From Reese’s Pieces to Fed Ex, products star in movies because they sell

Q: This question concerns the influence that movies have can have on product sales. I can think of two examples: “A Charlie Brown Christmas” supposedly brought aluminum tree purchases to a screeching halt and resurrected sales of real trees. About 20 years later, the movie “Smokey and the Bandit” revived the ailing Pontiac Firebird brand with sales of more than 350,000 vehicles the next two years! Can you list other movies and the products they elevated?

A: Oh, come on, Bill, do you really think people are so impressionable that they would buy a product just because they saw Yoda drinking a Bud or James Bond wearing Keds?

Well, of course, you and I would never be that silly, but companies now happily fork over billions for the chance to get their products shown in movies and TV shows because the rewards can be huge. I’ll give you three more quick examples:

Remember the 1986 movie “Top Gun” and how dashing the fearless Tom Cruise looked in jeans, leather jacket and sunglasses? Within seven months of the movie’s release, sales of those Ray-Ban Aviators surged 40 percent, adding to the newfound success the sunglasses manufacturer had earned through the miracle of product placement.

By the late 1970s, sales of the once-popular Ray-Ban Wayfarer model had slipped to fewer than 20,000 a year, but in 1982 the company signed a $50,000 contract with Unique Product Placement in Burbank, Calif. After being seen in “Risky Business” (another Tom Cruise flick) along with “Miami Vice,” “Moonlighting” and “The Breakfast Club,” Wayfarers started flying off the shelves — from 360,000 in 1983 to 1.5 million in 1986.

On the other hand, companies suffered the consequences when they refused producers’ requests to have their products used. Take “E.T.,” for example. According to “Branded Entertainment” by Jean-Marc Lehu, Steven Spielberg initially asked the Mars candy company for the right to use M&M’s, but Mars declined. So, Spielberg went to Hershey, and the result was an out-of-this-world jump in revenue. Within just two weeks, Hershey was phoning home about a 65 percent increase in sales of Reese’s Pieces. Not only that, Hershey also spent $1 million to promote the film in return for the right to use the beloved alien character in its own advertising campaigns.

And, let’s not forget that hilarious “Seinfeld” episode in which, during a critical operation, Jerry accidentally knocks one of Kramer’s Junior Mints into the opened abdomen of Elaine’s friend Roy. Reportedly, M&M’s, Lifesavers and others turned down the offer, perhaps fearing viewers would be repulsed by their candies winding up among someone’s innards. But Tootsie Roll, the parent company of Junior Mints, realized it would a marketing gold mine: It was a top-rated show, the name was mentioned several times, the product was shown and Kramer even delivered the sales pitch: “Who’s gonna turn down a Junior Mint? It’s chocolate. It’s peppermint. It’s delicious!”

“Some companies didn’t want to see their candy falling into a patient,” said Patricia Ganguzza, owner of AIM Promotions in New York, which delivered the Junior Mint placement. “They overanalyzed it and lost the humor in it.”

It’s a good bet few companies make those mistakes anymore. According to PQ Media, which tracks alternative media spending, companies in 2014 spent an estimated $10.58 billion to have their products wind up in movies and TV. Expenditures are growing by nearly 14 percent per year. Global branded entertainment spending is now at more than $73 billion. For those tired of seeing more and more of these sneaky ads, I have bad news. With people able to skip commercials on their DVRs, placement agencies and Hollywood are working on even more devious ways to make sure you see that Chevy or iPhone prominently placed in the program or movie itself.

You may, however, be stunned to learn that these covert sales pitches apparently started more than 150 years ago. By the time Jules Verne published his “Around the World in Eight Days” in 1873, his writing fame had spread to such an extent that transport and shipping companies reportedly clamored to be mentioned in his story.

It didn’t take long for companies to see the power that moving pictures might have on their bottom line. In the 1920 Fatty Arbuckle/Buster Keaton short “The Garage,” the Red Crown gasoline logo appears in many key scenes. In “Wings,” the first movie to win a Best Picture Oscar, a chocolate bar is eaten and the camera lingers on the Hershey logo. Corona typewriters appeared so often in early movies that publisher P.S. Harrison frequently condemned the practice of product placement as harmful to movie theaters. His protests obviously went unheeded, so today entire books are written on product placement success stories. Let me give you a few more:

Risky business: FedEx took a big chance in “Cast Away” when it allowed Tom Hanks’ doomed plane to be one of theirs. But although the company said the crash initially gave the company “a heart attack,” the movie helped the company’s name recognition in Europe and Asia. It also was a boon for Wilson Sporting Goods, which started selling volleyballs with the bloody handprint face.

No whining here: After the 2004 release of “Sideways,” a road trip through California wine country, sales of Pinot noir rose 22 percent overall and 150 percent for the Blackstone brand. Conversely, the character Miles said he didn’t care for merlot — and sales dropped 2 percent.

Watching Bond: That’s OO7 — as in Omega Omega 7. Sales of Omega timepieces reportedly have increased 35 percent following the release of every Bond movie since GoldenEye in 1995, when the company paid about $8 million to have the debonair spy wear its product. In the “The World Is Not Enough” and “Quantum of Solace,” MGM broke records for selling $100 million in placements for each film. Heineken alone reportedly paid $45 million to have Bond give up his martini for a brewski in “Skyfall.”

A very big deal: Car maker BMC saw sales of its Mini increase by 22 percent in 2004 after it figured prominently in “The Italian Job” the year before.

Fishy switcheroo: In one of the oddest success stories, the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company didn’t even exist in reality when it was seen in “Forrest Gump” in 1994. Now it has 43 locations around the world with sales in the hundreds of millions.

To see one person’s list of the top 40 placements of all time, go to http://brandsandfilms.com/2011/01/top-40-product-placements-of-all-time-10-1. For more on the history, see http://priceonomics.com/the-economics-of-product-placements.

Today’s trivia

According to Guinness, what was the shortest war in history and how long did it last?

Answer to Sunday’s trivia: During the filming of the 1951 classic “The African Queen,” director John Huston told Katharine Hepburn that she was playing her role of Rose Sayer much too seriously. Instead, he suggested she model her part on former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt: Put on your “society smile” in the face of all adversity. According to her autobiography, Hepburn thought about the advice for a moment after Huston left and decided, “That is the best piece of direction I have ever heard.”

This story was originally published March 29, 2016 at 4:06 AM with the headline "From Reese’s Pieces to Fed Ex, products star in movies because they sell."