Has anyone else noticed this?
How many brand names do we say per day?
If you're someone that visits and talks about any of those sites, it probably doesn't seem out of place to you. You probably don't even realize you're doing it. It's just something that is a natural thing to be discussed since that's where you spend your time.
It felt strange. I recall the discussion about the aggressive advertising on YT so.. maybe I was primed to think this in reading.
The time Terry Pratchett’s German publisher inserted a soup ad into his novel (2011)
I don't think authors get paid to include name brands as adverts. I think what you and I are seeing is men of a certain age thinking things are "cool" and then using the name of a product or service to themselves appear "cool" or in-touch.
I personally always feel it has the exact opposite effect for the reason you already said: authors who do this do it so often that it becomes extremely noticeable and scene-breaking.
King, as you note, does this a lot and his name often comes up when people are talking about it: he was in fact one of the first well known authors to use this device regularly. I agree that he's definitely overdoing it these days.
Also comes to mind a meta-use of this in American Psycho (not from King!), were the psychopathic narrator only uses external appearance and brands to describe people.
Almost all of FFP999’s comments are dead but all the ones I skimmed seemed constructive.
Done well though it works perfectly fine. It's not like everything is huge brands out there, so there's plenty room for random branding.
And once in a while somebody comes up with something neat. I think "Pesterchum" is a great name for a messenger app.
To use your example, if I am reading a book set in mid-2010s Seattle and a character is wandering down Pike Street after a bad date, it would be jarring to see them using an app called “Pesterchum”
I personally don’t care for books that conspicuously take place in the present day and feature fairly regular people. I’m reading to have some time away from screens—I don’t want to read about people staring at screens! But I know lots of people who find books like these more relatable and interesting.
So from that article, not really. It wasn't really successful when it was tried. So I would guess some Authors just like doing it because of their own reasons.
Many authors choose to dance around it or invent fictional brands because doing so can make a work timeless, but many authors and audiences are specifically interested in fixing a work into a place or time. Others just don’t see a reason to bother with all the dancing around.
There’s almost no market/value established for advertising brands in a novel in general, and there’s vanishingly small value in doing so for a ubiquitous brand like YouTube. In your example, it’s definitely not sponsored. It’s just a stylistic choice.
Not sure if he is doing it for money, because he is friends with the company, or because they are what the character would use. Possibly a combination.
1. “After bringing my date to see the Barbie movie, we picked up a pair of blue Ray Bans at Sunglass Hut and a new top from the Gucci pop up across the plaza. Kim Kardashian was debuting a new product line.”
2. “After bringing my date to see the year’s blockbuster film, we picked up a blue pair of designer sun glasses at a mall sunglasses kiosk and a new top from a brand name designer pop up across the plaza. A TV celebrity was debuting a new product line.”
#2 would age better since it’s more generic. But I like #1 since the time and place of the scene is more deeply encoded in the story.
I don't think I mention brand names that often in conversation or in thought, the natural place is somewhere in the middle.
The most obvious solution is to not describe these products at all. Frankly, they're irrelevant. There's no actual need to describe this extraneous stuff. Conserve detail. Attention is better spent in other areas such as the actual date and the feelings being experienced.
3. “After bringing my date to see a film she really wanted to watch, we picked up a pair of sun glasses at the mall and a new top across the plaza. It was really fun shopping with her. Some celebrity was debuting a new product line and she got really excited about it but all I could think about was how cute she looked.”
If you must describe products, invent fictitious brands. Just make them up on the spot. Better than advertising for free.
I do know some local mystery novels who sell off the right to name a character at some of the local charity auctions for schools or other organizations. It's kind of cute.
Not to mention Silas Flannery..
I doubt a large company like google would approach individual authors. Generally these kind of things are done thru brokers or marketplaces of sorts.
I can't help but feel .. tricked in a way, but .. I am maybe too sensitive to the advertising in general. I hope advertising does not invade my books, too..