Product Placement

Choose a recent movie that utilises prominent product placement.

Movie: Jurassic World (2015)

Product placement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdfN8MMpp6w

Most relevant brands placed in the movie:
1. Samsung

2. Mercedes-Benz

3. Bose

4. Triumph

5. Alpha

6. Jeep

7. Starbucks

1. To what extent do you think such product placements in movies help increase product awareness and appeal?

There is advertising everywhere, television, radio, billboards, magazines, buses, and newspapers, just to name a few of the usual media channels. More and more ads are popping up every day. From people walking down the street wearing signs, to subliminal ads on movies.

Products placed into movies can be a lot more successful for brands than traditional advertisements, in helping increase brand awareness and appeal. It's easier to sell a viewer on the value of a product if they are emotionally connected with the story in which it is presented, rather than watching an ad totally out of context. Plus, it is easy to skip ads while watching TV but not during a movie.

Despite the frequent use of product placement, there are few scientific studies which prove they are effective. Marketing studies have not yet demonstrated clearly that product placement can guarantee sales, but it determines a more positive attitude towards the product.

Product placement can directly influence attitudes as the emotions viewers experience while watching the movie, are transferred to products placed in that story and they are unaware of the transfer.  If the emotions are positive consumers will have a positive preference for the product, but if they are negative, they will indirectly prefer them less.  When placements are less prominent, appearing only in the background of a scene, they may not even affect explicit attitudes. The reason for this is that background placements are less likely to elicit conscious thoughts about the product.

The type of product-placement should depend on the marketing goals of a company. If the company wants to build awareness of the brand, probably the best option is a placement that plays a role in the story itself. But if the company just wants to reinforce preferences for a well-known brand (in this case, Starbucks, Mercedes, Samsung, etc.), just having the brand in the movie works well.

In my opinion, brand placement helps to increase awareness and appeal due to the fact that most of the time, when people watch a movie, they choose it based on personal preferences: they like the actors, the plot of the film, the scenario, etc. This means that when viewers watch a movie, they are emotionally connected with the story and much more open to receive and accept subliminal advertising.