Hollywood and Product Placement

Level 1 Introduction to Media Studies.

Assignment 1.

Wasko’s piece dates from 10 years ago: how has the market changed (if indeed it has)?

When watching any Hollywood blockbuster it is very difficult to ignore all the commercialisation that surrounds film. Even if you’re just watching a Hollywood blockbuster, that you know no background about, it is almost impossible to ignore the product placement in the film, the merchandising that is made readily available to you, and the endless about of shops, brands and restaurants that advertise the film. In Janet Wasko’s “Hollywood meets Madison Avenue: the Commercialisation of U.S. Films”, she makes the film industry’s need to advertising so obvious.

Wasko describes Hollywood as ‘vehicles for even further commercial activity in the form of advertising and merchandising.’ Wasko’s article is split into three different sections, product placement, merchandising and tie-ins. Wasko describes Hollywood as becoming a business or ‘commodity’ rather than being the entertainment industry that it is meant to be. Since the beginning of film, it seems that product advertising has always taken place in Hollywood. However Wasko argues that instead of a script being written to create a film, it is written to fit in as much advertising as possible, to make as much money as possible.

Product placement is a very big part of the film industry, Wasko draws on the example of Pepsi whom have featured in ‘approximately seventy feature films since 1919’ (Wasko

2). Pepsi is an example I will also use later in this study; I have found Pepsi to play a very big part in the product placement game. It is hard to ignore the amount of Pepsi placements that exist when watching a film, even Mike Myers picks up on Pepsi in his film Wayne’s World, in which there is a sketch of a television show in which they make a blatantly obvious Pepsi placement. Wasko’s argument on product placing is obviously that it is turning the film industry into a ‘commodity’ but she does include other people’s views on the argument of product placement. One point I found particularly interesting was that made by Lois Sheinfield,

‘The movie industry may not realize the legal problems attendant upon this valuable resource [corporate America] and the commercialization of film. Take for example a movie version of Macbeth. What if Lady M tries to get the damned spot out with a can of Ajax? If Ajax is Kovoloff's client and has to be presented in a positive manner, then naturally the Lady will get the spot out. Well, that's a problem. No matter that Shakespeare didn't want her to get the spot out. He's dead and can't complain. The problem is Truth in Advertising Can Ajax get out a blood spot on the