THE HISTORY OF PRODUCT PLACEMENT

We are all familiar with the practice of promoting products by placing them in movies but that particular advertising technique goes back much further than you might imagine.

It originated as long ago as 1896 when film projection pioneers the Lumiere brothers made a short film called Washing Day in Switzerland which prominently featured a bar of soap called Sunlight.

Ever since then, product placement has exploded and there have been countless success stories over the years.

These included the winner of the first Oscar for best picture, 1927 film Wings starring Gary Cooper and Clara Bow, featuring Hershey’s chocolate bars.

By the 1930s, tobacco companies paid fortunes to stars like Clark Gable, Joan Crawford, Spencer Tracy and Carole Lombard to smoke their Lucky Strike cigarettes on screen.

Alcohol brands became increasingly seen in movies in the 1950s and Gordon’s Gin paid big money to have Katharine Hepburn pour its bottles overboard in The African Queen.

The James Bond films first appeared in the 1960s – with 17 product placements in the first film Dr No – and that character has continued to be a walking advertising billboard ever since as 007’s sophistication, sex appeal and style make him attractive to advertisers.

Success of product placement can be measured in sales. Ray-Ban had sold only 18,000 pairs of Wayfarer sunglasses until Tom Cruise wore them in 1983’s Risky Business and more than 360,000 pairs were sold in the weeks following the film’s release.

Countless examples since then have continued to prove the value to all sort of products of investing in film – and to think it all started with a bar of soap.

Sandro Monetti