FedEx Will Crash Your Plane and Other Product Placement Fails?

A marketing technique that has been in use and effective for years is product placement. This is when brands pay the production team of movies and TV shows to place their product in their film usually in a discreet way to spread the name of the brand and therefor increase consumption. An example would be the characters of a film drinking Coca Cola. The name is subtly slipped into the viewer's mind without them even knowing. The hope is that the next time the consumer is presented with this brand, they will accept it.

Avengers Age of Ultron Clip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VOhpeugDGI

In this clip, as the avengers are suiting up for battle, quick silver grabs a pair of Adidas. He actually wears Adidas throughout the film as his costume. This makes people associate Adidas with speed because, as his name suggests, Quick Silver can run fast. However, he also dies at the end of the movie, which would make it seem that this is not good advertising by giving the message that the shoes don't necessarily guarantee victory.

Castaway Clip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_akKKf2o3I

A similar inconsistency is presented in the well know Tom Hanks movie, Castaway. This movie was sponsored by FedEx and inserted many sly FedEx logos throughout the film. However, the most noticeable FedEx advertisement is actually the giant FedEx logo on the plane that crashes and leaves Tom Hank's character marooned alone on a deserted island. It would seem that this marketing would make consumers subconsciously believe that FedEx is unreliable and can't be held to expectations of upholding the safety of you and your packages.

These ads seem to project negative messages about the products they are selling. So why do they work? Tho be honest, I have no definitive answer. My theory is that our transfer association when it comes to product placement is surface level. We like the avengers. We like Quick Silver (actually I don't but that doesn't keep him from selling shoes). Therefore, I like these shoes. Castaway is a good movie. I like Tom Hanks. Therefore, FedEx is a good shipping company. I like FedEx. It seems to me that our brains don't even dig that deep when we are presented with product placement and we end up subconsciously being more subject to consuming the product.

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