Product Placement on the Big Screen

So I may have taken a week off from blogging, but I still did my homework. For the most part I steered clear of television during break- except ofcourse for the new episode of Grey's on Thursday. Instead I spent most of the week relaxing, traveling, and um other things that college students do on spring break. So I didn't have many opportunities to spot many placement opportunities. Luckily for you, but certainly not for me, I got stuck in an airport for 5 hours in Baltimore on St. Patricks Day. Needless to say, by the time I finally got home I was in no mood to do anymore running around. So I skipped out on the St. Patty's Day festivities and settled for a more low key night and saw the new movie Premonition which had just come out to theaters the night before.

At first, product placement, blogging, and any type of marketing work was far from my mind... but by the middle of the film I realized the Ford logo had flashed in front of me at least 10 times. At this point, I was actively looking for it. Sandra Bullock's character drove a Ford Explorer which was in the movie almost as much as she was. Her husband gets in an accident driving a Ford Taurus. All of this can be explained when Sandra's character visits her husband at work- a Ford dealership. Ofcourse the camera panned a line of cars in the dealership lot and a few more in the showroom while she was there. I'd say Ford got what they paid for. Another big shot in the movie was Nationwide Insurance which is frequented a couple times while the couple seperately make sure the husband's life insurance policy is sufficient in case Sandra's premonition really does come true. When the husband leaves the second time, the company window with the Nationwide logo is shown prominently. Maybe I was experiencing some product placement withdrawal but these placements really stuck out for me. As I watched the movie and kept a look out for these instances I kept thinking I can't wait to post about this! Ofcourse it was no Talladega Nights, but the placement efforts were enough to make me sit up, notice, and abandon my no-work policy during break.