The Main Experience

In a recent article in The New Yorker (Feb. 7, 2005), Louis Menand describes, with deadly precision, what he calls the "main cinematic experience." It certainly bears repeating here, in all its familiar absurdity: "The tickets, including the surcharge for ordering online, cost about the same as the monthly cable bill. A medium popcorn is five dollars; the smallest bottled water is three. The show begins with twenty minutes of commercials, spots promoting the theatre chain, and previews for movies coming out next Memorial Day, sometimes a year from next Memorial Day."

"The feature includes any combination of the following: wizards; slinky women of few words; men of few words who can expertly drive anything, spectacularly wreck anything, and leap safely from the top of anything; characters from comic books, sixth-grade world-history textbooks, or 'Bulfinch's Mythology'; explosions; phenomena unknown to science; a computer whiz with attitude; a brand-name soft drink, running shoe, or candy bar; an incarnation of pure evil; more explosions; and the voice of Robin Williams. The movie feels about twenty minutes too long; the reviews are mixed; nobody really loves it; and it grosses several hundred million dollars."

And so it goes. (And so we go back - inexplicably.)

Posted by matt at June 23, 2005 11:35 AM | Comments (0)

Genres, periods, and Willie Wonka.

This week Advertising Age reports that "Despite the lack of direct product placement opportunities, Warner Bros. has signed a star cast of tie-in marketing partners for its new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory film." Indeed, in typically gushy prose, Ad Age declares that "Nestle USA, Wendy's, Target, Wal-Mart, Amex buy into movie."

A "lack of direct product placement opportunities"? Well, maybe it's true: there are still some movie scripts that resist placement, especially historical dramas (unlike. say, Hollywood's favorite cashcow, the relentlessly upbeat, contemporary, youth-oriented comedy). But why would a highly dependable kids' fantasy about a candy factory leave the placement agents stymied? Perhaps Tim Burton - or the estate of Roald Dahl - put their foot down.

Cheery movies that draw on the recent past are often game for placements, for example Pleasantville or Forrest Gump. And futuristic or sci-fi films provide a great opportunity to suggest that a current-day brand has the future all sewn up. (In Demolition Man (1993), Sandra Bullock's character reminds us that "Taco Bell was the only restaurant to survive the frnachise wars." So there you go.) But brands are more fragile than examples like this suggest: as the ever-popular 'Blade Runner Curse' attests, very prominent brands can quickly fall from view. In the case of Blade Runner, the list includes Pan Am, Atari, TWA and Cuisine Art.

Comments? Thoughts? Add them here or bring them to the Brand Hype Forum.

Posted by matt at June 10, 2005 03:21 PM | Comments (0)