Companies are all to happy to pay big bucks to get their products and brand names in front of millions of potential consumers through product placement in movies and TV shows. Even better (and more $$$) is if the star mentions the product in what’s commonly referred to as a “text placement.” Though most viewers realize that this is a “paid endorsement,” it doesn’t seem to bother them as it’s better to have the message inside the property that be interrupted by an obnoxious commercial. Script writers are constantly put on by producers to write these products into the action because product placement underwrites a portion of the production costs. And music artists don’t want to be left out in the cold so another sign of the times is “text placements” of products and brands in songs. Just a decade ago, it would be hard to imagine a Beatles’ song used in a commercial like the recent one for retailer Target that actually changed the spelling of the Beatles classic “Hello Goodbye.” to “Hello Goodbuy” to mirror the campaign. I reported in my book The Cool Factor that teen apparel company Candies paid Fergie an estimated $4 million to write their brand into her album. And the list goes on…
In the “old” pre-placement days, artists would incorporate brands into their songs because, well, they worked well in the lyrical theme and helped enhance the image they were trying to convey. To follow are my top ten favorite non-paid “artistic” brand placements. (NOTE: I left out automobile brands because the Beach Boys alone would have enough for their own list and country artists would have a second top ten list made up of Chevy and Ford pickup trucks)
1. Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels “Devil With a Blue Dress On” – mentions the perfume brand Chanel # 5 to get the point across that the female subject was classy and they wanted to portray her as “The finest girl alive.”
2. The Kinks’ “Lola” - in the original version, Ray Davies sings about a club where “You drink champagne that tastes just like Coca-Cola.” Unfortunately, the BBC refused to play that version so Ray rerecorded the lyrics and Coca-Cola became Cherry Cola. Kinda like a brand placement in reverse.
3. Johnny Rivers - “Summer Rain” – Johnny wanted to capture the essence of 1967 as the “Summer of Love” which was epitomized by one of The Beatles’ all-time greats and so he sang, “The Jukebox kept on playing Sgt.Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.”
4. Captain Hook & the Medicine Show’s “The Cover of the Rolling Stone” – This band’s lament was an unbridled attempt to get on the cover of the famed Rock Magazine and guess what? Three months after the song was released, dadgummit – they made the cover!
@8:58 amAuthor: admin
