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Comment by munificent | Hacker News Reader

> On TV, the ground rules are clearer: Ads come when the show takes a break.

Oh, you sweet summer child. TV and film would love you to believe that, but today product placement omnipresent. Michael Bay's Transformers movie is basically an ad for General Motors occasionally interrupted by robots. It's not enough to jam product placement into every inch of cinema being produced today. They now also go back retroactively insert product placement into older productions[1].

[1]: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/old-videos-new...

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Some more blatant TV examples:

- Knight Rider 2008 was basically a long-form Ford commercial, featuring not just the Mustang, but a Mustang that could transform into... any other model of Ford automobile. Ford commercials also played during the break.

- The infamous attempt by Microsoft to get the phrase "Bing it" to catch on, by paying shows like Hawaii Five-0 to use it in dialog during the show.

- My personal favorite example was Chuck, which dodged cancellation once or twice specifically because of the extent of it's product placement partnership with Subway. It was so blatant that the showrunners made detailed descriptions of Subway sandwiches during the show literally a running gag.

For a movie, Michael Bay's "The Island":

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeVQwomIgjs

His Transformers movies also have a horrendous amount of product placement

A big reason I added television examples, specifically, is that the article was talking about television, not movies, and the supposed dividing line between commercial breaks and television shows themselves.

Your examples are great, thanks for adding them!

Not just product placement, and not just "today" either. I can recall so many cartoons from my childhood in the 80's (He-Man and G.I. Joe come to mind) which were nothing but long-form promotional content aimed directly at kids.

I recently watched a couple of episodes of Street Sharks because I liked it growing up and wanted to have a bit of a nostalgia binge. The whole thing is an ad for the toys.

Basically if I can clearly see a real product's logo, even for a quick moment, it's 90% chance that it was paid product placement

Unless someone really screwed up, any logo you see is absolutely an advertisement (with the exception of live format stuff like the news). They have to get permission to use brands, just like clearance for songs.

Are you sure? What law would you breaking by having someone drink a specific brand of soda on screen in a short movie? Trademark? What if it's topical?

What if there is a scene that involves a car, such as driving a car? Should movies ideally "make" their own car, or is there a way to use an existing car without being accused of product placement?

Copyright violation for reproducing their logo without permission. One could probably make a case that it's fair use most of the time, but why go to the trouble when you can instead get them to pay you to have that logo on the screen?

There's also advertising overlays even when the show isn't on break, which I find especially terrible.

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