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Interesting reading on ‘product placement’ – tobacco in the movies

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_placement

Tobacco

Tobacco companies have made direct payment to stars for using their cigarettes in films. Documentation of $500,000 in payments to Sylvester Stallone to “use Brown and Williamsontobacco products in no less than five feature films” [34][35] is accessible online as part of theLegacy Tobacco Documents Library.[36]

The James Bond film Licence to Kill (1989) featured use of the Lark brand of cigarette and the producers accepted payment for that product placement. The studio’s executives apparently believed that the placement triggered the American warning notice requirement for cigarette advertisements and thus the movie carried the Surgeon General’s Warning at the end credits of the film. This brought forth calls for banning such cigarette advertisements in future films. Later releases of License to Kill, especially for video and television releases, had the Lark pack replaced with a similar-looking, generic pack. Most movies, such as the youth-targeted Ramen Girl, which has a product placement for Marlboro cigarettes, omit the Surgeon General’s Warning.

Reviewing previously secret tobacco advertising documents, the British Medical Journal concluded:

The tobacco industry recruits new smokers by associating its products with fun, excitement, sex, wealth, and power and as a means of expressing rebellion and independence. One of the ways it has found to promote these associations has been to encourage smoking in entertainment productions.1 Exposure to smoking in entertainment media is associated with increased smoking and favourable attitudes towards tobacco use among adolescents.

While the tobacco industry has routinely denied active involvement in entertainment programming, previously secret tobacco industry documents made available in the USA show that the industry has had a long and deep relationship with Hollywood. Placing tobacco products in movies and on television (fig 1Go), encouraging celebrity use and endorsement, advertising in entertainment oriented magazines, designing advertising campaigns to reflect Hollywood glamour, and sponsoring entertainment oriented events have all been part of the industry’s relationship with the entertainment industry.
— How the tobacco industry built its relationship with Hollywood, BMJ 2002[37] http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/11/suppl_1/i81.full

Product displacement         According to Danny Boyle, director of film Slumdog Millionaire (2008), the makers had to resort to something he calls “product displacement” when companies such as Mercedes-Benz refused to allow their products to be used in non-flattering settings. While they did not mind having a gangster driving their cars, they objected to their products been shown in a slum setting. This forced the makers in post-production to remove logos digitally, costing “tens of thousands of pounds”. Boyle did not, however, comment on the disproportionately common on-screen reference to the cigarette brand Marlboro Lights in the same film, leading some commentators to question whether there was significant funding from the said company for the film.[78]

http://ash.org/legal/eye.html

http://www.epha.org/a/2623

http://www.jstor.org/pss/1251772

http://www.prwatch.org/node/8311

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