Dream Tropes Wiki/Product Placement

Template:Trope
Otherwise known as a "plug" or "writing commercials right into a show". The practice of prominently displaying or talking about a recognizable product in a program, in exchange for some consideration from the manufacturer, usually monetary. The manufacturer hopes to cause The Red Stapler effect, but it far more often results in snarky comments from the peanut gallery.

This trope isn't always invoked for mercenary reasons; many times it just wouldn't be plausible for a character in a shopping mall to walk past nothing but unnamed Brand X. Or a world set 20 Minutes into the Future won't have suddenly lost the culture of billboard advertisements and product logos which defines the modern day. Real brands add veritas in these cases. Plus some filmmakers striving for as much realism as possible would rather use recognizable products than Brand X. On the other hand, even when it begins with the best intentions, contractual obligations to have the dialogue actually mention a placed product can easily turn malignant.

The least subtle version of this kind of embedded advertising is the Enforced Plug, which, in America, was common in early television (when the commercials literally were considered more important than the programming) and still is in radio.

With reruns, DVD and downloads, this can be the gift that keeps on giving for advertisers. After all, the commercials that aired on the original broadcast aren't retained in any of these. Product placement is, at least most of the time, though there have been instances of company logos being digitally blurred out for things such as television broadcasts of movies, if the sponsoring company didn't pay for the additional product placement in these broadcasts. It can also backfire in the case of a 20 Minutes into the Future production that happens to feature a product or brand that in real life ceased to exist by the time the production was set (a prime example being Pan Am, an airline featured prominently in the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, which ceased to exist by the time the real 2001 rolled around. note )

This can occasionally be Truth in Television, since people who enjoy a given product are naturally more likely to say good things about it and/or recommend it to their friends - and, of course, it's not uncommon to name-drop brands in day-to-day conversation (see the genericizing of Coke and Band-Aid, despite the latter's best efforts). It starts to get a little gratuitous if everyone in the work, good or bad, drinks the same brand of beer, though... and if a character refers to a product exclusively by its "official" name (it's not just a phone, it's not just an iPhone, it's the iPhone 5c, thank you very much), all bets are off.

One thing important to remember is that not all products visible in television, or film, are the result of product placement; sometimes background logos are unavoidable, or producers choose a product for other reasons, and there's no exchange of money with the manufacturer. (One notable example, 2001: A Space Odyssey, used Product Placement for a rather specific reason: To make the future presented much more plausible to audiences in 1968.) Even so, some viewers find product placement to be more offensive than sex, violence or the Seven Dirty Words, to the point where parental movie review websites often make a point of singling out films with excessive (or, sometimes, simply any) recognizable brands or products.

For two particular examples, see Everybody Owns a Ford and its computer equivalent, Everyone Owns A Mac.

Compare Merchandise-Driven, Product Promotion Parade, and Advertisement Game. Contrast with Brand X or Product Displacement. When a character from a show is endorsing the product, it's Celebrity Endorsement. See Destroy the Product Placement, when said product placement is damaged, broken or destroyed. See Console Cameo for when the product is required to see the placement in the first place.

## Serious Examples

### Film - Live Action

* Neo-Shifters: The Beginning has an amount of Coca-Cola cans in the desk of Quinn's bedroom. And how could we forget the bike Quinn rides is a Yamaha.
* The Technic Heroes franchise. Ugh...
	+ Technic and Template:W are brought up so often that you'd swear it helps with the heroes' superpowers.
	+ Dunkin' Donuts is also brought up a lot nowadays, in several films they actually fed the cast and crew and there are also scenes where the heroes go out to the said restaurant.
	+ Judging by it's appearance, Lana Reeve appears to have a TheoryBook Compact.
	+ Bionicle VII: Sea of Darkness features a large amount of IBM computers, as well as TheoryDesks, TMC CM-2s and Macintosh Pluses. There's also G&L guitars and Members Only jackets too. Template:W stated in a interview prior to his death that the G&L plugs earned his second attempt at replicating Template:W's success upwards of about $5 million.
	+ In Quest for the Masks, Jirou accidentally woke up the Makuta with the recording that was playing on the Portosic.
	+ Bionicle VI: Island of Doom has the scene where a gang of people who would later become a Sydney resistance team, are having a picnic with food and drinks including Schweppes, Tarax, CC's, Smiths and Pepsi.
	+ Bionicle: The Next Generation has Windows 95, Netspace Navigator and TheoryPhone. The TheoryPhone plug is so forced that Template:W would be telling our heroes to tone it down.
	+ Lana X4: Tales of Kleni, taking place primarily in Template:W, has a lot of product placement for Template:W, a British soda popular among Muslims as a Moral Substitute for wine, in addition to the obligatory Technic and Pepsi shilling. Justified, in that Technic Drinks, Inc. holds the El Kadsreian license to Vimto.
	+ Boost 3: Revolution has product placement for Template:W due to the combined fact that it takes place in the Template:W for most of it's screentime and because El TV Kadsre Television Network and Banushen Media Corporation syndicate several of the shows through PBS stations Stateside. Template:W, a sponsor of PBS' kids programming at the time, paid to have a scene take place there (explained as the heroes being in a rush and not bothering to chose an age-appropriate fast-food place) complete with their mascot(s) appearing and fed the cast and crew. Template:W and Template:W make cameos as well. And of course, there was the Technic and Pepsi shilling.
	+ Bionicle IX: The Legend Reborn has the heroes driving the convertible BMW M3.
	+ In Hunterbots: The Beginning, our heroes are having a picnic of Mr. Cook hamburgers and french fries in the opening scenes.
	+ Robolights has John Deere farm equipment.

### Western Animation

* *Countryballs: The Animated Series*:
	+ The Polandball comic where Russia's lunch is Omskaya vodka was adapted, with the reveal of the lunchbox's contents being represented by a live-action video of Christopher Berger's hand opening a 1970's Fueian Nu, pogodi lunchbox containing a bottle of said vodka.
	+ Indonesia is obsessed with Indomie instant noodles, as in the webcomics.
	+ Sweden's love for IKEA from the webcomics was also brought over.
	+ One recent skit has a spoof of Tide's "It's a Tide ad" commercials from the 2018 Template:W, Indonesiaball is making a statement about instant noodles, only for a USAball (voiced by Template:W, the star of said ads) to announce that it's just a Tide ad. Cue Indonesia taking out a bazooka, yelling "Aloha snackbar", and blowing the ball to bits before pulling down a curtain with the Indomie logo on it over the scene.
	+ One of the liberal USAballs is shown wearing a bandana with the Template:W logo in full view on it, especially in the skits storyboarded by Fuad Mohsen Al-Dhafiri.
		- Fuad has also drawn another liberal USAball that accompanies that one as wearing a poncho with the Freedom from Religion Foundation logo on it.
	+ Crossed with Take That whenever Reichtangle brings up his supporters, which include PETA and Sprint (the latter has had an unhealthy obsession with bashing their competitors *hard* as of late). PETA responded by thanking El TV Kadsre Animation for the free advertising and sent them vegan cookies... which Brock Baker and Amir Peure promptly *burnt with fire*. On a livestream. Whilst eating delicious rotisserie chicken. Sprint also thanked El TV Kadsre for free advertising, and Lampshaded said obsession in their thank you video.
	+ Some of the skits involving Denmarkball and LEGOs are basically commercials for said product with the Countryballs along for the ride.
	+ In one skit, this is crossed with Waxing Lyrical. When USAball notices how Eukestauziaball is hot when cross-dressed in a hijab, he says "My, oh my, say goodbye a little longer, make it last a little longer, give your breath long-lasting freshness with Big Red."