Ads in movies


From 2010 product placement is allowed again in Hungary. The audience usually doesn’t like it, but many marketing expertise believe in it. Today it became part of our lives. So, what to know about it?

It might be surprising, but this kind of indirect marketing now has a century long tradition. Rumors said that even Julius Verne had been visited by different ‘travel agencies’ trying to influence him to mention their names in his novels.

Thus product placement is not the exclusive innovation of recent days, it’s a fact that this kind of marketing were spread widely only from the 1980’s. Along with the different series and TV shows, brands started to appear in Hollywood blockbusters too. This – quite reasonably – is a logical conclusion. Namely, because these brands are surrounding us in our everyday life, so avoiding them could be a larger challenge than integrating them into a movie. Furthermore product placement is profitable for both sides: brands get more attention and film makers get more money at their hands.

Everyone has memories about one or more successful cooperation. Car manufacturers got great opportunities in the films Matrix and Transformers, and we shouldn’t forget about James Bond who had only driven Aston Martins for decades before switching to BMW’s. Another symbolic product was Ray-Ban sunglasses in the 80’s wore by Tom Cruise in Top Gun, which movie was mostly created to support US Navy’s popularity. This product placement was so successful, that the sale of the type 3025 Large Aviator rose 40%. It goes without saying that food industry giants don’t want to miss this sort of opportunity either. That’s why Coca-Cola became a centre piece of the movie The Gods Must Be Crazy, or just remember Dr. Pepper in Forrest Gump, only a few to mention.

In the 90’s product placement appeared in Hungarian TV series too, such as Szomszédok or Família Kft. and it was on until 1996, when a new decree banned this form of advertising. The ban lasted until 2010, when the Parliament decided that brands could appear in entertaining contents again. For example, Való Világ 4 was among the first programs that had product placement again.

So, this kind of cooperation is viable in Hungary, and it could be really profitable with an ideal agreement. On top of that, with a good concept, a brand could become a great atmospheric element in a movie, as we saw in the case of Üvegtigris and Arany Ászok. Plenty of good opportunities to take, the only question is who can utilize it?

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