Place That Product

I’m no movie buff. I can’t even remember the last time I’ve gone out of my way to watch one. It wasn’t long ago that I finally decided who my favourite director or producer would be. I don’t even believe in favourites.

If I had to pick, the competitors for the honour would be Quentin Tarantino or Judd Apatow. They’re both great writers and they make me laugh. Two qualities that you need to get me to watch your movies. I’m not going to get into movies though. I’m going to get into the ads in movies, and one in particular that people were complaining over.

There is some obvious product placement in Apatow’s later flick This is 40. Unlike Tarantino, Apatow is always throwing popular products into his films, with the exception of Pulp Fiction, where Vincent and Jules discus the metric system and McDonalds’ Royal With Cheese.

I can’t admit being totally enthralled with This is 40, and it appears very few were. It made me howl, but the story didn’t go anywhere and carried on way too long.

The general audience was a bit annoyed with the amount of product placement. Like they shouldn’t be bombarded with in-movie ads when they paid good money for a ticket.

Throughout the movie, Apple was a main character. He was on everyone’s phone, computer and tablet. Everyone wants to hate Apple. Don’t act like you’ve never sat on the toilet for too long playing Scrabble. Isn’t that lovely? A nice little compelling truth brought to you by the Apple iPad 5, with a stunning 9.7-inch display and over 3.1 million pixels. Perfect for long shits.

And like any Apple family, they aren’t going to stop with the tablet. They have the whole shebang, so don’t get upset when they’re talking on their iPhone about their iPhone. It’s how we talk. No one says mobile device anymore. “Have you seen my Android?”

Apatow brings the movie to life with these known products and brands. There’s Casio, Infiniti, Nike and Livestrong, Altoids, and Oreos. I don’t think he’s being ironic, I think he really just likes Oreos. And that’s not even half of them. But we all use these brands. It allows us consumers to connect with both the characters and the brands. We want to feel apart of it. I don’t want to watch a movie and notice the lame, mock Coke can on set. Get the real thing! There’s even some promotion for Graham Parker & The Rumor’s latest album Three Chord Good. I’ve never seen that in a movie, and you’ve got to appreciate it.

So when a movie is about a suburban family living in L.A. they better have iPhones and iMacs. They better drive a Lexus and they better complain about their husbands using Viagra and Lost being over. And if Paul Rudd didn’t increase tight bike shirt sales, I don’t know what will.