PRODUCT PLACEMENT IN HORROR FILMS (It's time... To get over your fears)

PRODUCT PLACEMENT IN HORROR FILMS (It's time... To get over your fears)

Bruce Bisbey…please follow us at: https://dumbdogproductionsllc.blogspot.com

IT'S TIME... TO GET OVER YOUR FEARS

Marketers who previously shuddered at the thought of horror films should embrace the genre – especially with the millennial demographic – to gain an engagement factor that will strongly influence and drive future brand sales.

Let go of your fear of overspending for a product placement - it doesn't have to be costly!

Every Halloween, the streets are once again be lined with the paranormal: zombies, vampires, ghosts and more in search of tricks and treats. So, in honor of this now global tradition we shine a light on the films and TV shows that celebrate this holiday and, most importantly, the brands that take a starring role through product placement.

There once was a time where companies were scared of being connected to horror films, yet a rise in this genre’s popularity (especially amongst the hard to reach 15-25 male demographic) has led to a rise in the number of brands using product placement to appeal to that audience. Ever since the Scream and Twilight franchises, the latter of which went to gross over $1 billion, brands have been waking up to the appeal of these films and have not been frightened off by the sometime gruesome content.

Most recently with Get Out and Alien: Covenant’s opening weekends drawing in $33million, and over $36million respectively, the genre and the appetite for horror films has gone from strength to strength; culminating in this year’s fright fest by the ultimate master of horror, Stephen King with It (2017) becoming the highest grossing horror film of all time having netted over $600 million globally.

In Get Out, the break out hit which saw a return of $253.1million off just a $4.5million budget, it wasn’t just the Producers who cashed in on the film’s success. Microsoft has a starring role in the film with the Microsoft Lumia 950 phone, the Surface tablet and Bing search engine, all appearing prominently on screen.

Not only do the characters use a Microsoft tablet, but they used Bing – a Microsoft search Engine. This may be the most unrealistic bit of product placement considering that when it comes to search engines Google is the go-to resource used by over 77.43% of people online. Apart from Bring, the tech placement in the film is subtle, giving Microsoft products an organic presence in the film.

Microsoft aren’t the only tech brand to benefit from on screen exposure with the Canon EOS 7D making a cameo, with imagery that look like they could be an advertisement.

Product placement in Alien: Covenant was literally out of this world. A successful science-fiction franchise, directed by Ridley Scott, was the perfect platform for brands to showcase their longevity. From the glossy, black Steinway piano played by Michael Fassbender’s character at the start of the movie to the AI-driven Audi Lunar Quattro, brands were more than happy to showcase their latest and greatest products in this terrifying movie.

The AI-driven Audi Lunar Quattro in particular demonstrates Audi’s advances in the field of Artificial Intelligence. “The ‘Alien’ franchise is the best way for us to garner suitable attention for the Moon rover developed by Audi, and to showcase Audi’s intelligent technologies in a visionary environment,” said Giovanni Perosino, vice president of international marketing communication at Audi.

Slightly less luxurious but just as impressive, JCB also features prominently in the film, with a fleet of over 20 gold wrapped construction vehicles appearing on screen.

It’s not just the big screen that is seeing a resurgence in the paranormal horror genre, with product placement in paranormal TV shows also on the rise. In reference to a previous tweet, Polaroid sales have increased thanks to Stranger Things. With retro products such as Polaroid cameras featuring in the series, it is a fascinating comeback for a brand that was at its height of popularity over 30 years ago. Martin Franklin, the brand’s head of global marketing, has called it the “Stranger Things Effect”. He says “people are enamored by that 1970s and 1980s aesthetic.”

Why play horror-themed videogames designed to shock and scare? As with horror films or novels, they provide a means to indulge in the pleasure of frightening ourselves.

Freakish, monstrous characters programmed to challenge and destroy the player gratifies the fear-induced thrill-seeking that drives gamers to immerse themselves in such virtual worlds.

Until now there had been no investigation into how the immersive nature of survival horror games frightens us, and how our individual traits can affect the degree to which they scare us. Researchers Teresa Lynch and Nicole Martins from Indiana University published a study of fear response in 269 college students playing popular survival horror games such as Resident Evil, Left 4 Dead, the Dead Space and Silent Hill series, and the formidable Amnesia: The Dark Descent. They applied a method used to measure viewer perception of fear in film and television to survival horror games.

Participants were asked questions about the games they played and how often, their perception of survival horror games, and how sound, image and presence influenced the fear they felt. Over half of the gamers experienced fear during play and just over forty percent reported that they enjoyed this fear. The study is a fascinating enquiry as to why we play video games, and how they make us feel and what they make us feel.

THE ROLE OF EMPATHY

Empathy is when we share the thoughts and feelings of others; when we see someone scared or upset that evokes the same emotional response in us. This allows us to sympathize with others and be compassionate. Lynch and Martins found that overall, players with low empathy were more likely to play and enjoy horror games than those with high empathy levels. Those that can relate to negative emotions in others such as fear may seek to avoid feeling those negative emotions in fear-induced games. Fear and anxiety may be increased in empathetic individuals so they feel helpless and overwhelmed and are less able to disengage in the real world.

While men and women players experienced the same frequency of fear and felt scared at the same times in a game, as shown by the monitor readings, men were less likely to admit to being frightened. Instead men emphasized how much they enjoyed playing horror games, putting on a brave front. Women were more likely to describe how scared they felt, being less rational and stoic about their fear-response. Lynch and Martins concluded that this may be due to typical gender stereotyping.

PRESENCE AND REALISM

The element of unexpected, ghastly surprise heightened the fear experience, especially when the player felt immersed in that unpredictable environment. Participants described panic at their lack of control, as if they were a hunted animal desperately trying to escape their predators.

The effect of presence, the immersive feeling of being “in the game”, was a factor in how scared people were because the player is the decision maker, unlike a film when the viewer only passively observes the action unfold. Rather than simply watching a person being chased by mutant zombies, the player was the person pursued, their life in their own hands, and consequently the outcome relies on their skill and quick thinking.

The level of detail and realism of the enemies the player faced increased player fear – the more realistic the appearance and behavior of a (for example) zombie assailant, the more frightened players felt. These uncanny representations of realistic, non-human zombies enhanced the fear factor as a morbid reminder of death. This fills players with dread as they frantically try to escape their own demise and mortality.

Lynch and Martin’s findings offer some support for the significant amounts of money and time invested by game developers in creating virtual life-like worlds and populating them with life-like characters that allow the player to suspend their disbelief. As for the future, the exponential increase in computer processing power and improving rendering techniques for creating game graphics, alongside ever more convincing interactivity with characters suggest that video games will continue feeding players the frights they’re looking for.

#1 IT CREATES HIGHER BRAND RECALL

Scary increases brand recall, and provides positive associations…

According to research by Lea Dunn at the University of British Colombia’s Sauder School of Business, brands are more likely to be recalled if they are associated with a scene that induces fear or makes the viewer feel alone.

When a moviegoer is frightened, feelings of loneliness are heightened. Despite going to the cinema with a date or as a group outing, once the lights go down, each person is virtually cut off from surrounding human engagement. Thus, as the viewer watches the film, reactions are internalized. They are immersed into the storyline.

The study proved that when respondents were scared, they developed an increased emotional attachment toward surrounding branded products, resulting in a higher recall rate and a more positive association.

Why? The emotional instinct a child feels to cling to a teddy bear when he/she is scared is the same type of instinct all humans share – whether it be to potato chips in-theater, or even just ten seconds, according to the survey findings, of visual brand recognition on-screen.

HOW PRODUCT PLACEMENT & CO-PROMOTIONAL MARKETING WORKS

#2 THE GENRE IS JUST SO POPULAR

Horror has been on the rise in the past few years, and is continuing to grow…

The horror genre has been increasingly successful in both TV and film. From the past few years’ zombie obsession with projects such as The Walking Dead, supernatural thrillers such as American Horror Story, to serial killer-centered shows such as Dexter – audiences are flocking to the cinema and getting hooked on these shows. It is undeniable that the genre has increased in popularity, with heightened gore, blood, and suspense to match.

#3 IT REACHES A DIFFICULT DEMOGRAPHICS

Scary engages (younger) males…

The young male – from teen to 35 – is often elusive. They don’t sit in front of the television set watching comedies and dramas as much as they are sitting in front of their monitors playing video games. But they are sitting in theaters watching their favorite horror films – and then re-watching them twenty times over at home after DVD release. And having the opportunity to be front and center in a starring role in that movie? A golden opportunity to influence and drive brand sales.

#4 MASSIVE AUDIENCE REACH

Horror brings in big bucks…

Some of the most profitable films of recent years, across all movie genres, happened to be horror movies - both at box office and streaming views at home, including: The Purge, Oculus, The Conjuring, and Insidious: Chapter 2 (and 3), Poltergeist, The Gift, Ouija, Paranormal Activity, and Unfriended. More impressive than the fact that these films brought in big numbers is what little money they needed to make them in the first place. For example, The Purge debuted at number one at the box office and has grossed $89 million at the box office. Its production budget? Just $3 million.

#5 PRODUCTIONS WANT TO WORK WITH YOUR BRAND

Low budget horror films are brand friendly due to $$$ interest…

Productions that have low production budgets are notoriously open to creating brand partnerships of any size – as they operate on the fact that even small dollars can be put towards even better special effects. This allows brands who have smaller to medium size budgets the ability to create very powerful and strategized campaigns around the film – at a fraction of what the cost would be with larger box office franchise pictures of other genres.

This is why so many brands make exceptions to their typical marketing practice of making sure content is clean and wholesome. Scary movies reach a very specific audience, and with appearances in horror productions from the smaller Paranormal Activity franchise to the zombie apocalypse thriller (and monster budget eater) World War Z, big name brands are capitalizing on this profitable marketing strategy.

#6 REACH TRENDSETTERS

Edge of your seat films appeal to early adopters…

Adventure and thrill seekers' favored content includes horror films.  Scary edge of your seat thrillers cause adrenaline to course through the body, similar to the thrill of sky diving, race car driving, and bungie jumping or even rock climbing.  Just like when pursuing these activities, the horror movie goer's palms sweat, muscles tense, and skin temperature drops several degrees, and their blood pressure spikes.  And of most importance to brands?  These adventure seekers are possibly one of the largest groups of early adopters for new trends - which includes brands.

"Hey, remember that awesome part where those guys had a conversation in front of a giant corporate logo?" said no one. And yet, product placement has been an accepted way of life for moviemaking, particularly in an age where we’ve struggled to come up with new and innovative ways to push product. On one level, you know that our own lives have product placement: we go to Sears, we drink Pepsi, and we (hopefully watch other people!) go to McDonald’s. But to many, the movies are an escape, and you’re thrust out of the film’s world when you see a familiar brand.

Nonetheless, pricey movies can chop a good sum off their budgets by offering a chance for a name brand to pop up in their film. In hoping you DO get taken out of the movie, the company gets recognition for their product, and the movie studio saves a buck or two, while audiences pay good money to watch people eat at Benihana. But audiences look down upon them, and some would even argue that they don’t even pay attention to them. A new study from the University of British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business (via BusinessWeek) claims that you do notice them. Particularly in scary movies.

Clips featuring product placement were showed to test subjects in this study, who were later quizzed about what products they could recall. The study showed that "when people felt fear, they experienced an increased emotional attachment to the brands." Emotional attachment to the brands. That’s some Verhoeven shit right there. The tests discovered that "the emotional attachment increased when the subjects felt alone." Which makes sense in a Psych 101 sort of way. It’s kind of a scary peek at the way the mind works, as the article elaborates:

The need for people to affiliate during fear is so strong that it doesn’t matter what the other side of the affiliation is: an actual person, a bottle of water, a bag of chips, or a corporate logo. It also doesn’t matter if viewers can touch the products or not—simply being in proximity with the viewer makes brand attachment possible.

This is probably the reason why that one dude at your screening of Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones screamed, "Oh my god this movie is so scary god Coca-Cola love you."

The question is, is this article even relevant anymore? Product placement has evolved, to the point where we expect it, and are more distracted when something like The Amazing Spider-Man 2 has its hero dialing up Finder-Spyder* instead of Google. Of course, do we even need to place products in the movie, when the movies themselves are product advertisements?

A business scholar says that there are fewer product placements in scary movies, and therefore companies are missing a prime marketing moment.

Coca-Cola doesn't want a half-naked sorority girl to be drinking their soda just before she gets stabbed in the eye that is a much different association than cute polar bears or, in the case of Budweiser, giant affectionate horses. Humor product placements, good, adventure, of course, but not horror.

Yet University of British Columbia PhD student Lea Dunn writes in an upcoming article in the

Journal of Consumer Research that consumers will cling to a product like Coke for comfort if watching a scary movie on their own - people who experienced fear while watching a film felt a greater affiliation with the present brand than those who watched films which evoke happiness, sadness or excitement.

"People cope with fear by bonding with other people. When watching a scary movie they look at each other and say 'Oh my god!' and their connection is enhanced," says newly graduated Sauder PhD student Lea Dunn. "But, in the absence of friends, our study shows consumers will create heightened emotional attachment with a brand that happens to be on hand."

Dunn also says that fear stimulates people to report greater brand attachment, even if they are limited to just seeing the product but enhanced feelings toward the brand were only generated if it was experienced at the same time as fear. If the product is presented afterward, no bond is created.

"Marketers are afraid of fear. Their worries about negative associations outweigh their desire to tap into the massive market commanded by fear-based entertainment such as horror films or video games," says Dunn. "But our study shows advertisers should consider offering up their brands as something to cling to in the dark when the knives come out and the blood starts to splatter."

Sources, References & Credits: Google, Wikipedia, Pinterest, IMDB, Linked In, Indie Wire, Cinema Blend, Variety, Creative Skill Set, Cinema Blend, Science 20, Reddit, Business Dictionary, Cambridge Dictionary, See Saw Media, Angela Tinwell, Collins English Dictionary, Investopedia, Study, English Oxford Dictionaries, Lea Dunn, The Conversation, Hollywood Branded, University of British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business, Business Weekly, Valve, The Conversation, Teresa Lynch, Nicole Martins, Indiana University,

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