Liminal Advertising

These words, you should know, are being generated on an Apple Cube (Power PC, G4 processor inside) as I sip a glass of Evian between swigs of Dos Equis. I make a few MCI calls and glance at a Charles Schwab statement that shows the movement of Oppenheimer funds. That info sticks out from under Stouffer's Macaroni and Cheese and French's mustard as we re-re-re-rediscover product placement's intrusion into a nation's consciousness. Certainly the efficacy of product displacement is proved. The first QED: Clark Gable destroys the T-shirt industry in 1934 when, in a motel room with Claudette Colbert, he takes off his shirt and reveals not underwear but a chest. The second: John F. Kennedy's inaugural, where he eschews homburgs, fedoras and stovepipes to let his unhairsprayed hair wave in the breeze. So one wonders, had BVD and Stetson offered Harry Cohn of Columbia Pictures and John Bailey of the Democratic National Committee suitable compensation to include their wares in the proceedings, could the undershirt and hat industries have staved off the threat of extinction? Back when ad agencies and advertisers ran programming, getting the show placed was the issue, given the prominence of the sponsor's merch. Henry Morgan, the 5-foot-9 ubiquitous panelist and latter-day voiceover talent, used to talk about a quiz show he emceed in which he spent 30 minutes inside a 5-foot-2 soup can. He said he was glad it was canceled because with the primitive TV lighting he was shedding weight faster than Native Dancer's jockey, and he left every show dizzy and begging for water. Around the same time, Gracie Allen and her announcer, Harry Von Zell, plopped down in her kitchen for coffee flavored by sponsor Carnation Evaporated Milk. As they discussed George Burns's machinations or Blanche Morton's recalcitrant lawn mower, Von Zell explained to Gracie that the coffee tasted so good because the Carnation Milk came from "contented cows." It was the only Von Zell straight line she didn't treat with devastating grammatical, linguistic and logical interpretation. Too bad for the cows that she didn't brand Carnation with her signature humor, as canned milk's market share itself began to evaporate.1 In the hierarchy of product placements, research puts the White House at the top: jelly beans (Reagan); Ian Fleming, Marilyn Monroe, touch football (Kennedy); Chateau Petrus '61, tape recorders, child-proof aspirin caps (Nixon); toasted English muffins (Ford); golf and a line of cool jackets (Eisenhower); cigarette boats (Bush I); cigars, Walt Whitman, fast food (Clinton); peanuts and Billy Beer (Carter); beagle ownership (LBJ); I Am Charlotte Simmons and Natan Sharansky (Bush II). All of them gained from presidential association without emolument for the chief executive. The future financial requirements of "maximizing the incumbency," though, may make quid pro quo the favored governmental Latinism over e pluribus unum. Who knows how many logos may grace the Oval Office of the future? Dropping down in class, Jeffrey Katzenberg's Diet Coke immersion gets more mentions in the bestseller DisneyWar than Bambi and Dumbo combined. We know the excellent reporter James B. Stewart isn't on the take; in fact, his media confrere at The New Yorker, Ken Auletta, thinks integration and synergy are contemporary capital sins, line extensions of avarice, envy and sloth. And though Alec Baldwin once referred to Katzenberg as the eighth dwarf, Greedy, it is hard to imagine Jeffrey being so prescient as to cut a deal with Coca-Cola for perpetual product appearances in his life. But the persnickety reader or viewer—inundated as he is with brand references in all media, including "reality" shows like American Idol, where everyone has a Coke cup, maybe even with cola in it—pauses with each product mention and cross-references parent companies for collusion. Even as I may be suspect in the first paragraph here for dropping eight names, seven of which are clients of the agency formerly known as Messner. Me? I'm a sucker for product placements in movies. In the 1961 film The Hustler, Fast Eddie Felson's drink is J.T.S. Brown.2 He orders it in tanktown bars, at the Kentucky Derby, by the bottle while shooting straight pool at Ames in Times Square, at a wino-chic liquor store near the Greyhound bus station that was a precursor of the Port Authority. I, on the other hand, ordered it everywhere I went, but none of the establishments ever heard of it or knew if it was bourbon or rye or a blended something or other. Finally, I dropped into Neir's3, a 19th-century bar that still lives on 78th Street in Woodhaven, Queens. Figured if anyone carried the stuff it would be them. "J.T.S. Brown," I said. "On the rocks, a little water on the side." "Here, have a shot of Fleischmann's and a short beer chaser," said the bartender. "Want a hard-boiled egg with that?" Perfect. By the time the sequel, The Color of Money, was shot, Paul Newman's character had given up pool and J.T.S. Brown. Not good timing for the brand, as Scorsese had chosen Phil Marco, the great tabletop director and photographer, to shoot the pool sequences. Nobody ever shot alcohol being poured as well as Phil Marco, and J.T.S. Brown could have been the hot bourbon or rye or blended something or other of 1986. If it ever got distribution beyond the prop department.

Brand Marketing

Liminal Advertising

Adweek Staff

About

Subscriptions

Events

Publications

WORK SMARTER - LEARN, GROW AND BE INSPIRED.

Subscribe today!

Adweek Staff