Quick quiz: Match the movie to its featured automotive brand!
| 1. Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer| a. Land Rover
| 2. Bruce Almighty| b. Dodge
| 3. Mission: Impossible III| c. Saleen
| 4. The Pink Panther (2006) | d. Lexus
| 5. Minority Report| e. Smart
| 6. Ronin| f. Audi
Automobile product-placement in feature films is nothing new, but lately, it’s positively pervasive: Audi in Iron Man and Mercedes-Benz in Sex and the City and Lamborghini in The Dark Knight. The goal of such big-screen appearances, according to company officials, is something intangible: “brand awareness.” Get the name out there, get the emblem in people’s heads. But can presumptions of brand awareness based on box-office grosses translate to actual car sales? No one seems quite sure.
Audi figured some 55 million people sat through the Will Smith sci-fi picture, I, Robot — and by extension, saw the company’s RSQ concept car (pictured after the break). States a company press release: The brand’s four-ring logo is visible for a total of almost nine minutes. Not eight. Not ten. Nine.
And now there’s Iron Man, a picture that features a whole showroom of Audi cars. Robert Downey, Jr.‘s Tony Stark drives an R8 (pictured above), Gwyneth Paltrow‘s Pepper Potts drives an A5. And there’s a Q7 thrown around, too. In an interview with Brandweek, Audi’s Chief Marketing Officer Scott Keogh said of Iron Man, “It’s an adventure movie, which shows that what we want is not just an intellectual, in-the-know audience for our brand. We want America to know about us.” (Is that a back-handed compliment?)
Photos courtesy of Audi and Mercedes-Benz.
Quiz answers: 1-b; 2-c; 3-a; 4-e; 5-d; 6-f
Mercedes-Benz USA’s Vice President of Marketing, Steve Cannon, had similar thoughts regarding the forthcoming GLK-class sport-utility vehicle’s cameo in Sex and the City (pictured below):“The Mercedes-Benz brand has always attracted trendsetters and style-makers and the partnership with New Line Cinema’s Sex and the City, which personifies these attributes, is a very natural fit.”
Companies used to be nonchalant about movie placement. Oh, our car’s in that film? How nice. No more. These days, most car companies are all too pleased to tie their vehicles to major films. Hell, General Motors practically financed last year’s Transformers. Said Mike Jackson, GM North America vice president for marketing and advertising: “Transformers is a compelling project and offers us a global platform for marketing GM products and building our brands. It represents the perfect intersection of entertainment, marketing and design.”
So tell us: Would you buy a car because it appeared in summer blockbuster? Do you know anybody who bought, say, a Mini Cooper after seeing The Italian Job or a Pontiac Trans Am after seeing Smokey and the Bandit or a Cadillac CTS after seeing The Matrix Reloaded?
Top Automotive-Brand Movie Appearances, 2007 & 2008
Ford (including Mustang): 24 (2007); 5 (2008)
BMW: 8 (2007); 0 (2008)
Mercedes-Benz: 8 (2007); 5 (2008)
Chevrolet: 7 (2007); 2 (2008)
Dodge: 6 (2007); 0 (2008)
GMC: 5 (2007); 2 (2008)
Volvo: 5 (2007); 0 (2008)
Hummer: 8 (2007); 0 (2008)
Lincoln: 8 (2007); 0 (2008)
BMW: 8 (2007); 0 (2008)
Honda: 4 (2007); 0 (2008)
Chrysler: 4 (2007); 2 (2008)
Jeep: 4 (2007); 0 (2008)
For an exhaustive list of brand exposure in the movies, check out brandchannel.com.
The Audi RSQ, from I, Robot 
