When it comes to vehicular theatrics, Ford already has an illustrious film career. The 1968 film "Bullitt" saw the Ford Mustang GT set the gold standard for an automobile in a supporting role, saying as much about Steve McQueen's tough-guy Lt. Frank Bullitt as any line of dialogue. Ditto Mad Max and the title character's 1973 Ford Falcon. "Grease is the word" and the 1978 Grease Lightning was a hot-rodding 1948 Ford. Years before the "I, Robot"-Audi or "Minority Report"-Lexus concept cars stood for the future, Ford's Taurus was the police cruiser of the "RoboCop" futurescape. The brand even has comedy chops, turning in a title role in 1990's "The Adventures of Ford Fairlane."
Some might dismiss Ford's results by pointing to the fact that every film needs background props like cars. But consider this: The only other automaker in the top five this year — Mercedes — had just over half as many appearances as Ford.
An additional reason for Ford's victory this year can be found in its appearances in the typically brand-lean horror genre. In 2005, Ford appeared in as many horror films ("Boogeyman," "The Fog," "Saw II," "The Ring Two") as all the rest of Brandcameo's top five combined (Coca-Cola, Apple, Nike, and Mercedes).
Ford's extended family had a notable year as well. Lincoln's Navigator model was featured prominently in Number One film "Are We There Yet?" and Oscar-nominated "Crash."
Brandcameo 2005 Lifetime Achievement Award for Product Placement: Gatorade
Gatorade owes a great thank you (if not back royalties) to former New York Giants football player Harry Carson. During Super Bowl XXI, the athlete dumped a Gatorade cooler over the head of his victorious coach, and the brand catapulted into the spotlight.
Gatorade's real-life sideline omnipresence has made it a sports film necessity in order to achieve a realistic scene — an enviable position for products attempting to get into films and fight the "it's just not natural" label.
As Darren Rovell, author of "First in Thirst: How Gatorade turned the science of sweat into a cultural phenomenon," puts it, "If you cant use the pro uniforms, if you cant use the real players or the real coaches, having Gatorade on the sidelines immediately conveys to the movie viewer, 'This is authentic.' If you are making a sports movie that has any action, Gatorade is one of the most natural fits."
Gatorade's increased presence in real-life sports through the 1990s and the new millennium has translated to an increased presence in screen time. With appearances in fare such as "Juwanna Mann," "The Sixth Man," "Like Mike," "Friday Night Lights," "Jerry Maguire," and "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective," as well as 2005's "Coach Carter," "Rebound," and "Kicking & Screaming," it's rare that Gatorade misses an opportunity.
(In addition to putting in video game appearances, Gatorade is making its mark in uncredited roles as well; in the 2005 drama "North Country," the "human waste" in an overturned portable toilet was made of Cocoa Puffs, pumpkin pie filling, and Gatorade.)
The "E.T." Reese's Award for Achievement in Press Coverage: "The Island"
Mention of "product placement" and "E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial," often prefaced by terms like "since" or "beginning with," is a prerequisite for product placement commentaries. Google produces about 3.71 million results for "product placement." Of these, about 231,000 also reference the film "E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial."
Therefore, this award goes to the placement receiving the most overall attention in 2005. With over 58,100 Google results, the winner is "The Island." (The film's closest competitor is "Hitch," at 26,000-plus.) Notably the majority of the product placement coverage on "The Island" is not favorable.
Brandcameo 2005 Award for Achievement by an Oscar-Nominated Film: "March of the Penguins"
Last year's Best Picture nominees were not a good place to go looking for abundant examples of placement, and this year is no different. Thematically matching last year's nominees to a tee are three biopic/historical dramas (2004: "Finding Neverland," "Ray," and "The Aviator"; 2005: "Munich," "Capote," and "Good Night, and Good Luck") and one contemporary, product-sparse melodrama (2004: "Million Dollar Baby"; 2005: "Brokeback Mountain").
So no brands to herald, but one "product" has seen a direct success of sorts: penguins, the featured players of the Best Documentary Oscar nominee "March of the Penguins."
In August, the Dallas Morning News reported that the Dallas World Aquarium had noticed an increase in the popularity of its penguin exhibit. This increase was directly pegged to the popularity of the film.
Speaking to brandchannel, Ken Peterson, senior public relations manager of California's Monterey Bay Aquarium, relays this comment from one of the aquarium's presenters: "When the movie 'March of the Penguins' first came out I noticed I was getting more questions about chick rearing and mating behaviors. Now at the penguin feedings, I often ask the audience, 'Who saw that movie March of the Penguins?' and every time many people raise their hands."
Bringing some hard evidence to the case was an October story in The Boston Globe: "Inspired by the film's anthropomorphic touches, visitors have been flocking to the [New England Aquarium's] penguin exhibit in record numbers." The story added that even though the penguin exhibit generally ranks in the top four attractions, rarely has it ever been the biggest draw. "This summer, they outranked even the shark tank with a viewer preference of 42 percent." There is the holy grail of product placement: measurable results.
The "Coca-Cola Kid" Award for Achievement in Title: "Because of Winn-Dixie"
The 1985 film "The Coca-Cola Kid" celebrated one man's struggle with a Coca-Cola franchise. This award celebrates achievement not only in a branded film title, but also in fully incorporating the title brand product in the plot. Former winners include "Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man" and 2004's "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle."
Even though the film could do little for the struggling retail chain, we salute Winn-Dixie's full cooperation with the makers of "Because of Winn-Dixie." (Released too late for 2005, "Grounding — Die Letzten Tage der Swissair [The Demise of Swissair]" promises to make a run for this honor next year against main rival "The Devil Wears Prada.")
The "Forrest Gump" Award for Achievement in Reverse Product Placement: "Brice de Nice"
This award recognizes a film's achievement in creating a product for the market instead of marketing an existing product. It is named after 1994's "Forrest Gump," which launched the Bubba Gump Shrimp Co., a chain of restaurants now found from New York to Tokyo.
The clear winner this year is the product onslaught born from the French film "Brice de Nice." This humorous tale of an oddball surfer was a Number One film in France (and held onto that spot for just as long as "Star Wars: Episode III" did in France). Like "Star Wars," it spawned a cottage industry of Brice-branded goods, including bedding, toothbrushes, bathing suits, and, as with last year's winner "Napoleon Dynamite," the very T-shirt Brice wears in the film.
A runner-up for this award was "War of the Worlds" and the "Hero" jacket worn by Tom Cruise. Seeing the value of this association, fashion label Belstaff made a limited-edition version of the jacket available to fans of the film.
Brandcameo 2005 Award for Best Performance by a Product in a Supporting Role: Audi in "Transporter 2"
Like a reliable character actor, Audi has proven itself to be a scene-stealing supporting player. Sexier than a Volkswagen but less ostentatious than a Ferrari, Audi broke out in 1998's "Ronin," where audiences were introduced to its signature, high-performance whine. Later, Audi played off its TT model as the bachelor ride in 2002's "About a Boy" and the girlie cruiser in 2003's "Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blond."
In 2005, Audi shed its over-the-top performance from last year's "I, Robot" to get back to its "Ronin" basics. Audi stole the role in "Transporter 2" from the original film's chosen vehicle, BMW; the automaker even garnered top billing in the poster.
Brandcameo 2005 "But What I Really Want to Do Is Direct" Award: eBay
Not only did online super-depot eBay turn in a monster starring role in the 2005 hit "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," it also went behind the camera.
From kung-fu flicks to porn, eBay became the go-to resource for low-budget productions looking to market their onscreen real estate.
The Charlie Kaufman Meta Award for Self-Reflexive Product Placement: "The Island" and Calvin Klein
Already the winner of one 2005 award, "The Island" picks up a second for a stunning display of mind-bendingly complex product placement involving Calvin Klein.
Midway through the film, an escaped clone (played by Scarlett Johansson) makes her way through a futuristic Los Angeles. On the street she comes across a Calvin Klein (CK) storefront display with a television showing a CK commercial. The commercial stars Scarlett Johansson's clone character. The gist of this whole scene is that the Scarlett Johansson clone character sees herself in the CK display commercial and learns she is a clone of a famous actress.
Fairly banal so far, but this is the part that blows minds: The CK commercial (for Eternity Moment perfume) in which the Scarlett clone sees her non-clone actress self is actually a real CK commercial starring real-life actress Scarlett Johansson.
"The Island" took a real Calvin Klein commercial starring Scarlett Johansson and made the commercial a major part of a fictional film in which Scarlett Johansson plays an actress who isn't Scarlett Johansson but stars in the same CK commercial.
Brandcameo Lark Recognition for Achievement in Product Placement Scandal
For 1989's James Bond vehicle "License to Kill," hundreds of thousands of dollars were paid to the film's producers in exchange for prominent placement of Lark brand cigarettes (so prominent the film's credits carried the US Surgeon General's Warning). Not even Bond was a match for the perceived villainy, and public outcry (following similar deals in children's films such as "Who Framed Roger Rabbit") soon led to a voluntary ban of intentional cigarette placements in film. The Lark Recognition acknowledges those who in the last year have publicly damaged the image of product placement as a legitimate practice.
Runners-up include:
However, the recognition headliner for 2005 is Germany's largest public broadcaster ARD along with its foremost TV production group Bavaria Film. Arrests, resignations, sackings, and much public outrage was the result of mid-year revelations that Bavaria Films had, for years, been taking payments for placements it would then insert into shows it produced for ARD.
Both Germany and Britain have very stringent laws controlling product placement. The 2005 scandals led to involvement by the European Union, which is now examining the practice of product placement and how it may be treated in the future.
This concludes our ceremony; we're off to the after-party.
How we do what we do
A total of 41 films were Number One during respective weeks at the US box office in 2005. Number One status is based on weekend ticket sales in the United States.
Several films reigned for multiple weeks, such as "Batman Begins" and "King Kong," while others like "Doom" and "The Fog" dropped quickly from sight. In these 41 films, brandchannel spotted 737 brands. This averages out to approximately 18 discernable brands per film, much higher that last year's 13.1 brands per film (483 in 37 films), but on par with previous results of 18.1 brands per film in 2003 (762 brands in 42 films) and 17.0 per film in 2002 (594 in 35 films).
2004's low average can be explained by that year's large number of historical epics and fantasies — such as "The Passion of the Christ," "Troy," "Van Helsing" and "Alien Vs. Predator" — in which few brands can logically be placed. With a low number of Number One films (37), the year saw ten such films, compared to 2005's 41 Number Ones and seven such films, 2003's 42 with eight such films, and 2002's 35 Number Ones and five such films.
No two brand appearances in a film are equal. Nobody would argue that Apple's multiple, prominent placements in "Fever Pitch" is equal to the "Coca-Cola" appearance in "The Interpreter," or Avaya's in "Just Like Heaven." But product placement continues to be as much subjective as numerically quantifiable.
Brandcameo employs five placement trackers with a gender ratio of 2:3, and ranging in age by almost a generation.
Please see the Brandcameo 2004 Awards for previous winners. For a cross-referenced list of brands and films, from 2001 to the present, please see Brandcameo.
Our margin of error is dependent on first-run films versus DVDs. Tracking brands on DVD is vastly easier than tracking brands on the big screen. However, there is a benefit of tracking on the big screen. If the brand placement doesn't make an impact on those of us actively looking for it, chances are it isn't registering with the general audience either.
 |
Provided by brandchannel - The world's only exchange about branding, produced by Interbrand |
Printer-Friendly Version