Marketing Idea No. 38 – Integrate your Brand into popular cultural vehicles – Music, Movies

July 11, 2007by Shahriar Amin1

This is quoted from agencyfaqs.com

Torrential rains and the subsequent flooding in Mumbai on July 26 two years ago are images that will stay with Mumbaikars. A soon to be released movie, ‘July 26th at Barista’, will tell the story of that fateful night and depict panic across the city on July 26.

“On that fateful night, people took shelter at their nearest Barista. Several of our stores stayed open through the night providing safe havens for people who were stranded in the rain,” says Rini Dutta, V-P, marketing, Barista.

The movie highlights how brew masters went beyond their line of duty in helping people in any way they could. They dispensed coffee, water, milk, chocolate and shared whatever food was available at the outlets.

“Since it acknowledged that Barista stores stayed open through the night to help needy commuters, we decided to go ahead with the idea when the producers approached us,” says Dutta, explaining how the Barista brand name came to be placed in the movie.

A movie title with a brand name embedded in it isn’t unheard of, at least in Hollywood. In 1985, a movie called ‘The Coca Cola Kid’ was released in which a hotshot American marketing executive (played by Roberts) from the Coca-Cola company visits their Australian operations and tries to figure out why a tiny corner of Australia has so far resisted all of Coke’s products. The movie did a world of good to the brand and went on to become a hit.

“Surely, in-title and in-script placement are the way ahead from in-film placement. The story of people taking shelter at Barista outlets on that catastrophic night might be a real story, but it seems to be an innovative way to say we don’t just sell coffee, we are also good to our customers,” says a media analyst.

The brand maintains that there was no monetary exchange. “This shouldn’t be treated as in-film product placement. We haven’t received or paid any sum of money to be part of the movie. The movie in a way acknowledges and pays respect to the brew masters who went beyond the call of duty. It also communicates the fact that we as a brand always put our guests first, and it should be seen in that respect,” responds Dutta.

The movie has been shot extensively in a Barista store.

One segment of media planners believe that in-script placement involves a high degree of risk. Says Mona Jain, Executive V-P, ZenithOptimedia, “If the movie is successful, it will augur well for the brand, but if film bombs at the box-office, it will result in negative publicity.”

Also, this isn’t the first time such an idea has come up in India. Says Jain, “In-script placement isn’t a new idea in India. In the movie ‘Lage Raho Munnabhai’, arguably Perfetti was the reason for the tagline ‘Lage Raho’, and a few years back, Milind Soman was producing a movie with a popular TV brand in the title, but it didn’t materialise.”

One comment

  • Mohammad Jobaed Adnan

    July 17, 2007 at 9:53 am

    The 20th Century Fox and DreamWorks presented us the well known movie “Cast Away” (released on 22 December, 2000). In this movie we can find out FedEx’s product placement marketing. Wilson Sporting Goods/Wilson also jumped out the box with a notable character in the same movie. That character was an abstract volleyball called “Wilson”, the only friend of Chuck Noland (Tom Hanks) on the island.

    Reply

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