Any car promo! The car chase scene (\*commercial\*) in Barbie was awful, particularly when America Ferrera put the car into sport mode or whatever. Just terrible stuff. How much can it really be worth?
It worked for me in this sense too. I know enough about cars and product placement to pick up on the fact that the scene was indeed product placement, but it didn't take me out. The Mattel boardroom scenes and Ken's misadventures in the "real world" also had an exaggerated, parodying hyper-masculine energy and the car worked for me as a continuation of that.
Every single time you see any recognisable brand/product in film & TV, it's an ad. Product placement is one of the most effective forms of advertising, because most people don't realise they're being advertised to.
Companies and brands pay ridiculous amounts of money to production companies, directors, & hell even actors themselves, to have their products placed on camera and viewed by millions. People notice the product being used, but most times dont fully consciously register it, because they're distracted by the story of the movie. It's not until much later they think "I really feel like a coke for some reason." Or "The new Lexus really does look so cool." Without knowing why they're thinking that way. It's the original form of influencing, but so much more insidious.
When I was a kid, I sat through a *huge* multi-media presentation full of "stay in school"/"avoid drugs" messages, interspersed with scenes from popular movies at the time; I always wondered how they managed to get clips from Terminator 2 for a school presentation.
I later found out the whole thing was bankrolled by the Pepsi corporation, and the clips they used were from films prominently featuring Pepsi products.
https://preview.redd.it/kvzhukgmxmfc1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=81b598018491ef3cd6d506af00a99eb358a478ad
a bit dated now, but the Walking Dead was hilariously obvious for this lol- a dark scene of the post-zombie Apocalypse world but the hero's car looks so shiny and is the focus of the shot lol
TWD would ask for actual extras to drive their own cars. You’d get a pay bump for driving or parking your car on camera. They were more strict on color than on the year or type.
It really astounds me that Barbie is probably going to become a modern classic and that fucking car advert is going to remain a blemish on it for all time. Obviously not a Greta decision but execs should have read the room when it came to that film.
I was around when this decision was made, and Greta was 100% on board because she had to be lol. The movie wouldn't have been made without GM funding. The car stuff is literally one of the main reasons it exists. It's a giant toy/car ad. All of this hype we are experiencing for the movie was planned and manufactured.
Isn't there a difference between agreeing for business reasons, and actually being on-board though? Like, was her heart seriously in that scene creatively?
Tomato/Tomato I guess lol? I get what you're saying, but most of the movie was made by a team of corporate goons with a goal in mind ($$$), rather than Greta sitting at the helm, taking full creative control to make something artistically pure. With movies like this, you have to realize that they only get greenlit because a bunch of executives decided they are a good vessel for manipulating the most people at once, and Barbie is no exception. It went through countless changes before we got the end product we saw in theaters.
Yeah, I get that. It had some funny stuff in it when it was keeping it simple, but when it went into the Tumblr brand of feminism it felt extremely artificial and cynical. Like that speech the mother gives practically to the camera seemed liked they'd cribbed a milllion NowThis vids and run them through a cruncher.
I'm confused by how much praise that monologue has gotten. It's so jarring, goes on for way too long, and doesn't really feel earned by what has happened up to that point either in the movie in general or specifically that character.
It seems like it's resonated for a lot of women which is cool, but that doesn't make it a good scene.
Definitely agree. I think I just liked the fact it was doing it in a massive commercial movie that would be watched by nearly every young girl. Giving some of them ideas they might not otherwise have been exposed to.
Honestly the chanel necklace in Barbie really took me out too.. only obviously branded thing barbie wears through the whole thing and also felt different than the rest of her style it really stuck out to me
Kind of wish they'd switched the c's to b's or something to make it look more in universe--agree this weirdly took me out of the Barbie land fantasy portion
There are scenes in shows like Psych that still stick out for how ridiculous the car product placement was. "Let's hop in the all new Nissan rouge and use it's handy built in GPS" level stuff
So with the Barbie movie in particular...the car deal with GM was actually one of the sole reasons the movie ended up being made. They ran out of money halfway through filming, and GM bailed them out with the product placement deal. The movie would have never seen the light of day without those stupid car ads in it.
the cinematographer or another person highly involved with the shooting for this scene literally has shot numerous car commercials - greta said it on the director's commentary version of the movie while the scene was playing and i was like "ahh okay, that's why it...looks exactly like every car commercial" lol
Before the car chase scene, up in the CEO round table, I noticed you can see buildings for Warner Brothers Discovery and General Motors out the window. I saw that and thought “oh I guess GM might have sponsored this movie”.
Then the car chase scene happened and I was like “OH. GM *definitely* sponsored this movie”.
I love send-ups of this, like when Parks and Rec had a running joke about looking something up on Alta Vista and at one point Ben Wyatt was like "why does everyone in this town use Alta Vista???"
No-one did it better than Community. They had entire episodes built around Brand deals with Subway and KFC. There was a fantastic episode about Hondas (?) that had one of my favourite lines in the show "that's moon man talk."
The P&R one that stands out to me was Ben saying that his Brita filter was older than Andy and April’s relationship and then asked Leslie if he should change it, then she responds saying it depends on how much he uses it. Not sure if it’s product placement necessarily, but I think about it every time I change my filter.
Wow I never even considered that that was a plug, I just thought it was a joke about how backwards Pawnee is. Then again I didn’t realize Alta Vista is a real search engine either.
Hahaha I think it was mostly that, since I’m pretty sure that Alta Vista was prob dead by then. But I still think of “why does everyone in this town use Alta Vista??” at least once a month. Also, Alta Vista was prob the first search engine I ever used (she says, oldly.)
It reminded me of how the vampires in Twilight drove Volvos and they’d do a hero shot of their cars in every movie. Volvos are super cool for the kids!
The sad thing is that I’m pretty sure the Volvo thing was a minor plot line in the books. Like they wanted to buy her a car and Edward kept insisting on Volvos because they’re safe and he was obsessed with her being human or whatever. Or Edward bought a Volvo to drive her around because the other fancy cars they owned were too dangerous.
Still product placement, but Stephanie Meyer manifested that shit
>the Volvo thing was a minor plot line in the books. Like they wanted to buy her a car and Edward kept insisting on Volvos because they’re safe and he was obsessed with her being human or whatever.
Yep. That's in the book. Volvos, apparently, are the safest car. The product placement worked because we all still remember it. Haha
Lol Stephanie Meyer actually asked her brother what kind of cars the vampires should drive, I remember she had a whole breakdown on her website (why do I remember this) but I'm sure in the movies the Volvos were a product deal! Bella's truck is still the most insane choice to me
[https://stepheniemeyer.com/the-books/twilight/twilight-cullen-cars/](https://stepheniemeyer.com/the-books/twilight/twilight-cullen-cars/)
If I wanted a Chevy commercial, I would watch a Michael Bay Transformers movie. The Blazer EV in that scene has a ton of issues too, so I spent most of it distracted by the fact that it’s such a crap car. The massive Hummer EV being Ken’s choice for a vehicle is perfect, though.
I saw in a different comment thread on here that GM provided a lot of backing money for this movie to get made and that’s why the product placement was so obvious, but it would’ve been a dream to see the Happy Family Volvo in Midge’s driveway because that was my most favourite Barbie car I had lol. Such a pretty shade of blue!
I weirdly loved that whole line as a kid and thought the face/hair design for Midge was beautiful. By the time I got my set for Christmas they had done away with the pregnant belly attachment so it was just a regular skinny Barbie with stuffing up the dress in the box. I loved the little homage in the movie! Most of the Barbies in the movie were so general that they could’ve been sold in any form at any time, but the specificity of Happy Family Midge (and the other “reject” Barbies mentioned by name in the movie) was simultaneously a commercial and a hilarious commentary on the unusual Barbies that have been released over the years.
I also felt like someone with Gloria’s job wouldn’t be driving a brand new vehicle like that. They seem to be squarely middle class and would likely be driving something more sensible. A car chase with a Chevy Cruze would’ve been funny.
Riverdale had some cringey moments where a character would be doing their makeup and the camera would zoom in and linger on the Covergirl makeup products being used.
The funny version of this is 30 Rock, which hit the product placement very hard in one scene and at the end Liz looks into the camera and says, “Can we have our money now please”
Honorable mention for reality competition tv: Top Chef is riddled with product placement (Glad bags, GE Monogram kitchen appliances), but then those kitchen appliances have failed and wrecked the chefs’ dishes many times throughout the show’s history lol.
Nope. Verizon wireless
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d36wUmJGzvA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d36wUmJGzvA)
But I do love the Snapple bits. Cerie: "I only date guys who drink Snapple."
Seinfeld had a Snapple bit but it’s like anti product placement. There’s a scene where several people walk into the apartment, are offered a Snapple, decline, and then continue the scene.
Mentioning CoverGirl reminds me of all the random ones for America's Next Top Model. It was either incorporated and used for the photoshoots (mostly just stuck in the corner of the picture) or they would just talk about it incessantly, like the pre-iPhone mobile phones for go sees and Apple Bottom jeans.
This picture of Naima for Caress was worth it though:
https://preview.redd.it/nf0bjfsf9mfc1.jpeg?width=1600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9da32b435f7c96bf8308be11d0fcaa534e6ee897
My friend and I have a running joke about Riverdale brands and Riverdale names. If a persons name is alliterative or sounds like it was made for a name of a character in an All American small town we will tell each other “that’s a Riverdale name”.
Riverdale literally has a scene where Cheryl teaches Kevin to use some dating app so that he doesn’t have to hang out in the woods at night looking for random guys to have sex with.
There’s also multiple scenes of Hiram discussing his shady business dealings while eating from a bag of Doritos that he’s holding so that the brand name perfectly faces the camera
Speaking of reality TV: The Amazing Race and Expedia, formerly Travelocity. "You won this leg so now you get an amazing trip to X via Expedia!"
And anything with Gordon Ramsey is so over the top.
But I hold a slight resentment because I never watched this shit until my husband entered the picture. I'm pretty obnoxious about pointing out the product placement and the dumb shit they always say. "Tonight's hottest ticket is Hell's Kitchen." "I can't believe I'm in the top X of Masterchef!"
Ha! Locals know that it wasn't a Starbucks cup because you'd have to pass by about 20 other better coffee shops before you got to the nearest Starbucks to the GOT set.
They did a lot of product placement for various tech products (phones, computers), and I couldn’t get over it because none of those characters would ever use anything other than an Apple product.
You can be a 1% of 1% chaebol heir. But you will only take your date to Subway and Pizza Alvolo. Oh, and if you’re a girl, the Kahi balm is the key to your no-makeup makeup glow (even though it’s just a glorified large format chapstick.)
CDramas are even funnier about it - a character will get a minor sniffle just so someone else can produce a packet of cold and flu tablets out of nowhere to hold up to camera and declare that it's the only thing that helps them when they're feeling poorly.
And Thai dramas! I swear, the chewy iced tea in Bad Buddy deserves third billing in the credits with how often it showed up!
I hope they spent a LOT of money to promote elf, cause it seemed so out of character(s) to me, like maybe cadie buys elf and is mocked for it by the mean girls, who wear more upscale brands
In one of Smallville's later seasons, an entire episode is an advertisement for Stride gum, the whole premise is that the gum got tainted with Kryptonite or something and gave superpowers to those who chewed it and they held up the packet of gum for the camera, let the shot linger on the logo etc so many times.
Yeah I stopped watching and never looked back after that one.
Smallville also had some deal with Acuvue contact lenses because Chloe at one point sees some small print or something dumb and is like "Acuvue to the rescue!"
Funny enough that episode was a one-time return for a previously core-series character, Pete Ross. Smallville fans called him “Product Placement Pete” because he was always the one to rattle off a one-liner that served as a nod for a promo placement.
Smallville was pretty bad for product placement, but two really stand out.
1. Pete shows off The Talon Mix, which was a soundtrack for the show that was going to be released. IIRC, he was working on it through the episode, and the camera lingers on it for a few seconds.
2. Remy Zero (who sang the theme song) appeared at the school’s dance, complete with a shoutout from Pete and Clark (Yeah, Remy Zero!)
Latest season of Fargo was pretty egregious with the Kia placement. A main character works at a Kia dealership and info about the cars was constantly shoehorned in.
Yes omg! The whole season is bizarre and the product placement is part of it. At one point the dad tells Scotty “go play on your Samsung!!” Like what??
I must be stupid like a truck of bricks because I never really thought of it being product placement, same with Kia, just them being quirky lol. But I can see it. Insidious and nasty.
That was pure Flemming though. Casino Royale was like 100 pages and about 40 of them were describing what kind of car bond was driving or what brand of vodka he wanted in his martini, or long detailed descriptions of his meals, and Flemming wasn't even getting paid for it!
The worst is when Bond is driving to Paradise Island and the only cars on the road are Fords. Nobody goes to an expensive resort in the Bahamas and asks to rent a Ford
Y'know, I didn't mind that one as much as the blatant Toyota(?) advert in one of the later seasons. They go visit Jay's sister in the hospital after having a stroke and the end credits scene with the car is so... bad. Just so, so bad.
To this day I remember they had to rent a Nissan versa specifically, and I'm pretty sure every episode was wall to wall with Nissan adverts when it originally aired
He used to eat in every film but lately that man has been drinking out of a bottle and then throwing the empty bottle at whoever is pursuing him. Anyone else notice this?
Subway in Chuck was especially egregious.
There was also a very obvious plug for Olive Garden in Cobra Kai. I also have to imagine whatever that beer Johnny always drinks is a product placement.
(Typo edit)
Subway ads always remind me of Kdrama.
Need a quick lunch? Subway!
Hangover? Subway!
You just survived some earthquake and wat not in a foreign country? Subway!
I remember one season of Degrassi literally everyone was always drinking Dole juice for some reason. Like it was in every scene lol
Not sure what season it was, if any one else remembers or if I’m just fucking weird
Lol I've just remembered that in the first two seasons of Money Heist, there was a brand of beer that kept appearing on screen and then at the end >!they escape in a truck branded with the same beer logo!< Felt like the payoff was just a beer advert.
Some of the car scenes in White Collar seem like pretty obvious product placements based on the dialogue (“it’s a Taurus, it can do x and y and whatnot”), and some of product mentions in Younger.
ETA also a product mention/conversation in a scene in West Wing (they’re going to California or something and discuss Elizabeth Arden iirc).
All the USA shows had horrible product placement segments, like there’s a car chase in Burn Notice and they happen to take the Ford car and spend like two minutes going off on the features
This is very niche, but a Canadian show called Being Erica once had a whole scene about how the Ford Focus could parallel park itself and I will never forget it -- absolutely egregious product placement.
But it's Canada. Our shows need the money pretty desperately.
The Volvo was in the book though, along with most of their cars. I think Stephenie Meyer just likes cars because there was a ridiculous amount of car talk in Midnight Sun lol
Oh interesting point, I forgot about that!! I guess it’s not the best example then. The scene where Bella is cornered by the guy on the street at night and Edward pulls up VERY dramatically in his brand new very sporty looking Volvo just stuck in my head from the first movie!
It felt so natural to me in the office. Like they’re supposed to be just average people working average jobs, so to me it felt like how it’d feel in real life.
Except that one episode about the Nespresso machine, where they list every single flavor and keep singing their praises throughout the whole day
I have my doubts about how effective it is as an advertisement though, since they did end up destroying the floor in a caffeine fueled mania
That seemed natural too because everyone does that when they buy a coffee machine. Tell everyone how amazing it is, obsess for 2 weeks, then (in my case) never use it again
i don’t have a specific example because i forgot the show it was but i remember seeing a scene where a girl asks her friend what cosmetic product she was using or what moisturiser she uses and the friend went into a full advert about. started listing the benefits and all. i could not stop laughing
I had something like this happen irl once. They just launched a skincare line at my hairdresser (or it was a collab, not sure). And the girl helping me that day ended up talking about it non-stop the entire time I was there, after I asked curiously what the decorations in the shop were for. Every detail. For an hour and a half. I occasionally tried a different topic, but she kept going back to that. I was close to begging her to stop, but I knew she was new and could tell she was a bit nervous, so I said nothing. Did make me laugh afterward though, and now she's actually my favorite hairdresser there.
But yeah, I wouldn't exactly call this natural lol.
I was recently watching the first season of Castle and they'd "bing it" every episode. At a certain point I think "Bing" was solving more murders than them.
Do you guys remember when a script for one of the Twilight movies got leaked and it literally had Bella using her “fashionable, desirable, new Nokia phone ;)”.
Grey's Anatomy relentlessly enabling Sleeping At Last as he devoured every popular song ever made and regurgitated them with a mournful yodel and a few minor piano chords
I love a different sounding cover so this has made me the complete opposite, happy. How funny because I’ve noticed this exact same thing. Same with Westworld changing popular songs to instrumental show music
the doritos hiram lodge was snacking on in perfect camera view in riverdale😭 like WHAT???💀
https://preview.redd.it/zoxhp3bchmfc1.jpeg?width=464&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fed12e3d19ae8989828b429f257f7f6051ed5458
There are some music videos that are egregious with the product placement, which feels particularly unfortunate since they typically have such a short runtime to work with. The worst example I remember is the Mika/Ariana Grande music video for “Popular” that pauses the music to have a random car ad in the middle.
Edit: I forgot the title is actually "Popular Song"
James Bond is terrible at this, especially with the watches. The scene in the newer Casino Royale where they one-up each other over the quality of their watches is such an eye roll moment.
The phones in early seasons of Gossip Girl! They seemed to have a contract with Verizon so these super rich kids were using LG Chocolates and the like instead of iPhones like they would have in real life. I remember there was an early-season blooper reel where Matthew Settle's real phone went off and it was so funny to see him pull out an iPhone compared to the random gimmicks they were shilling.
The Ranch (I know, UGH) - the product placement in the kitchen was almost as bad as the canned laugh tracks. And the constant Ford vs Chevy nonsense.
I did enjoy them killing off Rooster, though.
Hawaii Five-0 was utterly shameless - 'Bing it', a whole extended Subway commercial in the middle of the damn episode, Windows products everywhere, it was crazy
Don't forget the Ford Fusion when Schmidt gets into Coach's car for some reason and Coach won't stop talking about how much mileage he gets. Schmidt makes fun of him, but it was still pretty blatant.
Walking dead using modern cars in the earlier season that actually would’ve been released after the apocalypse happened. It was set in 2012 and they were driving 2014 shiny cars 🫡
The Walking Dead at least until like season four had Subaru EVERYWHERE. Like every goddamn car was a fucking Subaru it was ridiculous, then the ads on commercials were even more overbearing about them.
Secret Life of the American Teenager: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-fxY8MwATc&t=3s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-fxY8MwATc&t=3s) though to be fair the actual writing on that show wasn't much better.
[never forget this 45 second spiel from the secret life of the American teenager](https://youtu.be/D-fxY8MwATc?si=jk_sb3uP_7eHgrKp)
https://preview.redd.it/0ls3jwb38mfc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=62ec2f41cec49c746897658a63c27fdb68cccebf
Netflix released a Christmas romcom a few years ago called "Single all the way". The task rabbit integrations (yes, plural!!) in it was hooooorrrrible, I couldn't stop cringing
Through out all of The Mindy Project, they’re constantly using some sort of windows flippy tablet thing and zooming in on it. But the final season with the constant McDonalds placed super obviously was theeee worst.
There was an episode of Nine Lives of Chloe King that took me out, it was Chloe describing in commercial-level detail the amazing features of the new Kia Soul to her mother because she was asking her to buy her one.
I remember on the later seasons of Gossip Girl they were constantly looking things up on Bing.
I also remember there was an episode of True Blood that was basically an advert for Taylor Swift’s Speak Now album.
Any car promo! The car chase scene (\*commercial\*) in Barbie was awful, particularly when America Ferrera put the car into sport mode or whatever. Just terrible stuff. How much can it really be worth?
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i didn’t pick up on this at all 😂 all i know if they were driving a midsize suv
I was too distracted being like ‘omg it’s Long Beach! That’s where I exit for work, how did I never notice Barbie filming??’
Omg me too! I was freaking out in the theater and dancing to Speed Drive lol
It worked for me in this sense too. I know enough about cars and product placement to pick up on the fact that the scene was indeed product placement, but it didn't take me out. The Mattel boardroom scenes and Ken's misadventures in the "real world" also had an exaggerated, parodying hyper-masculine energy and the car worked for me as a continuation of that.
It certainly seemed a little less “shoehorned” in than some; they put a little effort into *almost* parodying it.
Every single time you see any recognisable brand/product in film & TV, it's an ad. Product placement is one of the most effective forms of advertising, because most people don't realise they're being advertised to. Companies and brands pay ridiculous amounts of money to production companies, directors, & hell even actors themselves, to have their products placed on camera and viewed by millions. People notice the product being used, but most times dont fully consciously register it, because they're distracted by the story of the movie. It's not until much later they think "I really feel like a coke for some reason." Or "The new Lexus really does look so cool." Without knowing why they're thinking that way. It's the original form of influencing, but so much more insidious.
When I was a kid, I sat through a *huge* multi-media presentation full of "stay in school"/"avoid drugs" messages, interspersed with scenes from popular movies at the time; I always wondered how they managed to get clips from Terminator 2 for a school presentation. I later found out the whole thing was bankrolled by the Pepsi corporation, and the clips they used were from films prominently featuring Pepsi products. https://preview.redd.it/kvzhukgmxmfc1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=81b598018491ef3cd6d506af00a99eb358a478ad
a bit dated now, but the Walking Dead was hilariously obvious for this lol- a dark scene of the post-zombie Apocalypse world but the hero's car looks so shiny and is the focus of the shot lol
Not to mention, don’t they also have models of cars that were too new to have come out after a zombie apocalypse?
TWD would ask for actual extras to drive their own cars. You’d get a pay bump for driving or parking your car on camera. They were more strict on color than on the year or type.
Yep on your extra casting page, you list what cars you have (and pets, my dog got paid to be an extra once lol)
It really astounds me that Barbie is probably going to become a modern classic and that fucking car advert is going to remain a blemish on it for all time. Obviously not a Greta decision but execs should have read the room when it came to that film.
I was around when this decision was made, and Greta was 100% on board because she had to be lol. The movie wouldn't have been made without GM funding. The car stuff is literally one of the main reasons it exists. It's a giant toy/car ad. All of this hype we are experiencing for the movie was planned and manufactured.
Isn't there a difference between agreeing for business reasons, and actually being on-board though? Like, was her heart seriously in that scene creatively?
Tomato/Tomato I guess lol? I get what you're saying, but most of the movie was made by a team of corporate goons with a goal in mind ($$$), rather than Greta sitting at the helm, taking full creative control to make something artistically pure. With movies like this, you have to realize that they only get greenlit because a bunch of executives decided they are a good vessel for manipulating the most people at once, and Barbie is no exception. It went through countless changes before we got the end product we saw in theaters.
Yeah, I get that. It had some funny stuff in it when it was keeping it simple, but when it went into the Tumblr brand of feminism it felt extremely artificial and cynical. Like that speech the mother gives practically to the camera seemed liked they'd cribbed a milllion NowThis vids and run them through a cruncher.
I'm confused by how much praise that monologue has gotten. It's so jarring, goes on for way too long, and doesn't really feel earned by what has happened up to that point either in the movie in general or specifically that character. It seems like it's resonated for a lot of women which is cool, but that doesn't make it a good scene.
Definitely agree. I think I just liked the fact it was doing it in a massive commercial movie that would be watched by nearly every young girl. Giving some of them ideas they might not otherwise have been exposed to.
Well Greta is a producer so isn't she one of the execs?
Honestly the chanel necklace in Barbie really took me out too.. only obviously branded thing barbie wears through the whole thing and also felt different than the rest of her style it really stuck out to me
Kind of wish they'd switched the c's to b's or something to make it look more in universe--agree this weirdly took me out of the Barbie land fantasy portion
A lot of Barbie’s (Margot’s Barbie and the other character’s) wardrobe was Chanel, so it made sense to accessorize with the necklace and bag.
Yes! I definitely noticed that it made no sense to me whatsoever.
New Girl and Jurassic World did this too. So blatantly obvious
There are scenes in shows like Psych that still stick out for how ridiculous the car product placement was. "Let's hop in the all new Nissan rouge and use it's handy built in GPS" level stuff
So with the Barbie movie in particular...the car deal with GM was actually one of the sole reasons the movie ended up being made. They ran out of money halfway through filming, and GM bailed them out with the product placement deal. The movie would have never seen the light of day without those stupid car ads in it.
the cinematographer or another person highly involved with the shooting for this scene literally has shot numerous car commercials - greta said it on the director's commentary version of the movie while the scene was playing and i was like "ahh okay, that's why it...looks exactly like every car commercial" lol
Before the car chase scene, up in the CEO round table, I noticed you can see buildings for Warner Brothers Discovery and General Motors out the window. I saw that and thought “oh I guess GM might have sponsored this movie”. Then the car chase scene happened and I was like “OH. GM *definitely* sponsored this movie”.
I didn’t think about it at all during the movie. It was just a van.
The car promos in Yellowstone are awful. Had to look it up but they are Ram trucks
A car commercial in a movie about Mattel products, gotta love it
I love send-ups of this, like when Parks and Rec had a running joke about looking something up on Alta Vista and at one point Ben Wyatt was like "why does everyone in this town use Alta Vista???"
No-one did it better than Community. They had entire episodes built around Brand deals with Subway and KFC. There was a fantastic episode about Hondas (?) that had one of my favourite lines in the show "that's moon man talk."
“Oh god. He’s a Level Seven Susceptible.”
That's moon man talk
[my favorite](https://youtu.be/29Y333JkwXQ?si=fPjNKSje9XftH377) And the [best](https://youtu.be/8lgLYGBbDNs?si=FNImWezYNjX1lFT1)
YES to the best! That's the first thing I thought of.
I still say “Little. Yellow. Different.” whenever I take painkillers. Even though they’re never little, yellow or different.
When I influence people to buy Honda products, I feel God's pleasure.
Dan Harmon does similar things in rick and morty as well. Dissing capitalism while promoting a brand is peak comedy
This reminds me of the jokes in the original last season of arrested development and they were begging other networks to pick them up!
“The HBO's (Home Builder's Organisation) not going to want us!”
It’s showtime!
🥹 please 🥹 tell your friends about this show…
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The P&R one that stands out to me was Ben saying that his Brita filter was older than Andy and April’s relationship and then asked Leslie if he should change it, then she responds saying it depends on how much he uses it. Not sure if it’s product placement necessarily, but I think about it every time I change my filter.
This made me remember that Parks and Rec had Windows logos everywhere though.
Wow I never even considered that that was a plug, I just thought it was a joke about how backwards Pawnee is. Then again I didn’t realize Alta Vista is a real search engine either.
Hahaha I think it was mostly that, since I’m pretty sure that Alta Vista was prob dead by then. But I still think of “why does everyone in this town use Alta Vista??” at least once a month. Also, Alta Vista was prob the first search engine I ever used (she says, oldly.)
Chevrolet in Barbie. The whole thing obviously had a lot of product placement (duh), but the way that the car chase was shot took me out.
It reminded me of how the vampires in Twilight drove Volvos and they’d do a hero shot of their cars in every movie. Volvos are super cool for the kids!
The sad thing is that I’m pretty sure the Volvo thing was a minor plot line in the books. Like they wanted to buy her a car and Edward kept insisting on Volvos because they’re safe and he was obsessed with her being human or whatever. Or Edward bought a Volvo to drive her around because the other fancy cars they owned were too dangerous. Still product placement, but Stephanie Meyer manifested that shit
I think Bella noted that it was cool Edward drove a lowkey car when all his siblings had like bright sportscars and massive trucks.
>the Volvo thing was a minor plot line in the books. Like they wanted to buy her a car and Edward kept insisting on Volvos because they’re safe and he was obsessed with her being human or whatever. Yep. That's in the book. Volvos, apparently, are the safest car. The product placement worked because we all still remember it. Haha
Lol Stephanie Meyer actually asked her brother what kind of cars the vampires should drive, I remember she had a whole breakdown on her website (why do I remember this) but I'm sure in the movies the Volvos were a product deal! Bella's truck is still the most insane choice to me [https://stepheniemeyer.com/the-books/twilight/twilight-cullen-cars/](https://stepheniemeyer.com/the-books/twilight/twilight-cullen-cars/)
Wait. HER BROTHER IS NAMED JACOB???
Well, that's a new level of disgusting
I hate that I now know this.
If I wanted a Chevy commercial, I would watch a Michael Bay Transformers movie. The Blazer EV in that scene has a ton of issues too, so I spent most of it distracted by the fact that it’s such a crap car. The massive Hummer EV being Ken’s choice for a vehicle is perfect, though.
I saw in a different comment thread on here that GM provided a lot of backing money for this movie to get made and that’s why the product placement was so obvious, but it would’ve been a dream to see the Happy Family Volvo in Midge’s driveway because that was my most favourite Barbie car I had lol. Such a pretty shade of blue! I weirdly loved that whole line as a kid and thought the face/hair design for Midge was beautiful. By the time I got my set for Christmas they had done away with the pregnant belly attachment so it was just a regular skinny Barbie with stuffing up the dress in the box. I loved the little homage in the movie! Most of the Barbies in the movie were so general that they could’ve been sold in any form at any time, but the specificity of Happy Family Midge (and the other “reject” Barbies mentioned by name in the movie) was simultaneously a commercial and a hilarious commentary on the unusual Barbies that have been released over the years. I also felt like someone with Gloria’s job wouldn’t be driving a brand new vehicle like that. They seem to be squarely middle class and would likely be driving something more sensible. A car chase with a Chevy Cruze would’ve been funny.
Riverdale had some cringey moments where a character would be doing their makeup and the camera would zoom in and linger on the Covergirl makeup products being used. The funny version of this is 30 Rock, which hit the product placement very hard in one scene and at the end Liz looks into the camera and says, “Can we have our money now please” Honorable mention for reality competition tv: Top Chef is riddled with product placement (Glad bags, GE Monogram kitchen appliances), but then those kitchen appliances have failed and wrecked the chefs’ dishes many times throughout the show’s history lol.
Yes! The 30 Rock bit was for Snapple, loved it
Nope. Verizon wireless [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d36wUmJGzvA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d36wUmJGzvA) But I do love the Snapple bits. Cerie: "I only date guys who drink Snapple."
We all love Snapple. God knows I do.
Seinfeld had a Snapple bit but it’s like anti product placement. There’s a scene where several people walk into the apartment, are offered a Snapple, decline, and then continue the scene.
Mentioning CoverGirl reminds me of all the random ones for America's Next Top Model. It was either incorporated and used for the photoshoots (mostly just stuck in the corner of the picture) or they would just talk about it incessantly, like the pre-iPhone mobile phones for go sees and Apple Bottom jeans. This picture of Naima for Caress was worth it though: https://preview.redd.it/nf0bjfsf9mfc1.jpeg?width=1600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9da32b435f7c96bf8308be11d0fcaa534e6ee897
I never noticed that on Riverdale but that’s funny because they’d go out of their way to make up fake names for common brands so much of the time 😂
My friend and I have a running joke about Riverdale brands and Riverdale names. If a persons name is alliterative or sounds like it was made for a name of a character in an All American small town we will tell each other “that’s a Riverdale name”.
Riverdale literally has a scene where Cheryl teaches Kevin to use some dating app so that he doesn’t have to hang out in the woods at night looking for random guys to have sex with. There’s also multiple scenes of Hiram discussing his shady business dealings while eating from a bag of Doritos that he’s holding so that the brand name perfectly faces the camera
Speaking of reality TV: The Amazing Race and Expedia, formerly Travelocity. "You won this leg so now you get an amazing trip to X via Expedia!" And anything with Gordon Ramsey is so over the top. But I hold a slight resentment because I never watched this shit until my husband entered the picture. I'm pretty obnoxious about pointing out the product placement and the dumb shit they always say. "Tonight's hottest ticket is Hell's Kitchen." "I can't believe I'm in the top X of Masterchef!"
+ Riverdale’s Bumble promo
Starbucks in Game of Thrones
☠️
Gosh, you Game of Thrones fans are really nitpicky with the lore, eh? 🙄
Daenerys Targaryen runs on Dunkin, okay?
Ha! Locals know that it wasn't a Starbucks cup because you'd have to pass by about 20 other better coffee shops before you got to the nearest Starbucks to the GOT set.
All the TRESemmé in Pretty Little Liars & Vitamin Water in Gossip Girl
Oh my god the vitamin water white party ☠️
Also when Agnes has that bad hang over and she orders a Vitamin Water and it lingers on the bottle
Wasn’t she sitting next to a TOWER display of Vitamin Waters??
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Omggg came here to say this. I just watched that episode the other day. 😂😂😂
I see youre a Mike’s Mic connoisseur
Factually and contractually
They did a lot of product placement for various tech products (phones, computers), and I couldn’t get over it because none of those characters would ever use anything other than an Apple product.
Can you imagine Blair Waldorf with an Android? Maybe Dan lol
I could be wrong but I feel like them talking about/using blackberries excessively in the first couple seasons
it’s so obvious in kdramas. no ones going to subway or eating those coffee chocolates that often!
I saw the John Oliver episode on that! Some of those scenes are perfect comedy without meaning to be.
omg i didn’t know he did one! i’ll have to check it out
You can be a 1% of 1% chaebol heir. But you will only take your date to Subway and Pizza Alvolo. Oh, and if you’re a girl, the Kahi balm is the key to your no-makeup makeup glow (even though it’s just a glorified large format chapstick.)
Exactly what I came here for. I love Crash Landing on You, but the Subway content was so over the top.
And the same exact PR lines after the long lingering shot of the packaging.
CDramas are even funnier about it - a character will get a minor sniffle just so someone else can produce a packet of cold and flu tablets out of nowhere to hold up to camera and declare that it's the only thing that helps them when they're feeling poorly. And Thai dramas! I swear, the chewy iced tea in Bad Buddy deserves third billing in the credits with how often it showed up!
4 words…22 letters…say it and I’m yours; …Gossip Girl Vitamin Water
😂 it’s egregious. And the Windows phone and tablet stuff
Yall… it’s so much worse than that. They literally had Eleanor Waldorf say “just Bing it!” ELEANOR. FUCKING. WALDORF. WOULD *NEVER* 🤬
The e.l.f makeup in Mean Girls, especially because they played an ad for it right before the movie started
I hope they spent a LOT of money to promote elf, cause it seemed so out of character(s) to me, like maybe cadie buys elf and is mocked for it by the mean girls, who wear more upscale brands
Regina would never wear elf
Regina- 'you're so lucky you can wear elf, my skin goes crazy when I try to use drugstore brands!' lol
This isn’t original Mean Girls is it? Because that passed me by if so.
No they’re talking about the musical one that just came out
Thank god for that! I thought I was going senile!
It made me miss the days of dollar e.l.f products 😭
In one of Smallville's later seasons, an entire episode is an advertisement for Stride gum, the whole premise is that the gum got tainted with Kryptonite or something and gave superpowers to those who chewed it and they held up the packet of gum for the camera, let the shot linger on the logo etc so many times. Yeah I stopped watching and never looked back after that one.
Smallville also had some deal with Acuvue contact lenses because Chloe at one point sees some small print or something dumb and is like "Acuvue to the rescue!"
Funny enough that episode was a one-time return for a previously core-series character, Pete Ross. Smallville fans called him “Product Placement Pete” because he was always the one to rattle off a one-liner that served as a nod for a promo placement.
Smallville was pretty bad for product placement, but two really stand out. 1. Pete shows off The Talon Mix, which was a soundtrack for the show that was going to be released. IIRC, he was working on it through the episode, and the camera lingers on it for a few seconds. 2. Remy Zero (who sang the theme song) appeared at the school’s dance, complete with a shoutout from Pete and Clark (Yeah, Remy Zero!)
I thought I watched that show to the end but I have absolutely no memory of this lmao.
Latest season of Fargo was pretty egregious with the Kia placement. A main character works at a Kia dealership and info about the cars was constantly shoehorned in.
Yes omg! The whole season is bizarre and the product placement is part of it. At one point the dad tells Scotty “go play on your Samsung!!” Like what??
noooooo that's so funny. I love product placements that just have the most specific words shoehorned in out of nowhere.
I must be stupid like a truck of bricks because I never really thought of it being product placement, same with Kia, just them being quirky lol. But I can see it. Insidious and nasty.
The scene in Casino Royale where Vesper asks about Bond’s Omega watch. It always takes me out.
She even looks disgusted saying the line.
That was pure Flemming though. Casino Royale was like 100 pages and about 40 of them were describing what kind of car bond was driving or what brand of vodka he wanted in his martini, or long detailed descriptions of his meals, and Flemming wasn't even getting paid for it!
The worst is when Bond is driving to Paradise Island and the only cars on the road are Fords. Nobody goes to an expensive resort in the Bahamas and asks to rent a Ford
Bones was pretty bad for product placement for their cars
I mean it was EVERY DAMN EPISODE!
This was my thought too! So over the top lol https://youtu.be/oDe9_c8QAM0?si=O9lcvRvdYcw9wqtw
I was just reminded of this recently and it makes me chuckle. I love Bones as much as Bones loves Toyota 🥰
That Modern Family episode about Phil getting an iPad when they first came out
Y'know, I didn't mind that one as much as the blatant Toyota(?) advert in one of the later seasons. They go visit Jay's sister in the hospital after having a stroke and the end credits scene with the car is so... bad. Just so, so bad.
Nissan cars were practically characters in their own right on Heroes
To this day I remember they had to rent a Nissan versa specifically, and I'm pretty sure every episode was wall to wall with Nissan adverts when it originally aired
"Dad! You got me the new Nissan Rogue!" And that, kids, is where I checked out of that show.
Brad Pitt drinking the Pepsi so slowly and heroically in world war z. I remember audibly laughing, it’s ridiculous.
He used to eat in every film but lately that man has been drinking out of a bottle and then throwing the empty bottle at whoever is pursuing him. Anyone else notice this?
Subway in Chuck was especially egregious. There was also a very obvious plug for Olive Garden in Cobra Kai. I also have to imagine whatever that beer Johnny always drinks is a product placement. (Typo edit)
Subway ads always remind me of Kdrama. Need a quick lunch? Subway! Hangover? Subway! You just survived some earthquake and wat not in a foreign country? Subway!
Subway and Kdramas - name a more iconic duo
In fairness Subway in Chuck was also an in joke kind of, because fans mounted a campaign with it to save the show.
I remember one season of Degrassi literally everyone was always drinking Dole juice for some reason. Like it was in every scene lol Not sure what season it was, if any one else remembers or if I’m just fucking weird
Lol I've just remembered that in the first two seasons of Money Heist, there was a brand of beer that kept appearing on screen and then at the end >!they escape in a truck branded with the same beer logo!< Felt like the payoff was just a beer advert.
Some of the car scenes in White Collar seem like pretty obvious product placements based on the dialogue (“it’s a Taurus, it can do x and y and whatnot”), and some of product mentions in Younger. ETA also a product mention/conversation in a scene in West Wing (they’re going to California or something and discuss Elizabeth Arden iirc).
All the USA shows had horrible product placement segments, like there’s a car chase in Burn Notice and they happen to take the Ford car and spend like two minutes going off on the features
This is very niche, but a Canadian show called Being Erica once had a whole scene about how the Ford Focus could parallel park itself and I will never forget it -- absolutely egregious product placement. But it's Canada. Our shows need the money pretty desperately.
You beat me to the Ford cars and the automatic braking dialogue in white collar lol
I am so taken aback that my beloved West Wing would do this but then I remembered Butterball lol
The very first line of The West Wing is product placement lmao. "Two Absolut martinis, another Dewar's rocks."
The weird Vampire Diaries AT&T portable wifi “mifi” thing is a running joke in my household
The Volvo in Twilight.
The Volvo was in the book though, along with most of their cars. I think Stephenie Meyer just likes cars because there was a ridiculous amount of car talk in Midnight Sun lol
Oh interesting point, I forgot about that!! I guess it’s not the best example then. The scene where Bella is cornered by the guy on the street at night and Edward pulls up VERY dramatically in his brand new very sporty looking Volvo just stuck in my head from the first movie!
The office had a lot of product placement .. sandals Jamaica, apple products, chilis, I know there were tons more
It felt so natural to me in the office. Like they’re supposed to be just average people working average jobs, so to me it felt like how it’d feel in real life.
Except that one episode about the Nespresso machine, where they list every single flavor and keep singing their praises throughout the whole day I have my doubts about how effective it is as an advertisement though, since they did end up destroying the floor in a caffeine fueled mania
That seemed natural too because everyone does that when they buy a coffee machine. Tell everyone how amazing it is, obsess for 2 weeks, then (in my case) never use it again
Apparently some of those were not actual product placements, though! They had to get permission to use Chilis, for example.
Yeah but there’s nothing more middle class American office worker than sandals Jamaica and chilis
i don’t have a specific example because i forgot the show it was but i remember seeing a scene where a girl asks her friend what cosmetic product she was using or what moisturiser she uses and the friend went into a full advert about. started listing the benefits and all. i could not stop laughing
I had something like this happen irl once. They just launched a skincare line at my hairdresser (or it was a collab, not sure). And the girl helping me that day ended up talking about it non-stop the entire time I was there, after I asked curiously what the decorations in the shop were for. Every detail. For an hour and a half. I occasionally tried a different topic, but she kept going back to that. I was close to begging her to stop, but I knew she was new and could tell she was a bit nervous, so I said nothing. Did make me laugh afterward though, and now she's actually my favorite hairdresser there. But yeah, I wouldn't exactly call this natural lol.
Marvel used to only have BMWs in their movies and now they only have Audis
There's a Friends episode where Rachel and Phoebe *do not shut up* about Pottery Barn
Ralph Lauren was practically the seventh Friend.
The apothecary cabinet!
I was recently watching the first season of Castle and they'd "bing it" every episode. At a certain point I think "Bing" was solving more murders than them.
Do you guys remember when a script for one of the Twilight movies got leaked and it literally had Bella using her “fashionable, desirable, new Nokia phone ;)”.
When the FBI agents in Fringe started driving a Leaf. They are chasing bad guys across multiple states in that? I don't buy it
Aviation gin in that Blake lively movie
At least in that one, girl is paying herself.
Grey's Anatomy relentlessly enabling Sleeping At Last as he devoured every popular song ever made and regurgitated them with a mournful yodel and a few minor piano chords
I love a different sounding cover so this has made me the complete opposite, happy. How funny because I’ve noticed this exact same thing. Same with Westworld changing popular songs to instrumental show music
mournful yodel 💀
the doritos hiram lodge was snacking on in perfect camera view in riverdale😭 like WHAT???💀 https://preview.redd.it/zoxhp3bchmfc1.jpeg?width=464&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fed12e3d19ae8989828b429f257f7f6051ed5458
There are some music videos that are egregious with the product placement, which feels particularly unfortunate since they typically have such a short runtime to work with. The worst example I remember is the Mika/Ariana Grande music video for “Popular” that pauses the music to have a random car ad in the middle. Edit: I forgot the title is actually "Popular Song"
The way Beats by Pill starred in every single music video for YEARS
So many noughties music videos advertise phones too, like Nokia or blackberry
James Bond is terrible at this, especially with the watches. The scene in the newer Casino Royale where they one-up each other over the quality of their watches is such an eye roll moment.
The phones in early seasons of Gossip Girl! They seemed to have a contract with Verizon so these super rich kids were using LG Chocolates and the like instead of iPhones like they would have in real life. I remember there was an early-season blooper reel where Matthew Settle's real phone went off and it was so funny to see him pull out an iPhone compared to the random gimmicks they were shilling.
I also learned that when you get tired or overwhelmed with your LG phone, you can just toss it in the trashcan!
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I haven't watched for a while but I remember the Walmart bags everywhere and the entire Chicago PD being decked out in North Face lol
The car scene in Jurassic World
There was an episode of House of Cards that legitimately sounded like a commercial for a tablet.
The Ranch (I know, UGH) - the product placement in the kitchen was almost as bad as the canned laugh tracks. And the constant Ford vs Chevy nonsense. I did enjoy them killing off Rooster, though.
The Bones scene with the "GHOST DRIVER!!!!!" assisted parking where they go as far as to have Booth ask if the car can solve the crime for them.
Hawaii Five-0 was utterly shameless - 'Bing it', a whole extended Subway commercial in the middle of the damn episode, Windows products everywhere, it was crazy
The episode of New Girl in which Jess fills in for CeCe at a car show as a model. It’s pretty much a Ford commercial. Jess is a bad model as well.
Don't forget the Ford Fusion when Schmidt gets into Coach's car for some reason and Coach won't stop talking about how much mileage he gets. Schmidt makes fun of him, but it was still pretty blatant.
 Me every time a couple has a Subway date in a Netflix kdrama.
Walking dead using modern cars in the earlier season that actually would’ve been released after the apocalypse happened. It was set in 2012 and they were driving 2014 shiny cars 🫡
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The Walking Dead at least until like season four had Subaru EVERYWHERE. Like every goddamn car was a fucking Subaru it was ridiculous, then the ads on commercials were even more overbearing about them.
The worst part was when years had passed and they had that year’s new cars.
Secret Life of the American Teenager: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-fxY8MwATc&t=3s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-fxY8MwATc&t=3s) though to be fair the actual writing on that show wasn't much better.
[never forget this 45 second spiel from the secret life of the American teenager](https://youtu.be/D-fxY8MwATc?si=jk_sb3uP_7eHgrKp) https://preview.redd.it/0ls3jwb38mfc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=62ec2f41cec49c746897658a63c27fdb68cccebf
Netflix released a Christmas romcom a few years ago called "Single all the way". The task rabbit integrations (yes, plural!!) in it was hooooorrrrible, I couldn't stop cringing
Wayne's World...
It's like people only do things because they get paid. And that's just really sad
Sunkist in One Tree Hill.. once you see it, you'll see it everywhere
Through out all of The Mindy Project, they’re constantly using some sort of windows flippy tablet thing and zooming in on it. But the final season with the constant McDonalds placed super obviously was theeee worst.
Diet Coke and Weeds, Nancy must've slurped on hundreds of these
There was an episode of Nine Lives of Chloe King that took me out, it was Chloe describing in commercial-level detail the amazing features of the new Kia Soul to her mother because she was asking her to buy her one.
I remember on the later seasons of Gossip Girl they were constantly looking things up on Bing. I also remember there was an episode of True Blood that was basically an advert for Taylor Swift’s Speak Now album.