Product Placement In Games and Movies

Daily Blog Day 2 of 31 
 
Today I went and saw the movie The Help. Now I know I blogged about movies yesterday, and aside from telling you right now that I would actually recommend that movie, I won't say anything else.  The one thing that that movies inspired me to blog about is Product Placement. The main reason for it is because there is a little monologue this woman has about how great of a product Crisco is. It actually was a fun way to do product placement, and it really made me want to write about the subject.
For as long as I can remember product placement has been a very big part of movies and TV shows. Aside from 7 Up's Cool Spot and a few other completely obvious product filled games, I can't think of any games that had product placement in them until about 10 years ago. I'm not saying it's a problem at all. In fact If it's done correctly it can even add to the media you are creating, but I'll get to that more in a little bit. What I am saying is that I'm starting to notice it more and more. 
We've seen it done in some terrible ways, like in Alan Wake where we saw the main protagonist using a very obvious verizon cell phone. The Skate franchise has even had achievements in the game named after the product that they are pimping. I use the term pimping in this case because when product placement is done bad...it's done really badly, and it almost makes you think they are whoring out their products to these games and movies.
We've also seen it used in some really good ways as well. I found it hard to think of any prime examples of it without going back and playing a few games for context, but I guess the fact that I can't think of any specific ways it was used is a good way to prove that it can be done well. In those cases we've seen it done well it was used by putting billboards of popular products from the real world,  
Product placement can be done well. It can also be done in the completely wrong way. The thing we have to realize is that product placement isn't going away anytime soon, and I don't think it will ever go away. When product placement is done right it can really help you be drawn into the game, but when it's done wrong it really pulls us out of the experience. 
Before I finish up this topic I want to recommend a movie I saw recently on this very subject. If you've ever seen or heard of the film SuperSize Me then you might know that the creator of that movie recently made another film on the subject of product placement in films. To fund this project he acually decided to sell product placement sponsorship in his film. It even went so far as to sell the name of the movie to being: Pom Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold. If you haven't seen this movie already then you really should. I don't think it's been released in theaters yet, but it was so effective it made me want to go to Sheetz Gas Station to buy Pom Pomegranate Juice. It really opened my eyes to product placement in media. 
 
See you guys tomorrow, 
~Caleb 
 
PS: Sorry for posting this after midnight and into the next day. I'm really trying my hardest to keep with this 30 days of blog thing.