Product placement is the name for in film advertising, where a corporation pays for its products to be display prominently in a movie. The Bond films have led the way, as can be seen from this montage from Casino Royale.
At the weekend, I saw the delightful Pixar movie, Up. It had a very odd example product placement, a mention in dialogue and then a scene outside an ice-cream parlour. This was not a multi-national like Baskin-Robbins or Hargen-Das, or even Diary Queen. This was Fenton’s, an ice-cream parlour with just two outlets; one in Vacaville and the original in Oakland. The latter one is not far from the Pixar studios, so I imagine that the creators of the film must enjoy the excellent ice-cream and included this nod to an Oakland institution.
