Best/Worst product placements in a movie

[ebuzz79]

Draino in Mother's Day

[Alex88]

Originally posted by sub780lime
worst placement: any movie that acts like the only cars in the world that exist are the ones by this single Manufacturer

The Italian fucking Job (remake)! What the hell is with the obsession with minis? If this movie took place in Scandinavia or Norway I could understand its prescence, but in LA?

[Monterey Jack]

Spider-Man was absolutely lousy with product plugs, especially during the Times Square sequence.

[DeanMoriarty]

Supergirl - A&W Root Beer Machines everywhere; Popeye's Chicken; large Adidas (i think) logos on all the girl's sports uniforms...

The Man With The Golden Gun - AMC cars

Bye Bye Love - McDonald's

Career Opportunities - Target

[Maximum Jonah]

Originally posted by Mister Zob
Worst: Pepsi products in 28 DAYS LATER...

I was ready to agree with you, as this is very true, but something that is more distracting is the advertisements for the British Lottery System. Their logo of a crossed pair of fingers was evident in almost every urban location shot.

Then as you are watching the end credits, who do the producers thank?

The British Lottery Corporation for their financial support in the production of this movie!!!

Is is just me, or when you watch movies now, do you look for the products being promoted?

This, apart from movie errors, seems to be a full-time occupation of my movie watching. Oh yeah, sometimes I watch the movie too.

[Monterey Jack]

Short Circuit was pretty shameless, like when "Johhny 5" is channel surfing, and lingers on every single commercial just long enough for the product jingle to play out in full.

"Would you like to be a Pepper too?"

[jjunker]

I'm usually not "taken out" of a movie by product placement, but when I saw the Heineken sign in The Matrix: Reloaded - it struck me as odd and out of place...

[jdurg]

I'm not sure if my memory is failing me, but weren't there a TON of Pizza Hut product placements in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series of movies?

[DU FAN 98]

Originally posted by jdurg
I'm not sure if my memory is failing me, but weren't there a TON of Pizza Hut product placements in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series of movies?

I could let this one slip because it was their favorite food

[Riedenschneider]

Best: Vagiclean in Me, Myself & Irene

Worst: The US Armed Forces in Bruckheimer productions.


"Price check on Vagiclean, aisle five. I repeat: price check on Vagiclean, aisle five. That's Vagiclean. We've got a customer down here with a full-on fallopian fungus. She's baking a loaf of bread and I think it's sourdough."

[georgep]

The worst commercial in that film, though, involved Ally Sheedy. She picks up the remote, points it at the TV, then just STANDS THERE and points the remote at the screen for a FULL five seconds until the jingle for Ore-Ida potatoes ("It's allllll-righta!") finally plays out. I mean, I saw it in the theater when I was 10 years old with my friend of the same age and we BOTH picked up on it! Tacky....

Best product placement: "The Insider." I agree with the comments about FedEx in "Cast Away," but it took real guts for Michael Mann to openly attack such huge moneymakers as Brown and Williamson, CBS and 60 Minutes without having to disguise the names at all.

By the way, is anyone else pulled out of "Bruce Almighty" by the spoof on Yahoo! (complete with yodel) halfway through the film? I am.

[XrayDuke]

The Pepsi placement throughout the movie and the Pepsi commercial that had the drink holder with the pepsi in the fighter jet were a little much.

worst was Superman II:

hey lets throw superman into a Marlboro truck
hey lets throw krypton villian #2 into a hughe lit up Coc-a-Cola sign

best are in the Bond films....i always giggled when Roger Moore would look at his watch and there would be this nice little sony logo at the bottom..subtle yet right in your face

[slickpickle]

Can't believe NOBODY mentioned this one, but the Pepsi product placement in Twister was extremely unsubtle and unrealistic... specifically, the scene where our favorite storm-chasers have to come up with a way for their tornado-tracking device to float up into the twister, so they decide to fashion "wings" out of used soda cans. EVERY SINGLE CAN they round up is a Pepsi can. EVERY SINGLE ONE. When I saw that in the theater I literally laughed out loud; I mean, they could have used other Pepsi products to give their garbage some more variety, but no. Apparently the only soda available in Oklahoma is regular Pepsi.

As for product placement in general, if it's done subtly and realistically, it doesn't bother me at all.

And I have to agree with those who gave Wayne's World their vote for best Product Placement. Freakin' hilarious. But, unlike Twister, INTENTIONALLY hilarious.

[JFelix]

Originally Posted by Monterey Jack

Short Circuit was pretty shameless, like when "Johhny 5" is channel surfing, and lingers on every single commercial just long enough for the product jingle to play out in full.

"Would you like to be a Pepper too?"

YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND THE UNDERLYING, BITING SOCIAL SATIRE!

Clearly it represents how the media has saturated the public, turning them into jingle-chanting robots who are ready to spout catch phrases at greath length!

(If this argument works for Minority Report...)

[esc]

Originally Posted by caligulathegod

Superman being thrown into that Marlboro truck in Superman 2.

Ya, that was nasty. I wonder who approved of that in a pitch meeting. At least it was subtle, unlike the Coke sign. not only is there a massive build up to the throw into the sign so that the audience is on a high when they see it, but when Supes finally lets fly and Non goes sailing, almost in slow-mo into the sign, when he finally hits the sign it doesnt just crackle, or explode ... I T E X P L O D E S ! ! ! burning the coke symbol into the retinas of all the 10 year old in the audience.

What about Josie and The Pussycats? I thought all of the product placement in that was awesome becasue every time you saw a product, or a character mentioned a product, it was a commentary on our society, commercialism, and the music industry as it is now. and the film makers didnt get one cent from any of the products being pimped, but they got some nice thank you letters from some of the companies.

[Notoriousaurus]

Originally Posted by esc

What about Josie and The Pussycats? I thought all of the product placement in that was awesome becasue every time you saw a product, or a character mentioned a product, it was a commentary on our society, commercialism, and the music industry as it is now. and the film makers didnt get one cent from any of the products being pimped, but they got some nice thank you letters from some of the companies.

Josie and the Pussycats is awesome. I agree completely about the placement.

[larphillips]

Originally Posted by aedavela

Speaking of Taco Bell, in "Demolition Man," wasn't that the only restaurant to survive the nuclear holocaust? Scary stuff, that is.

In the international release, it was Pizza Hut.

My favorite anti-product placement was the airline in Goodfellas. When Henry is bitching about his drug mule's lucky hat and they freeze on the shot with the airline tickets, in the theatrical version you can clearly saw the name of the airline. Ever since, they have placed a black bar right over the logo.

[maxtaffey]

BEST: Blade Runner. This was one of the first times I had seen product placement in a sci-fi film, and I thought it worked perfectly. The fact the the city seemed so dark and decaying, contrasted with the bright sunny Coke ads etc. seemed to be more of a statement than actual placement. It doesn't distract me at all...only heightens the realism for me.

WORST: Spider-Man, for the Dr. Pepper plug (does anyone actually drink that stuff?) when Peter is honing his webshooting skills in his room. And while not stictly "product placement", who can forget the unnecessary appearance of Macy Gray singing her song?

Lastly, I'll need confirmation on this one since I didn't actually see the film, but I understand the "the Cat in the Hat" came to a screeching halt to promote a amusement park vacation or something. Anyone?

[larphillips]

Originally Posted by maxtaffey

Lastly, I'll need confirmation on this one since I didn't actually see the film, but I understand the "the Cat in the Hat" came to a screeching halt to promote a amusement park vacation or something. Anyone?

I never saw it either, but I was of the understanding that it was Mike Meyers in that disturbing suit that brought the film to a screeching halt.

And I like Dr. Pepper.

[greatfoxmusic]

How about the placements in Terminal? Besides the fact that all the stores on the set in that movie were functional...

[larphillips]

No mention yet of Harold and Kumar Go To The White Castle? Hell, the product placement is right there in the title.

[greatfoxmusic]

Whoops, someone already beat me to the placement in the Terminal.

Product Placement

[incubus0]

The worst, most blatant, and "able to take you out of a scene" product placement was not in a movie, but in HBO's The Sopranos. The Rolling Rock at the birthday party for Carmela's dad. Not only was this wealthy Italian family serving nothing but Rolling Rock, people didn't ask for a beer, they asked specifically for a Rolling Rock. Not, "Hey, grab me a beer." it was, "Hey, grab me a Rolling Rock." Completely took me out of the story.

[larphillips]

Seinfeld really used the product placement angle masterfully. From Drake's Coffee Cakes, to Junior Mints, to Pez, to Snapple. But their hight point was the Kenny Roger's Roaster episode. They went so far as to construct a working outlet right there on the set.

[larphillips]

Originally Posted by incubus0

The worst, most blatant, and "able to take you out of a scene" product placement was not in a movie, but in HBO's The Sopranos. The Rolling Rock at the birthday party for Carmela's dad. Not only was this wealthy Italian family serving nothing but Rolling Rock, people didn't ask for a beer, they asked specifically for a Rolling Rock. Not, "Hey, grab me a beer." it was, "Hey, grab me a Rolling Rock." Completely took me out of the story.

Then you don't know regular Rolling Rock drinkers. That is exactly how they act.

I did love their little plug for the Godfather DVD box.

[Griggi]

While some can be good and some are blatant and off-putting, NOTHING IS WORSE than a movie where someone is drinking "Beer" beer made from a bastardized Busch can or "Cola" cola from an altered Coke can.

[Flash Ahhh]

Glad somsone mentioned Josie and the Pussycats.

That movie awesomely poked fun at product placements.

-Flash