Reference no: EM132286844
Product placement is nearly ubiquitous in movies today. Heineken paid nearly $45 million to MGM and Sony Pictures entertainment so that it could be prominently featured in the 23rd installation of the James Bond film franchise, Skyfall. This amount, nearly one-third of the entire production budget, meant that James Bond would no longer suavely approach a bar and order a martini, shaken not stirred, as he’s done for more than forty years. Instead, he would now order a Heineken beer. Luxury automaker Acura signed a multi-year, multi-picture deal with Marvel Studios to have its cars featured in comic book-based films like Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World, and The Avengers. However, not all is great with having a product featured prominently in a movie. Take, for example, the 2012 film Flight. Throughout the movie, both before and after he crashes an airplane, Denzel Washington’s character is shown drinking heavily, with the Budweiser logo displayed prominently. This came as quite a surprise to parent company AB InBev, which was not given any form of advance notice that its product would appear in the movie. “We would never condone the misuse of our products, and have a long history of promoting responsible drinking and preventing drunk driving,” said Anheuser-Busch Vice (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. President Rob McCarthy. “It is disappointing that Image Movers, the production company, and Paramount chose to use one of our brands in this manner.” The company asked Paramount Studios to blur out or remove digitally the Budweiser logo from all DVDs, television presentations, and online streams of the movie.
For this discussion question I would like you to provide one example of product placement that you feel had a positive impact on the target market and one example that had a negative impact, and explain your answer.