Alfred the butler just doesn't seem the geeky type. But in the new Batman & Robin movie opening 20 June, Alfred doubles as an industrial designer, creating Batmobiles and cool stuff on a Twentieth Anniversary Mac, according to Apple. Getting that Macintosh into the Batcave, and an eMate into the hands of Batgirl, is Apple's latest coup in product placement - an area of the film industry that is rubbing up closer to high-tech companies all the time.
IBM, Intel, MCI, Microsoft, Motorola, and Silicon Graphics are among the growing pack of tech purveyors wheeling and dealing to score starring roles for their products. Some, such as Intel, retain agencies, and others, such as Apple, employ staffers devoted to schmoozing the Hollywood studios, but they say the days of paying big bucks to appear in a blockbuster are all but over.
"Over 90 percent of the time there is no fee," said Dean Ayers, president of the Entertainment & Marketing Resources Association, which just launched a site with a searchable database of products available for placement. The goods run the gamut from Lemon Heads candy to corporate jets, but it's the stuff like cars and computers, which can save productions big money, that usually fly fee-free.
"The industry has really changed," said Jennifer Nerad, marketing manager at Creative Entertainment Services, which represents Intel, Toyota, and RCA, among others. "If it's a really big placement you might pay a fee, but these days the productions as well as the companies are looking more for backend promotions and tie-ins," she added.
Apple's high-profile Mission Impossible ads were a perfect example of what studios like - someone else to help foot the promo bill for a flick. But high-tech companies can often land a cameo appearance without any cash outlay, simply by loaning expensive equipment.
Silicon Graphics has a team of six working on product placement - and though it scores gigs on blockbusters like Jurassic Park, has never paid a fee to be on film. The company, which doesn't sell to the consumer market, does count 17 percent of its sales in the entertainment industry. SGI looks for script opportunities that will showcase its technology, but also uses product placement to strengthen relationships with the studios.
"A lot of times we do placement just to be able to talk about how our computers were used during production," said Keith Seto, SGI's manager for technology promotion. The company did a special "Jurassic Classic" promo of its Crimson computer, which dominated the movie's computer room, and SGI says it wouldn't have been able to say much about the creative work done off the set on its machines if it weren't for the placement deal.
Apple, too, negotiated rights to talk about the Mac's role in costume design and other fun chores for Batman as part of its placement contract. The company loaned Warner Bros. 10 machines for the duration of the production - and let the Apple logo be "Gothamized" for the camera. "In the movie, you'd never see the multicolored Apple logo," said Dennis Lemenager, director of national promotions at Warner Bros., who hinted that the Batcave version looks more like steel than a rainbow.
While movies can put computers center stage - like SGI's weather visualization machines in Twister, or the PowerBook that acts as an interface with the alien ship in Independence Day - TV is often a better bet for placing high-tech products. "If you have the product now, it can go on TV next week," said Nerad, contrasting the speed of television to the long production time for film, which could make a product old news by the time it hits the silver screen.
Gateway snuck one of its famed cow boxes into Seinfeld, and MCI is going all out to promote its role in the new sci-fi TV show, Gene Roddenberry's Earth: Final Conflict. Futuristic gadgets showing the MCI logo will appear on the series in exchange for the company providing telecommunications services to the production and sponsoring tie-ins, like prepaid calling cards featuring images from the show.
There are no publicly available figures detailing the cost savings to studios or the money spent by companies on product placement, but Ayers says it's not uncommon to save a production unit as much as US$100,000 through loaned equipment and such. It may not sound like much for a blockbuster budget - but it's important enough that studios devote entire departments to working with vendors to place products. And the savings could be a real blessing to some, like the independent filmmakers now wooed by SGI and others looking to develop long-term friends in the industry.
Tech companies whose technologies sell in the entertainment industry, like Apple and SGI, devote the most energy to product placement, but others are close on their heels. "Intel and Microsoft are starting to do more of this to increase their visibility - if that's possible - in the consumer market," SGI's Seto said. "And also to develop relationships with studios" that are big buyers of groovy technology, he added.
