Thursday, March 14, 2013

Transformers 1: Effective Advertising or Product Placement Overload?

By: Timothy Calaiezzi
Transformers 1 was an extremely successful movie. The box office results back that up as it was the highest grossing non sequel movie in 2007 as it grossed 709.7 million. Transformers is also known as one of most popular movies with significant product placement from General Motors, some have even criticized the movie saying it felt like a long GM ad.  The product placement occurs throughout the movie, Autobot transformers are all GM vehicles while government vehicles seen such as when Sam Wytwicky (Shia Labeouf) is arrested are also General Motors. 
I believe this was very effective advertising since the movie was a big success to begin with, furthermore while these products got a large amount of screen time it was all within the plot and did not take away from the overall movie. Another reason I believe GM product placement was also effective as it showed their vehicles in a positive light, as Transformers they were the stars of the movie. What do you think? Effective advertising, or product placement overload? 

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