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A typical teenager arrives at his typical suburban house after a typical day of school, the sun slowly setting as the day drains away. Loaded down with the typical amount of assignments, he strolls to his kitchen pantry to find a snack. Scanning the shelves for anything to fulfill his hunger, he finds the typical choices:  a bag of salted potato chips with a large “CHIPS” logo on its front, a nondescript jar of pretzel sticks, and a small and minimally labeled plastic container containing rows of sandwich cookies. The teenager grabs the red, plain bag of chips along with a typical beverage dubiously branded “SODA” from his refrigerator and sits at his living room table where his laptop rests atop. The lid is taped over; muffling an embossed logo that the teenager has never seen in his life (he wouldn’t dare rip away the tape, for he assumes there would be dire consequences for such an action). Sighing, he waits for his Macrosoft Pane 7000 desktop to load Word Processor 2012 so he can hastily write a typical rough draft for a rant…

A “typical” teenager is unlikely to lead a life without companies relentlessly vying for him or her to purchase the company’s branded merchandise. Many adolescent consumers have a brand loyalty to products   such as Coca-Cola, not to imaginary beverages suspiciously labeled “SODA.” The products we use daily are not obstructed by dubious tape to avoid copyright infringement, replaced by poorly generated computer images, or substituted by shoddily remade and renamed facsimiles. If branded products are such a normal aspect of life that is accepted in the real world, why can’t this aspect also be applied to movies or television shows?  As audiences desire more realistic characters and stories that viewers can relate to, the fine details of scenery and props must also be equally accounted for. Product placement is a technique that is rapidly becoming more prevalent in the movies and television shows that we watch. By sprinkling brand name products into the hands of movie and television characters, a viewer is simulated by a sense of realism and a parallel to their own lives. However, have some entertainment ventures and major corporations taken this reasonable ideal of realism too far?   

Uncommon Products Confuse the Viewer

“Oh, you don’t believe me?

Bing it!” 

As a less popular synonym for the ubiquitous phrase, “Google it,” Bing’s usage in everyday language is unusual and rare. In this scene of Hawaii Five-0, Microsoft visualizes an idealistic world where its products have a large degree of market dominance and influence in daily consumers’ lives. When compared to real world usage statistics, Microsoft’s corporate dream of universality shatters violently. According to comScore, Microsoft Bing has peaked at a bleak 16 percent of the United States’ total search engine market share in October of this year. Unfortunately for Microsoft, the usual consumer is also unlikely to use the Windows Phone platform also showcased in the Hawaii Five-0 scene. In October, comScore reported that Microsoft’s smartphone platform eked out a meager 3.2 percent of the United States’ total smartphone platform market share. While Microsoft’s recent advertising campaign for Windows Phone has forked into popular television shows, the company’s efforts to increase its market share aren't realistic or representative of the real world. Uncommon products and terms can alienate viewers and reverse the realism created by product placement. Viewers may find it awkward to relate to the equivalent of a “perfect” lifestyle envisioned by a massive corporation and the flagship products the company shoves on a movie’s or television show’s characters. When was the last time you have ever heard a friend or family member suggest to “Bing” a query? The likely answer is never.

Product Placement Can Distract Viewers

"What is that on your feet?"

"Converse All-Stars, vintage 2004!"

Movie production companies heavily financed by major consumer firms will form a devil's coalition with their partners to display select products at the expense of screen time. However, at what cost is a movie production company willing to sacrifice the message its films are trying to convey? Humans tend to exceed in recalling an audio or visual concept when repetitively exposed to the source of stimuli. Some viewers ultimately begin to notice the product advertised continuously throughout the film―eventually becoming irritated with its repetition intertwined with the movie's plot (even though the product may have little relevance to the film). The protagonist of I, Robot is effectively complemented with the retro Converse branded shoes he wears, but the pair's recurrence ultimately spoils the subtle symbolism of the character's old-fashioned lifestyle. Instead of portraying a symbol of a character's personality or aspects, the product resembles a desperate attempt to grab the audience's attention―and its money.

The Flood of Products Is Turning Movies Into Covert Infomercials 

"You're not getting a Porsche!"

As the craft of sophisticated movie engineering escalates in expenses, entertainment production firms have little choice but to resort to tactics such as product placement to reduce costs. Encroaching involvement of consumer corporations in movies and television shows is a warning of a new Trojan horse of advertising. Product placement in movies is unavoidable: you simply cannot change the channel to escape advertisements. In a movie theater, you are at the absolute mercy of the companies who heavily promote their products during trailers and the films themselves. Viewing an online, ad-free version of a television show is slowly declining into impossibility due to extensive product placement that cannot be easily ripped away from the fabrics of each episode. Panned for shamelessly exposing a range of brands such as Chevrolet in a variety of blatant close-ups, the Transformers movies are representative of the overpowering control consumer companies hold against entertainment production firms. 

Product placement has a key strength in narrowing the gap between the real world and the realistic replicas fictional entertainment attempts to create. To appease both its viewers' tastes for worthwhile entertainment and its partners' tastes for profit, the movie industry must experiment with product placement's ability to be subtle yet effective. Inaccurate representations of the real world risk being as outrageous as a "typical" teenager reading this editorial with a non-existent Macrosoft Pane 7000 desktop. By going all in on product placement, the movie industry must sidestep common mistakes to truly reduce the dissonance of peering into copies of our world that movies and television shows visualize.