The product placement in movies began in the late 1940s, however at that time movie just for the wealthy families. The successfully product placement in movie made huge benefit for the movie and manufacturers was The African Queen in 1951. (Jonathan Duffy, BBC News, 2005) The Gorden gin was becoming more popular after this movie had showed. Meanwhile this movie was given a lot of money for the investment. (Newell, 2007) However, as movie becoming mass consumer goods and slowly to be a part of public life.
As the film culture has been increasingly the popularity and the movie industry has been increasingly progress. We can find some product placements in each movie. However we can know there are many kinds of categories for product placement. (Li, Baidu , 2010) During Li’s research, there are 4 ways for product placement. They are visual product placement, verbal product placement, copywriting-style plot product placement and lifestyle product placement.
Product placement is slowly into public view, audiences are received some commercial information from product placement when they are watching movie. This business model is being increasingly used by the producer. The film is the information carrier, it is carrying the advertising transformation function when audiences are watching movie. (Li, Baidu, 2010) Based on the advertising value, the entire movie industry operation funds are going to active.
Besides, as audience increasing their awareness of entire movie industry, the product placement is going to thrive in the movie industry. Literature review The literature review begins from the definition of product placement. Scholarly definitions of product placement primarily focus on placing products in the broadcast media for money. Balasubramanian (1994) referred to it as a hybrid message – a paid message aimed at influencing movie (or television) audiences via the planned and unobtrusive entry of a branded product into a movie.
By the 1970s and 1980s, product placement became more of a revenue source for the studios, which were struggling to keep up with the increasing costs of production and advertising (Brands, 1991; Galician & Bourdeau, 2004). Because the film producers need various elements to make the film’s content rich, sometimes need to use real products to deepen the impression of the audience. In the movie, when we occasionally see a familiar commodity, we will feel the intimacy even sometimes we were amused by a proper commodity rather than other silly advertisement.
For example, in the movie “You’ve Got Mail”, Kathleen Kelly was walking in the western street of New York every morning. She always went to Starbucks to drink a cup of coffee. In the evening, she would open her Apple Computer, enter AOL. com begin sending and receiving e-mail. Starbucks, Apple have been a fashion in the human world. These brands have their own unique symbolism. When the presence of these brands enter into the film, not only did not destroy the realism of the film, but also shaped the role.
These brands have become an indispensable part of life of the female leading role. Meanwhile, it also shaped the brand personality and makes the brand humanized through the emotional story. In addition, some women among us, they must enjoy the same lifestyle and taste of the life. When they watch the movie, the movie was pulling their heartstrings and imagination back to similar memories. Thus the audiences’ sense of approval and recognition can be strengthened.
During this research we found all the argument between whether the product placement should exists in the movie. It means product placement can not contribute the advantages of the movie industry; it is going to destroy the balance of quality and revenue However movie industry has dominated the mainstream media industry. However, the cost of film production is becoming more expensive. Film revenue into advertising implantation, copyright trading and post - product development and income - based box office revenue, supplemented by the film production side lucrative product placement.
In addition, most of the filming will absolutely use a variety of props, venues and clothing, etc. If there is no product placement, the producer would have to spend considerable money to buy or rent these items, but also has brand sponsorship, can be used directly sponsored products, effectively reducing the overhead in these areas . We found that the cost of film production not only base on the box office income, but also base on the sponsorship of advertising.
The director can focus on the shooting and operation that has got the investment for manufacturers. Their pressure will be reduced accordingly a lot can be more comfortable effort on the creation. In addition the financial support can make the movie more input and attention to detail, able to select the shooting scene, excellent production staff, the purchase of more advanced production platform, the movie done can be more artistic and more commercial value.
Besides for some potential rookie directors or studios is too hard to get investment form bank or investor. Therefore the movie product placement is most direct and most simple for them. Therefore the producers hope to increase the revenue by using the product placement when the advertising does not influence the movie quality. Furthermore the product manufacturers want to promote their products. There is a diagram were collected among 10,000 people.
Manufacturers found the unbalanced between spending and return, meanwhile they received poor advertising attention and advertising promote. Therefore they put the product placement in the movie industry. Besides the film has a popular effect, if a movie is a very popular in the community, it is easy to trigger the consumer’s geared to the psychological, and thus have the objects in the film is also a symbol of fashion, topic of the film itself is a high degree of concern.
Popular and controversies of an artistic medium through this carrier be able to get more attention and discussion, so as to achieve the purpose of publicity. In addition, for manufacturers, because film not only play in the cinema, but also play in the television, internet, DVD. Loop repeatedly broadcast each broadcast time is equivalent to expanding your audience crowd, to deepen a brand image, is equivalent to done on advertising, making the movie product placement with TV advertising, print advertising costs compared to more effectively.
Conclusion
As the continuations improvement of people’s living standard, spiritual life more and more affluent and film consumer market has huge potential. Movie product placement is most the easily to be accepted among print media and television media. This determined the great potential of product placement. However the movie industry needs huge investment and technologies for supporting their good quality. The product placement is benefits for movie industry and manufacturers.
