Product Placement For Dummies - MMI Product Placement

Marketing Magazine - May 5, 2003

Product Placement For Dummies Finding just the right role for an aspiring brand is getting easier within Canada’s booming film industry BY: PHILIP J. HART Product placement derives its energy and vitality from the Canadian film and TV industry. Without production, there would not be a product placement industry in Canada. Together American and Canadian productions produce revenues of $4 billion dollars annually, employing over 50,000 people. Since pioneering product placement in Canada in 1985, I have witnessed extraordinary growth in the industry and an incredible increase in the quality of projects. You will always hear nonetheless, producers gripe (and rightfully so) about taxation legislation changes and less government monies available for the establishment of more programming. The reality is that we have nothing to be ashamed of in terms of where our industry has come from, and where we are going. We have been pushed into the international spotlight by quality television programs including Omerta, Made In Canada, DaVinci's Inquest, The 11th Hour, Trudeau mini series, and feature films like Men With Brooms. These shows are a long way from the less sophisticated TV fluff of the late 1980's that gave us Check it Out and Dear Aunt Agnes. Canada has played host to over 100 American projects yearly, from theAcademy Award winning film Chicago, to My Big Fat Greek Wedding, the Showtime/Showcase TV series Queer As Folk, and many more. MMI was responsible for placing a vintage Canadian Club gate bottle, circa 1908, in the film Chicago. Queen Latifa used that bottle to pour a drink in one of her prison scenes. And in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, two Visa decals were placed on the front window of the travel agency where Toula (Nia Vardalos) worked. As this scene was filmed on the Danforth, visible in the background was the popular Greek restaurant Papa's Grill. For a bar scene in the TV series, Queer as Folk, two characters were seated at a table brainstorming ideas for a comic book as they drank their beers (we placed the Molson of course!). They grabbed the 3 Molson Export coasters and wrote on the back of them to get their ideas down quickly. Just as productions begin to wrap,new scripts come through our doors and work begins anew. Currently MMI is supplying brand name products to films starring Ben Affleck, Jennifer Lopez, Will Smith, Morgan Freeman, Ray Romano and Robert Redford. From script to screen, product placement is Relationship Marketing. MMI works on over 150 projects annually. This includes a cross section of Canadian and American TV series, cable series, cable MOW's and feature films. Each project must be read and scrutinized for content. Let me tell you that if you don't like to read or watch TV, a job at MMI would not be

for you. This represents over 1000 hours of annual programming that is first read in its scripted format then viewed in its completed version as a TV episode, feature film or video release. When TV and video placements are achieved, we transmit video e-mails to our clients so their marketing teams can take pride in their brands' budding film careers! We work on projects filmed in Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, Regina, Edmonton, Calgary and Montreal. The key to a successful product placement agency is to represent clients on a retainer.

In the business for 18 years, MMi has recently placed Quaker Oatmeal on the CBC movie Scar Tissue (top), Polar Ice Vodka on the weekly BET series Soul Food (right) and KFC on The Chris Isaak Show on MuchMoreMusic

This provides the placement agency with the latitude to seek out and negotiate only the best opportunities for a client. When an opportunity arises, we can react expediently to secure the placement, after the scene has been approved for content. Strict guidelines are imperative for our clients, as the product can never be seen in a negative or disparaging way. Negative placement opportunities are always declined. Brand positioning is extremely important as a way of profiling the demographics for the character and the brand. Art Departments rely on this information from us to ensure they use the right brand for the right character. Authenticity is crucial when it comes to consumer acceptance of a character. Our research indicates that if moviegoers are spending $13 dollars to see a film, the on-screen product had better be real or the audience will be insulted. It wasn't so long ago that a cereal prop in a kitchen scene would be a phony blue box designed by the art department, with the word "cereal" written on it. Try that today and your film or TV audience will laugh at your production. Consumers want realism! Why do filmmakers use product placement agencies? Whether a film is budgeted at $100,000 or $ 50 million dollars, each department of a movie has its own budget. The costs for renting or buying items can be in the thousands of dollars. Aside from the bottom line

advantages of obtaining free goods, if the brands' contribution to a scene makes sense, the production will use them. Production attorneys must provide trademark clearance before real brands can be used in filming. MMI works in tandem with legal departments after we have approved a scene. This also saves the production money. Why do corporate clients use product placement? As Bob Dylan said " the world is a-changing". Though personal video recorders and anything on demand represents less than 5 % Canadian household penetration, this will change over the next decade, just as VCRs did in the 1980's. When a brand appears within the natural setting of a scene, it cannot be zipped, zapped, skipped or muted. Product placement plays an important role in the marketing mix, working in tandem with print, radio, TV etc. It's certainly the only way to provide third party visibility in a realistic environment. Our most recent AC Neilson research indicates product placement increases brand loyalty by validating the purchase decisions of the consumer.

PHILIP J. HART is president of MMI Product Placement in Toronto.