Take a sweeping look at the first instances of product placement within video entertainment in various mediums; TV, YouTube videos, movies. Product placement, in this case, would specifically be the integration of branded products into the world of a story itself. Perhaps place them in different eras. Have actors gotten better at interacting with products naturally? Have advertisers gotten better at their product placements? How has this genre of advertising changed?
I think it would be helpful to centre this discussion within a specific region/culture, since the practice often varies depending on advertising regulations and cultural practices. For example, product placement in Thai dramas isn't usually designed to look natural, while Korean dramas are known to have large amounts of product placement that might be harder to spot. – vikkihuihuihui3 years ago
Be it Coca Cola in Jurassic Park or FedEx in Cast Away, product placement is an important component of the advertisement and film industry. It might be interesting to look at the effects such product placement has on the production of a movie. How are the products placed? Does it change the storyline? Has the production team compromise creativity for the product?
This is a really great topic. I would also add that the writer consider some of the ways that product placement has been lampooned by comedic films and satirists e.g. Wayne's World or Colbert and his Doritos. – Jonathan Judd7 years ago
I think it would be interesting to examine realistic vs. unrealistic use of product placement, as well. It seems to me like there are times product placement can make a movie seem more believable, whereas other times it's obviously only being done for the money. – Ben Woollard7 years ago
This is a great topic as I always find it so easy to differentiate between a product being in a shot for pure decoration and being there for product placement. I think it also might be good to make a connection to product placement in music videos, which I found to be so prevalent nowadays. But otherwise, Josie and the Pussycats movie made a lot of accurate and comedic references to product placement and the effects it can have on audiences. – giorginamckay7 years ago