Quantum of Annoyance--When Product Placement Goes Horribly Wrong
My wife and I watched the new James Bond film Quantum of Solace a week or so ago and thoroughly enjoyed it. As you might guess from my frequent references to Bond, I am a fan of the franchise--and while I occasionally miss the humor and campiness of the Roger Moore movies, I overwhelmingly approve of the franchise reboot. The series badly needed more realistic villains and a darker, more dangerous Bond, and the last two movies have delivered.
As good as Quantum of Solace was, though, all of its goodness was nearly unraveled by Ford's product placement whitewash. It didn't start out badly--the movie began with a thrilling car chase that featured Bond piloting a gorgeous Aston Martin. Even setting aside from Bond's history with the marque, Aston Martin is the perfect Bond car--muscular, debonair, slightly threatening, and thoroughly English. Aside from the fact that the company is owned by Ford, of course. (EDIT: Partially owned by Ford, that is. Ford sold all but a small stake last year. Thanks to the commenters for reminding me--I thought Ford still had a bigger stake.)
Likewise, I could buy that Bond would drive a Land Rover--it is a believable Bond vehicle, especially for off-road situations. Again, Land Rover is a Ford property. I even enjoyed the novelty of seeing a motorcycle chasing down an electric subcompact--a electric subcompact Ford Ka, naturally.
Unfortunately, it went downhill from there. As the movie went on, the Ford placement got more and more blatant, to the point where we saw the evil mastermind being driven around in a convoy of black Ford Edges. I don't have anything against the Edge--it's a nice-looking mid-size SUV--but I have difficulty accepting it as the preferred vehicle of an impossibly wealthy and powerful villain. I mean, this is a guy who pals around with powerful generalissimos at lavish parties and pulls the strings of the rich and powerful. And he's chauffeured in a Ford Edge? Really? If it must be a Ford product, why not another Land Rover? Or a Jaguar? Or why not get wacky and put the villain in a Maverick Grabber?
This may not seem like a big deal, but to a car guy, a Bond movie featuring only Ford products is like a drama movie featuring only people who, for no good reason, are all dressed in identical red leotards. It's completely unreal in a way that is incredibly distracting and destroys my willingness to suspend disbelief. And while it's true that these movies are packed with unrealistic events, excessive product placement is an unreality that actually undermines the movie's plot. By the end of the movie I cared less about what was going on with Bond and more about wondering which Ford product would show up next.
My wife is a noted automotive agnostic. Unless it's a Volvo 240 or Jeep Cherokee, she actually goes out of her way to not know or care about cars. When even she noticed and commented on the preponderance of Fords in Quantum of Solace, I knew it was excessive.
Even so, this isn't the most gratuitous example of automotive product placement I've seen, or even the most over-the-top Bond movie placement. My picks are below, but I'm sure I've missed some classics.
Most Gratuitous Movie Placement
The level of automotive product placement in The Matrix Reloaded completely dwarfs the Ford marathon in Quantum of Solace. In fact, it's not even close.
The Matrix in the film is a virtual reality created by our computer overlords that serves as a mental cage for the human race. It's not related to the Toyota Matrix, though whenever I ride in my friend's Toyota Matrix I have to suppress my desire to beatbox electronic music and speak like Lawrence Fishburne.
There is a scene in Reloaded, the second movie of the trilogy, in which some of our heroes are caught in the Matrix and pursued on a virtual freeway by various evil computer programs in the form of human-looking bad guys. Of course, mayhem ensues. The 10-minute-long freeway chase is an astonishingly ambitious action set-piece, it's fantastically entertaining, and ... every car involved is a GM vehicle.
Yes, that's right--about 10 minutes of movie time are completely dominated by GM products.Our heroes drive a Cadillac CTS; they are pursued by a Cadillac Escalade EXT and a bunch of Chevrolet police cars. The police cars are particularly unlikely--some are ancient Caprice Classics, and the rest are the too-small 2000-2005 Impalas that weren't particularly beloved by police departments. The rest of the cars on the freeway are Saturn wagons, Oldsmobile Intrigues, Pontiac Grand Ams, Chevy trucks and SUVs, minivans--virtually the entire GM catalog is represented. There are a few older GM products as well--an older Chevy pickup, and, as the prominent "outsider" car driven by some other good guys, a first-generation classic Pontiac Firebird.
I didn't exactly do a frame-by-frame review, but I have watched the video intently a few times now. Non-GM cars show up before the chase reaches the freeway; and once on the freeway we see some semi trucks, a prominently displayed Ducati motorcycle, and a Dodge Ram pickup that sticks out like a sore thumb. Otherwise, though, it's all GM.
The real world is populated by lots of different types of cars--different makes, different models, different ages, different conditions. A freeway filled with only new GM products is completely unnatural. And it's not just a few cars--a little research turns up the fact that GM donated 300 vehicles for use in the scene, and I believe it.
As with the Ford placement in Quantum, the whole thing is incredibly unlikely and, for me, horribly distracting. I can almost give the Matrix a pass because it's meant to be unreal--a computer-generated representation of the real world created to enslave humanity. But even this doesn't hold much water. Are we supposed to believe our computer overlords are only capable of rendering GM cars? If so, the Matrix is an even more horrifying place than previously imagined.
Unintended Consequence: I'm not sure this is what GM was going for, but if the producers wanted to pick bland, generic cars to blend into the background, early 2000s GM vehicles were the perfect choice.
This isn't the first time we've seen an all-GM freeway--In researching the Reloaded placement, I stumbled across a post describing an all-1973 Chevy Caprice freeway in the James Bond movie Live and Let Die. As you can see in the image, it's also wildly unnatural, though given my automotive tastes I find it completely fantastic.
If a freeway populated with Oldsmobile Silhouettes and Pontiac Grand Ams is hell for a person like me, a freeway filled with 1970s Impalas and Caprices is clearly heaven. If they were going for blatant unreality, why didn't the producers of The Matrix Reloaded choose to fill their freeway with 1973 Caprices? That at least would have been highly original.
The Matrix Reloaded freeway chase scene is broken into two sections below. Caution--the videos feature mature language, violence, offensive product placement, and a whole lot of assorted Matrix-related weirdness.
Most Gratuitous TV Placement
My wife and I were huge fans of the TV show Alias--its action, wackiness, and anything-goes mythology made it a gripping show into which we could totally sink ourselves. Thanks to the magic of TV on DVD, we would watch episode after episode, sinking ourselves into the entertaining espionage and counter-espionage of Sydney Bristow and her partner in crime prevention, Michael Vaughan.
That is, until we came across the 14th episode of the third season--Blowback. A few minutes into the episode, Sydney and Vaughan were chasing down some faceless double agents, one of which, unbeknownst to Vaughan, was Vaughan's wife. The pursuit led Sydney and Vaughan through a building, up the stairs, and into the top level of a parking garage, at which point they see the bad guys screaming away in a stolen Ford Mustang.
Sydney looks around and chirps, "Quick, get the F-150!"* The camera then zooms in on the F-150 fender logo before the burly F-150 pushes some other cars out of the way (other Fords, of course) and sets off in chase.
This was the apparent culmination to a season-long plot thread, a dramatic moment bringing to a head Vaughan's wife's betrayal and potentially revealing to our heroes the shadowed enemy they had been chasing for the previous 13 episodes.
"Quick, get the F-150!?" Really? That's the best they could do in that situation? With that one line and the camera zoom on the F-150 logo, the producers took a blowtorch both to their own credibility and to our willingness to suspend our disbelief for this show.
In the moments after Sydney uttered that infamous and completely unlikely line, my wife and I shared a moment of shocked silence and then at least 30 seconds of derisive laughter. I understand that when the episode aired on broadcast TV, a Ford F-150 commercial led off every commercial break--we would have greeted those commercials with the same cynical laughter.
We continued to watch Alias, but we never felt quite the same about the show after that moment. As with Bond and the Matrix movies, I was used to dealing with unreality in Alias; it's part of the show's appeal. But this unreality had nothing to do with the show's mythology or quirky charm. The producers had put an advertisement above their viewers and the credibility of their own show.
And, to be honest, the placement did the F-150 no favors in our household either. It's not as if I am in the F-150 target demographic anyway, but now there's no way I will never buy one. And even if I did, I know my wife would ridicule me with "Quick, get the F-150!" jokes before every trip to the supermarket.
Unintended Consequences: First, Ford products are apparently incredibly easy to steal. Second, the Mustang is evidently worthless as a performance car. The Mustang has a lot of apparent advantages over an F-150 in a parking garage race--lighter weight, more power, better handling--and in this case, the Mustang had a head start of at least 20-30 seconds. Yet the F-150 caught it within seconds. Why would I want to buy a muscle car that performs so much more poorly than a full-size pickup truck? If Ford had really been thinking, they would have put the baddies in a Camaro and let viewers draw their own conclusions.
I am a helpful guy, and so I have been thinking of three acceptable alternate scenarios that would have salvaged the show's credibility.
1. Play up the absurdity of the placement
In this case, one way to rescue the absurd it to make it so over-the-top that it's clear the producers and writers are as disgusted as the viewer.
For example, Vaughan could have stared right into the camera and said in a deadpan voice, "Absolutely, Sydney, and it's a great choice. After all, the F-150 has been America's best-selling vehicle since 1992."
Also acceptable would have been the absurdly specific reference ("Quick! Get the F-150 Extended Cab Harley Davidson Edition with the 5.4-liter Triton V-8!") or a reference to an old car whose sales don't benefit Ford at all ("Quick! Get the Ford Escort EXP!").
2. Ridicule the placement
In this scenario, after Sydney chirps, "Quick! Get the F-150!" Vaughan stops running and fixes Sydney with a silent, derisive, mocking stare for a minimum of 30 long seconds. Ideally, Sydney flushes with shame under Vaughan's reproachful stare, and she looks completely deflated as they silently get into a different, non-Ford vehicle.
This is probably my favorite of the three alternate scenarios.
3. The placement works out poorly
Sydney and Vaughan jump into the F-150, but they lag badly behind the Mustang. They pull to a stop after losing the Mustang, defeated with the knowledge that selecting a pickup truck to follow a performance car through a parking garage was an abjectly awful idea.
Part of the episode in question is archived in the video below; skip ahead to the 2:50 mark to see the moment of shame
* Video review shows that she actually just said "The F-150!", but I prefer my version.
--Chris H.
Jeff the Baptist on December 04, 2008 at 02:11 PM
"The producers of the Bond movies ought to know better: this is the way the Star Wars movies declined: stop it!"
I know, the first three movies were just huge advertisements for the Corellian Engineering YT-1300 and the Koensayr T-65.
Chris Hafner on December 04, 2008 at 02:19 PM
Dan Palmer: "Chris, I'm not an expert, but I am pretty confident that McQueen's GT390 Mustang would have been able to keep up with the larger heavier Charger."
Yeah, I would have thought it would be pretty close. I was going off a Motor Trend quote I remember from an issue a few years ago--found online and quoted here:
"Back in 1968, the 440-cubic-inch Charger was demonstrably quicker than the 390-cube Mustang GT, so McQueen indulged in artistic license by playing chase-and-catch against an experienced mafia wheelman. "
http://www.motortrend.com/roadtests/coupes/112_0508_muscle_cars_comparison/acceleration_handling.html
Chris Hafner on December 04, 2008 at 02:23 PM
vic: "I disagree with those who deride the Matrix chase scene. The "main character" Cadillacs in that scene are very futuristically styled and that works well in context. The scene in the garage right before the chase is cool because the cars parked in there are all Cadillacs of various vintages. I thought it was clever, not obnoxious."
I didn't mind the all-Cadillac car chase that much because both cars were interesting to look at and seemed to work in that role. It was a touch odd that both cars were Cadillac, but okay - I can buy it.
I had forgotten about the old Cadillacs in the garage - that's a great example of a nice, subtle touch.
What I'm railing against is the fact that every single car on the freeway was from GM. It was totally, completely, wildly unnatural and distracting. And not unnatural in a "Matrix" way either.
The Cadillacs on their own would have been obvious to the car luster, but not as offensive.
Chris Hafner on December 04, 2008 at 02:25 PM
Jeff the Baptist: "I know, the first three movies were just huge advertisements for the Corellian Engineering YT-1300 and the Koensayr T-65."
I know, right? Toshi Station's power converter outlet reportedly paid 4.5 million Imperial credits for Luke's mention at the beginning of SW: ANH.
ruddiger on December 04, 2008 at 02:26 PM
Was Quantum of Solace a Quinn-Martin production?
Phelps on December 04, 2008 at 02:34 PM
One show that did the product placement well was "Dirty Jobs". Mike Rowe made no attempt to cover it up as something else, and frankly, it made it more effective. My favorite was when he had to go build a billboard, and at the end of it he gave some campy line with a giant F-150 billboard behind him. It actually had the feel of the live spots from back in the 50s when advertisers actually sponsored shows. Frankly, I would rather have that than your standard canned 30 second spots.
As far as satire goes, "My Name is Earl" did a pretty good job when NBC did it's ridiculous "make an environmental statement in the show" push. The green show that they did involved Earl having to put on a Scared Straight type program for a prison, but the warden kept making him add absurdly out of place enviro-messages to the show.
comatus on December 04, 2008 at 02:52 PM
What, were you guys born yesterday? I might have been willing to accept Lazenby as Bond in "On Her Majesty's..." but when Mrs. Peel tooled off in a Cougar--which, in the book, was a Lancia--I realized that Bond movies were parodies of the books. And that was in, what was it now, '69?
Will on December 04, 2008 at 02:55 PM
2 points.
First, Ducati, most emphatically, is NOT a GM company. Every other vehicle in that Reloaded chase scene may have been, but diving, dodging, zigzagging wheel burning star of the show most certainly was NOT.
Second, everyone knows that crazed Eco-Terrorists/Meglomaniac Capitalists drive Fords. It's good to know if I buy an EDGE that I, too, can get a seat at their table.
Paul A'Barge on December 04, 2008 at 03:06 PM
Dude, if you love car placement check out the Dirty Harry franchise (Clint Eastwood).
Ford, all the way baby!!
Hucbald on December 04, 2008 at 03:36 PM
I always say to my friends, "Quick, let's take my RAM 1500 Quad Cab 4x4 Sport!" So, I just don't get the derision for the Alias episode.
/sarc
jaghawk on December 04, 2008 at 04:00 PM
The car choices are unreal in a way that destroys your willingness to suspend disbelief. But the prospect that Canadian Intelligence has cute female agents running round in Russia - for that one can still suspend disbelief. That was the credibility destroyer for me.
Smilin' Jack on December 04, 2008 at 04:02 PM
Read this whole comment thread and no one mentioned the Chrysler placement extravaganza in the Blues Brothers movie. Never saw so many cookie cutter Dodges. But, wait....there was the Pinto. As I recall, a red Pinto wagon that flew...almost. Putting the clowns in a competitor's clown car is placement done right.
Anyway, the Edges in the new Bond movie might've been the villian's attempt to maintain a low profile. Would've worked better than using red Pinto wagons, I'd think.
Chris Hafner on December 04, 2008 at 04:51 PM
jaghawk: "But the prospect that Canadian Intelligence has cute female agents running round in Russia - for that one can still suspend disbelief."
Well, sure - there is a lot of unreality in movies. But that type of unreality at least advances the plot in some way, or at least conforms to the formula.
Chris Hafner on December 04, 2008 at 04:53 PM
Smilin' Jack: "Read this whole comment thread and no one mentioned the Chrysler placement extravaganza in the Blues Brothers movie. Never saw so many cookie cutter Dodges. But, wait....there was the Pinto. As I recall, a red Pinto wagon that flew...almost. Putting the clowns in a competitor's clown car is placement done right.
On the off chance you're not kidding, I think that's because the movie was filled with police cars (current and former) and Mopar owned the police car market at the time. There were other types of cars in the movie, and a Cadillac was spoken of with some reverence. At the least, it didn't trigger my disbelief reflex.
"Anyway, the Edges in the new Bond movie might've been the villian's attempt to maintain a low profile. Would've worked better than using red Pinto wagons, I'd think."
Now you're talking.
ZZMike on December 04, 2008 at 05:28 PM
Outside of the Aston-Martin, I had no idea what any of the cars were. For one thing, they went by pretty quickly - like the scenes in the movie (which, while entertaining in an MTV sort of way, was pretty forgettable).
adam12 on December 04, 2008 at 10:20 PM
The very best TV product placement was on the old series Adam-12, where American Motors provided the Matador police cars (which were at least accurate at the time to then-current LAPD issue). The characters Reed and Malloy have a great conversation about how wonderful the new Matador coupe is that Malloy has supposedly just bought. (The Matador coupe is surely a leading contender for Ugliest American Car of the 1970's....)
Van Roberts on December 05, 2008 at 12:48 AM
I'm commenting about the auto product placement. You would cringe if you saw the original "Longest Yard" with Burt Reynolds. He drives a French car and everything else, I believe--is GM. Bonds have always gone head over heels for Fords, look at "Diamonds Are Forever" and the chase on the Las Vegas Strip. If you really want to blow your mind, go back and watch "The French Connection," I don't believe there were any cars but American cars. Product placement doesn't really bother me anymore than reading product placement in an old Ian Fleming 007 novel. It keeps it real, even if it unduly draws anything to it. How about this, Sondra Bullock's husband dies in "Premontion" because a Ford Tarus is not good to make a U-turn in on a hill with a 18-wheeler jack-knifing and wiping it out. I wonder how they sold that scene to Ford?
Carr on December 05, 2008 at 04:48 AM
Sorry, I thought the latest Bond film was a dog's dinner, but interesting that product placement has got so big in movies you didn't need Q for gadgets: that's right, they are all available on the High Street now!
As for cars... In Beetlejuice the couple who drown when their car crashes into water are, of course, not in an American car. A Volvo, I think it was. In Matrix I do remember not one bullet penetrated the door of Keanu Reeves' car, so some solid steel there! And in the TV series Heroes, one of the characters gave his daughter a small car (a Toyota?) and she throws her arms round him in sheer gratitude. No sporty, sexy beast for her!
Anthony Cagle on December 05, 2008 at 08:00 AM
>>In Matrix I do remember not one bullet penetrated the door of >>Keanu Reeves' car, so some solid steel there!
Yeah, I don't notice cars so much as blatant disregard for basic physics. In a sense, that didn't matter in the Matrix because it was all VR anyway, but still. . .YOU CAN'T HIDE BEHIND A CAR DOOR AND EXPECT IT TO STOP BULLETS.
OT, but I also hate scenes with lava and the characters are a couple feet from rivers of the stuff and radiant heat seems not to exist.
Rant off. Back to cars. Ultimate Car Lust product placement: Mike Myers and his Pacer in "Wayne's World". Pure genius.
John B on December 05, 2008 at 09:12 AM
Before we get too carried away…let’s remember that just because a car is in a film DOES NOT mean it was placed there by product placement. Like the Ford Taurus in the Bullock film…Why would Ford (or anyone else) pay to have a character die in their car in a crash scene? Sometimes producers have to buy a car. And you can’t have product placement if the firm is no longer in business…like the Pacer in Wayne’s World.
Producers sometimes use cars to help define a character. So, a used Pacer was perfect for a couple of slackers. In the old Avengers TV series you got both situations. John Steed drove a vintage Bentley: not product placement. But Emma Peel’s Lotus was…it was loaned to the show by Lotus. Still, it helped define her character as an exotic, well-heeled agent.
sonicfrog on December 05, 2008 at 10:26 AM
Here's a couple:
The first "X Files" movie might as well have been called the "O Files" movie... for Oldsmobile. They were more prominent than aliens or the black ooz.
In the season 5 opener for "Smallville" (I think it was 5), Ford really got there moneys worth.
First off, the episode was sponsored by "The New Ford Fusion", a brand new model for Ford. During the episode, Cloe and Lois have to break into a military'ish compound to get a peak at a mysterious object, which turns out to be Brainiac. One of the Clark-ettes has to distract the gate guard while the other sneaks past. Lois... I think it was Lois, (it was a few years ago and I a bit fussy on the details) pulls up to the poorly lit gate in a, you guessed it, a Ford Fusion. The guard says something like "That's a cool looking car" and Lois shows him all the great features of the car: the twenty thousand watt mp3 playing stereo, the super-duper ultra comfy plush seats, the huge glove compartment. I swear, it went on for three minutes! It's as if Lois had suddenly discovered her meteor freak power was being a new car salesman!!!
Ford had achieved a fine coup - inserting a commercial into the show itself!
Juu on December 05, 2008 at 01:14 PM
If the Edges were hydrogen versions I don't see the problem. It is plausible that the villain would need to pretend to be super-environmentally friendly and drive around in a caravan of hydrogen vehicles. Maybe his company sells Ford the technology or smth.
Also, I kinda like Ronin as it shows so many different car brands well. I don't think there's any paid product placement in that movie.
Dustin on December 06, 2008 at 06:40 AM
I'm not loving the all-Ford carscape, but here it didn't bother me much. The Edge's were indeed hydrogen-powered, which actually exist. Since Greene was an eco-villain, so to speak, it makes some sense... since they even referenced the hydrogen fuel cell powered building.
What actually makes me unhappy in this movie is a return to the same exact vehicle. I don't think he should use the DBS over and over again, just like I think they should stop trumpeting the DB5. Yes it was awesome back then, but keep with the new. And I know it's a gov't agency, but would they really keep spending a quarter million dollars on a new DBS every time Bond ruined one, when an Aston Vantage would be fine and is half the cost? Or even a Bentley Continental GT. Bentley was Flemming's Bond's car of choice anyhow. Perhaps they should make a special model just for the next Bond flick. Or a Lotus. Seriously if he comes back with another DBS, I'll be disappointed. (Though don't get me wrong, I love the car). Just mix it up is all.
Mark in Texas on December 06, 2008 at 06:25 PM
I remember that the TV show "FBI" (starring Ephraim Zimbalist Jr.) used nothing but Fords but the ultimate was the TV show "Mr.Ed" about the talking horse where everybody drove a Studebaker. In fact the show was eventually canceled, not because of bad ratings but because the sponsor, Studebaker Automobiles, went out of business.
Alexander López on December 06, 2008 at 10:16 PM
A memorable product placement (for me, at least) is the Studebaker Avanti in... The Powerpuff Girls: The Movie!! Which other car could look so futuristic it's employed for that same effect in both a comic and a movie? Yes, a movie named Gattaca!
Another one: in the ill-fated The Michael Richards Show (yes, Seinfeld's Cosmo Kramer) he did a great mockery of product placement: he and his pal were doing a fast chase in electric vehicles (don't remember which ones, but they were identical) and when they were about to get the bad guy, his sidekick turns on the radio and... the batteries go dead in one second, stopping the car!!!! LMAO