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Product Placement |
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Product placement is a business practice based on mutuality. Having its cars placed in a variety of films, television plays and documentaries benefits BMW in many ways. Cars have always been much sought after objects in film and television. In many cinema, film and television series, the heroes often drive the best-equipped cars. When the cars are supplied by the manufacturer this is known as product placement. Why is product placement based on mutuality? Producers want to use certain brands of car in order to set off the role of the character actor; the car manufacturers achieve a greater degree of publicity. This doesn't of course apply to all cars in the same manner. Luxury cars however are in great demand. Having its cars placed in a variety of films, television plays and documentaries benefits BMW in many ways. Global publicity, communicated in part by subliminal means and partly by overt ones, is positive and important, because it reaches a wide section of the public quite often on a world-wide scale. With repeats, this can even become an audience of several millions. |
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| BMW and Films | |
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BMW products have featured in a variety of films including:
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BMW, MGM and EON Productions Ltd worked together on a cross promotion project. This was accomplished worldwide with TV commercials, print ads and displays in BMW dealer showrooms. |
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| BMW and Television | |
BMW Motorcycles have made several appearances in television programmes including the Hairy Bikers Cookbook television series covering a cuisine-inspired trip to various countries around the world riding on BMW R1200 GS and F650 GS motorcycles. BMW R1150 GS Adventure motorcycles were featured in Long Way Round, a television series chronicling Charley Boorman's and Ewan McGregor's round-the-world trip in 2005. This was followed by Race to Dakar documenting the trials and tribulations of the BMW Motorrad 2006 Race to Dakar team who rode BMW F650 GS Dakar motorcycles. Another series featuring Charley Boorman and Ewan McGregor followed with Long Way Down in 2007 that saw them travel from John O'Groats in Scotland to Cape Town in South Africa on BMW R1200 GS motorcycles. |
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| MINI and Film | |
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Ever since its debut in film classics such as The Italian Job, the MINI has established itself as a British institution. In 2002, the MINI Cooper appeared alongside Austin Powers 3 - Goldmember. The Hollywood studio was provided with a total of six red MINI Coopers for filming and the star Mike Myers was personally involved in their transformation into "Austin Powers" espionage vehicles. Further appearances include the latest version of the Italian Job in 2003 and the comedy Heartbreak Kid featuring Ben Stiller. In this film, the Convertible MINI Cooper became a stage for lively dialogues and disputes between the two honeymooners. |
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| How does product placement differ to advertising? | |
| (These type of placements should not be confused with conventional advertising). | |
| Advertising is targeted at potential customers, in other words, a previously defined target group. Product placement goes far beyond this. | |
| Here are three reasons which serve to highlight the fact that product placement is quite often unjustly compared to advertising: | |
| 1. The media of television attracts viewers aged between 9 and 90, i.e. a wide-ranging group in which for example, the BMW category of buyers is a very small percentage. The cinema theatres have set their sights on a significantly smaller group with the main point of emphasis in terms of age being the roughly 12 - 30 year old one: a group unlikely to include many BMW buyers. | |
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2. The target group between 30 and 50
would seem to represent the most interesting group for BMW, but on
average they don't tend to visit the cinema very often. However, on
account of its social status, it is precisely this group which would
present an ideal target for BMW advertising. This group are hardly reached by product placement. For this reason product placement can't be advertising, but it can be an important image instrument that enables BMW to present its cars in an interesting setting to a public of millions. |
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| 3. Advertising is the deliberate formulation of product advantages in a carefully selected medium. This doesn't apply to product placement. Companies have almost no opportunity of integrating any product information into a movie. Films are offered to car manufacturers because a script writer, director or film producer feels that this or that BMW vehicle would fit ideally into a certain role. | |
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