Movies as Instruction Manuals

Ad Age's online newsletter Madison + Vine reports, under the headline "Turning Staid Tech Gadgets into Sexy Product Placements" that Cisco Systems "like other high-tech companies, is increasingly relying on product placements and integrations of its brand and wares in high-profile TV shows and movies as a way to demonstrate the capabilities of its often hard-to-describe-in-one-sentence products." This business-oriented rationale for product placement is a far cry from the common, consumer-oriented line about 'movie-goers just not buying into no-name brands anymore'; or the idea that we now 'demand realism' in the movies we pay to see (and that realism equals brands).