College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Iowa State University

Products on TCM

Research project by Greenlee's Jay Newell results in month-long series on Turner Classic Movies.
The latest BMW sports car is shown throughout any number of James Bond movies. Macintosh computers appear throughout a bevy of televisions shows like "The West Wing" or "Sex in the City."

Product placement is everywhere in the film and television industry.

And according to Jay Newell, assistant professor in the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication, the phenomenon didn't begin when Elliott lured his alien friend with a specific candy in "E.T."

"The commonly held theory is that product placement began with Reese's Pieces in ‘E.T.,'" said Newell. "But there are much earlier examples of companies intentionally placing their products into the movies as opposed to the director simply utilizing a product for a plot line or visual effect. The earliest example of product placement was for Lever Brothers' Sunlight soap in 1896.

"Hollywood has always worked closely with other industries to promote the consumption of their products."

Newell has extensively researched the use of products in the motion picture industry and that effort has caught the attention of Turner Classic Movies (TCM), a cable television network devoted to great films.

In March, TCM will offer examples of product placement in the movies over four consecutive Friday evenings. Newell says TCM is always looking for different ways to package classic movies by showing films on the same evening that have a connection - such as featuring the same actor, director or Oscar winning films.

Beginning Friday, March 4, the tie-in will be product placement and the films were selected based upon Newell's research.

"TCM picked the movies they are showing from my list and descriptions of the product placement in the films," said Newell, who previously worked at Turner Broadcasting's CNN and TNT.

The films range from 1932's "Scarface" where actor Paul Muni smoked a cigar in the film and the producers auctioned off the merchandising rights to tobacco companies to 1980's "Urban Cowboy" which featured product placements of Budweiser and Stetson hats.

"At that point product placement was extremely sophisticated," Newell said. "The producers had an agreement with Budweiser, who promoted ‘Urban Cowboy' in their advertisements."

Other films scheduled to be shown are "Gold Diggers of 1935" and "A Night at the Ritz" (both feature Buick cars); "You'll Never Get Rich" with Fred Astaire, spokesperson for Chesterfield Cigarettes, with an elaborate tap-dance while smoking a cigarette; and "That Uncertain Feeling" with DeBeers diamonds.

Also included will be "Love Affair," "Father of the Bride," "The Seven Year Itch," "Three Guys Named Mike," "Arsenic and Old Lace" and "Superman II."

In between movies, a product placement professional from the classic film era will be interviewed. Newell helped arrange that interview and consulted on the scripts for the introduction to the 12 movies in the series.

Newell has spent hours looking in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences archives for references to product placement. He found in Hollywood's early years there were frequently promotional relationships that mandated particular products should be used in films, "in essence creating subtle advertisements."

The placements were many times blatant according to Newell. A couple of his favorites didn't make the series.

"'Love Happy' was the Marx Brothers' last film and Marilyn Monroe's first," Newell said. "The Marx Brothers literally sold a chase sequence where Harpo is chased by the bad guys through scene after scene with companies' signs featured prominently."

In "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World," Coke was used when a plane flew through a large billboard and when a character destroyed a rural gas station with a cooler with Coke printed notably on it.

"Product placement is interesting, not so much as a critical aspect of the film itself, but as a reflection in how advertising has saturated society and how the movies have reflected that saturation," Newell said.