Product Placement - Placement in Movies

Placement in Movies

Recognizable brand names appeared in movies from cinema's earliest history. Before films were even narrative forms in the sense that they are recognised today, industrial concerns funded the making of what film scholar Tom Gunning has described as "cinematic attractions" these were short films of no longer than one or two minutes. In the first decade or so of film history (1895–1907) audiences did not go to see films as narrative art forms but as fairground attractions interesting for the amazing visual effects they appeared to be. This format was much better suited to product placement than the narrative form of cinema that came later when film making became a more organised industry. Taking this as a starting point, Leon Gurevitch has argued that early cinematic attractions share more in common with the adverts that emerged from the television industry in the 1950s than they do with traditional films. Gurevitch suggests that as a result, the relationship between cinema and advertising is more intertwined than previous historians have credited, suggesting that the birth of cinema was in part the result of advertising and the economic kickstart that it provided early film makers. Kerry Segrave details the industries that advertised in these early films and goes on to give a thorough account of the history of product placement over the following century. In the 1920s, the weekly trade periodical Harrison's Reports published its first denunciation of that practice with respect to Red Crown gasoline appearing in the comedy film The Garage (1919), directed by and co-starring Fatty Arbuckle.