Good Luck Chuck is a film starring Jessica Alba and Dane Cook. It’s about the “luckiest” guy on earth. Cook’s character, Charlie Logan, is a good luck charm and women are guaranteed to find true love after sleeping with him. But, what seems to be any mans dream turns bad for Charlie when he meets Alba’s character, Cam. Chuck will do anything to break the curse so he can get the heart of Cam before she falls in love with another man.
Product placement; we see this form of advertising all the time and don’t even know it. We’ve become numb to the gross amounts of invasive advertising that takes up our daily lives. As I watched this film, I paid attention to all the different products shown in this film and found 6 including:
- Toyota
- “Perfectmatch.com” like match.com
- Mountain Dew
- Fritos
- Pepsi
- American Airlines
I was surprised at the seemingly small amount of product placement in this film assuming this would be a movie with tons of what I like to call, “camouflage advertising”, however I’m sure I missed some.
The 6 products all have an equal chance at being noticed and remembered by the audience. They were not subtly put into the scene, but instead stood out like a “sore thumb”. The Pepsi add was shot at a distance but took up so much space on the bus stop board it was hard to miss.
Dane Cook is shot chugging an unmistakable Mountain Dew, and there is a Frito bag ever so smartly placed facing the camera in another scene. Alba’s character drives a Toyota Prius which makes sense for her character who loves Penguins and working with animals, thus probably cares about helping the environment. Then there’s the end of the film where Cook’s character rushes to the airport and we see several smartly displayed American Airline logos.
I don’t know that the audience will leave the film thinking about the products, but they definitely won’t be missed during the film. I don’t know that I would have really remembered any of the products had I not been looking for them and wrote them down.
I think cars are the easiest products to remember in a film, especially if they play a large role in the movie in that we see them in more than one seen, but others are much more difficult to retain since product placement is not the premise of the movie.
We all know that advertising is headed in a new direction. With TV changing so that more and more people are choosing to buy programs that allow them to avoid commercials when watching their shows, businesses have had to come up with different ways to advertise their products to the masses.
Product placement in "Fantastic Four"
The products in this film were used for a number of reasons, starting with funding. I’d assume that Mountain Dew, Pepsi and Fritos view film as a way to advertise to the masses, and the film producers see this as a way to help fund their budget.
Advertisers want you, the viewer, to think like this: “You’re sitting down watching the film, and man that Pepsi looks really refreshing, or those Fritos look tasty!” It’s the company’s way of telling your subconscious that you want to drink or eat their product, and better yet, if Dane Cook is drinking it, then you should too! It’s a win-win for businesses and producers.
On top of being able to advertise to a large audience, certain companies are able to not only advertise their products but choose to do so in a way that they feel represents’ their company. For example the Toyota Prius goes well with Alba’s earth loving character.
It was smart of the film producers to ask Toyota to help fund their project because it’s a good fit for the car company and a better chance at getting funding for the film.
So…if you haven’t paid attention to product placement, keep your eyes open during your next movie experience, I promise you’ll be amazed!
