Subliminal Advertising
Created | Updated Oct 20, 2010
A means by which advertisers position well known products in movies, often without the audience realising that the advertising is happening in the first place. A prime example is the last James Bond movie, which featured a long drawn-out shot of a well known vodka bottle. A German car company, a rentacar company and a mobile phone company also got in on the act in various parts of the film. The almost ubiquitous appearance of Coke and Pepsi cans in the movies are other examples.
This phenomenon became commonplace for all major movies in the nineties, and it has resulted in some films making a profit even before the film was released to the general public.
Back in the old innocent days of "The Godfather", "One flew over the Cuckoo's nest" and "Ordinary People", such instances were uncommon and usually unintentional. Imagine seeing Jack Nicholson breaking down a door shouting "Here's Johnny!" while wearing a fetching Nike tee-shirt and Adidas runners with an axe in one hand and a Budweiser bottle in the other! Perhaps these are the things to look out for if a remake of the film is done in the coming years.
Subliminal advertising is everywhere in the movies. This begs the question of what is done when a film like Star Wars The Phantom Menace is released, with the catastrophic opening line (for advertisers) of "A long time ago in a galaxy far far away". I don't think the audience would buy Obi Wan drinking a bottle of Coca Cola, or R2-D2 logging on to a Windows operating system. Mind you, Sony and Nintendo might have different opinions...
This phenomenon became commonplace for all major movies in the nineties, and it has resulted in some films making a profit even before the film was released to the general public.
Back in the old innocent days of "The Godfather", "One flew over the Cuckoo's nest" and "Ordinary People", such instances were uncommon and usually unintentional. Imagine seeing Jack Nicholson breaking down a door shouting "Here's Johnny!" while wearing a fetching Nike tee-shirt and Adidas runners with an axe in one hand and a Budweiser bottle in the other! Perhaps these are the things to look out for if a remake of the film is done in the coming years.
Subliminal advertising is everywhere in the movies. This begs the question of what is done when a film like Star Wars The Phantom Menace is released, with the catastrophic opening line (for advertisers) of "A long time ago in a galaxy far far away". I don't think the audience would buy Obi Wan drinking a bottle of Coca Cola, or R2-D2 logging on to a Windows operating system. Mind you, Sony and Nintendo might have different opinions...
