Product Placement Watch: I am Number Apple Four-G; Britney's Plenty Of Fishy Product Placement (via brandchannel)

Product Placement Watch: I am Number Apple Four-G; Britney's Plenty Of Fishy Product Placement

Posted by Abe Sauer on February 18, 2011 06:00 PM

The above clip from I am Number Four, the likely top film opening this weekend, proves that one sure way to "blend in" is to carry an iPhone.
Also in our weekend look at product placement in entertainment, Britney Spears' new video asks, "Would you hold it against me?" If she's talking about the product placement in the clip, the answer is "yes."
Looking at I am Number Four again, why yes, those are Apple monitors in the background. Looks like lots of Apple placement in fact:

I am Number Four will also have a Ducati placement. You may remember that Disney, the studio for this film, found a nice place for Ducati in Tron: Legacy.

In other product placement news, even while commercials for the DVD of The Social Network remain common on TV, a TV show wrote the film into its plot. A recent episode of The Good Wife imagines what would have been. The law firm of the main character takes on a Mark Zuckerberg-like defamation lawsuit against the studio that produced the social media tell all. The full episode is available here.
Over in the U.K., where broadcatsers are grappling with the new "P" product placement logo required on programing, Prince Charles's wife Camilla scored a product placement coup of sorts when she appeared in beloved TV series, The Archers. From The Guardian:

"Camilla's modest scene in the latest episode of the BBC's longest-running soap opera, recorded weeks ago at Clarence House, involved nothing more taxing than her supposedly visiting Ambridge's Grey Gables hotel, discussing her charity, the Osteoporosis Society, sampling the shortbread of the chef, Ian Craig, and engaging in a little gentle banter: 'So, you're the genius with the shortbread? It was perfect, but the diet starts tomorrow!'"

Camilla did not even mention the brand name, yet sales of the Duchy Originals brand (coincidentally marketed by her husband) have since boomed.
Britney Spears follows her pop rivals with her new video, packing it with product placement:

The perfume. The Sony. All about par for the course. And then there is Plenty Of Fish.
Three is a trend and this marks the third music video by a female pop singer in the last year to include ridiculously prominent product placement for the dating website.
As we've noted, the site appeared in both Ke$ha's video for We R Who We R, and before that in Lady Gaga's video for Telephone. But the Spears placement is by far Plenty Of Fish's most egregious yet. The trifecta, in order from Gaga, to Ke$ha to Spears, below:



At least we know that Katy Perry won't be following suit.
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If you spot any interesting product placements at the movies or on TV this weekend, post a comment below.
And on Feb. 22, brandchannel announces our annual Brandcameo Product Placement Awards
.