the brand into the story. Maybe a collaboration?
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