‘Product placement’ or ‘brand placement’, which is the correct term?

I’ve always preferred ‘brand placement’. If a detergent were to be used in a movie then it would be a real brand (Bold, Tide, or the like) and not just a box with ‘detergent’ written on it. But, as it turns out, I’m in the minority. My preference doesn’t count. The term ‘product placement’ is the one most used in the industry. Easily confirmed by comparing the two terms in Google Trends, where ‘product placement’ outstrips ‘brand placement’ by fifty to one.

We are surrounded by products and brands. It’s our reality. If you made a movie based in our world, our reality, it would make sense to include the brands and products that we find around us. Not just that but it would be weird not to.

Our choices of brands and product tell stories about us. They tell other people something about us. It’s why we are so brand conscious. Or at least most of us are. Some of us wouldn’t be caught dead wearing certain brands. It would send a message that we didn’t want to send. Others embrace those brands because it sends exactly the right message.

In a movie the product choices a character makes tell us stories too. The main character in a movie drives a rusting Ford Mustang that belches smoke and makes weird banging noises. What do we find out about the character from that? Maybe the character isn’t very well off. Maybe the character is just going through a rough patch. Maybe the character isn’t a car person and doesn’t care that the car is a real clunker. It’s just a piece of information about the character that we end up putting together with all the other bits to get a clearer picture of the character.

We pick up on cues from brands and products as we’re watching movies. We’re not always meant to get strong signals from them. So, sometimes we’re consciously aware of them, sometimes not.  If used badly they’re jarring if used well they add to our experience.