Financing / Crowdfunding : Product Placement by Joyce Lee

Hi Joyce! Haven't had a successful Product Placement campaign myself ('cause I'm not a producer yet), but I've studied it a lot and included it in my MD's final thesis, so the main suggestion I feel like sharing with you is to have a piece of storytelling as strong and engageable as possible. Only with a meaningful and engaging story you're able to hold on to the audience for good (see Dr. Pepper in Forrest Gump and FedEx in Cast Away).

Product Placement is elusive and often mis-credited with providing funding. There are exceptions however generally one would receive complimentary product (cigarettes, sodas, potato chips, etc.) Contact production placement agencies, they place products in film and tv. Again, for financing, I've found that elusive, unless you are Sony and Godzilla.

Jack, is it because Producers are asking for product placement money up front before production as funding for the movie? My husband's idea was to basically make product placement like advertising, where the company doesn't pay until after the movie comes out to prove their product was there. His idea was to take those product placement contracts to potential investors, to prove to them that they will make their money back and then some as soon as the movie hits the screens... Has no one done that before?

Hi Joyce, product placement is a tricky one and can be overstated in conversation in my opinion. What is more likely is propping (where a company or brand may offer you an item or wardrobe or venue). It's still a tough one and you'll want to show the brand what exposure you can offer or how you will deliver a 'brand moment' for them. Most major brands have outsourced their product placement to agencies, so I advise finding out who runs that for your target brand if its a major one. Or, work with smaller business you can build a relationship with and find a mutual benefit between you. Highly recommend making a deck to show the brand moments and how/where a brand can expect to be featured in your content.

Not a lot of brands are paying, try to think more creatively about finding the mutual benefit. Unless you have a Bond movie with Emma Stone coming out that Valentino will want to know about... ;)

Hi Joyce, as mentioned here, they just don't actually pay money in general, in my experience. Certainly after the fact. Perhaps in unique cases where the market value is presented as a good investment. Mostly it's a fallacy concept unless you're Godzilla and Pepsi.

I've done product placement a few times on small projects. But I was limited to either free stuff, or 'sure you can use our brand in your film'. No money.

in 2019, i got a brewery to sponsor a short film i produced. it was about 30K - not much but huge for our budget. through personal connections and a months long campaign. what helped was having solid talent attached, not A-listers but name actors people recognized from bigger projects, which made our project "buzzy". it also helped our director's first short had done well at festivals and we had nice odds at a good festival run around the country again. then also via our director, we hooked up an airline programming deal which we could use as a sweetener. then we got a SVOD deal with Fandor, which really sealed the deal, so we could guarantee a decent share of eyes on the project all over. then in the film, we included brewery stuff in a lot of shots - we had multiple fridge shots with the beer, dinner table scenes with logo-engraved glasses on the table, one of their aluminum beer posters in the garage scenes, and other nice little bits and pieces. money came after we finished production though which made things real tight. however we did it and we made it and everybody was pleased in the end. there weren't really hard steps i can tell you to take. it was nonstop moving parts and not an A-to-B process whatsoever so you've gotta get your hands dirty but it worked. having a director you can sell a bit is very useful. going to personal connections who own businesses that want brand awareness also helps. you're not gonna get big brands except through an agency, but there are lots of brands out there.