Month / February 2016

‘Product Placement’ or ‘Brand Placement’

‘Product placement’ or ‘brand placement’, which is the correct term?

I’ve always preferred ‘brand placement’. If a detergent were to be used in a movie then it would be a real brand (Bold, Tide, or the like) and not just a box with ‘detergent’ written on it. But, as it turns out, I’m in the minority. My preference doesn’t count. The term ‘product placement’ is the one most used in the industry. Easily confirmed by comparing the two terms in Google Trends, where ‘product placement’ outstrips ‘brand placement’ by fifty to one.

by Colin Brosnan

Brands in Movies

We are surrounded by products and brands. It’s our reality. If you made a movie based in our world, our reality, it would make sense to include the brands and products that we find around us. Not just that but it would be weird not to.

Our choices of brands and product tell stories about us. They tell other people something about us. It’s why we are so brand conscious. Or at least most of us are. Some of us wouldn’t be caught dead wearing certain brands. It would send a message that we didn’t want to send. Others embrace those brands because it sends exactly the right message.

In a movie the product choices a character makes tell us stories too. The main character in a movie drives a rusting Ford Mustang that belches smoke and makes weird banging noises. What do we find out about the character from that? Maybe the character isn’t very well off. Maybe the character is just going through a rough patch. Maybe the character isn’t a car person and doesn’t care that the car is a real clunker. It’s just a piece of information about the character that we end up putting together with all the other bits to get a clearer picture of the character.

We pick up on cues from brands and products as we’re watching movies. We’re not always meant to get strong signals from them. So, sometimes we’re consciously aware of them, sometimes not.  If used badly they’re jarring if used well they add to our experience.

by Colin Brosnan

Content Cruelty

Cliché proclaimed content king. Cliché failed to mention that content is not a kindly, benevolent king. No, content is a cruel king, a hungry king. The king seems especially hungry when you’ve decided to post to your blog every day for a year. ‘Feed me’, says the smirking bastard.

I strongly believe that communicating well is the most important skill anyone can have. Writing well is one way of communicating well.

This blog is a way for me to improve my writing. I write too slowly, ponderously. Too much overthinking. Over the next year I want to change that. By writing and publishing something every day for the next year I’m pushing myself to become better.

So, over the next year content will torture me but I’ll feed that smirking bastard.

by Colin Brosnan

Jumping In

Recently, I re-read an article about a man named Caballo and the Tarahumara people of Mexico. The Tarahumara are incredible long distance runners, running marathon distances with ease. They wear sandals, don’t have a training regime to speak of, and don’t pick up the types of injuries that plague most runners. Caballo decided he wanted to run like them.

Caballo jumped in, putting himself in a situation where he would either pick it up or fail trying. Bothered by ankle problems for years, Caballo abandoned his running shoes and took to the mountain trails in sandals, like the Tarahumara. In the end he was running a trail, which took horse riders three days, between two canyon towns – in seven hours.

Safe is comfortable and easy. The risky stuff is unpleasant and tough. But much more exciting.

I’ve wanted to start a blog for a number of years. I had no idea what the blog should be about so I didn’t. Taking action makes more sense than worrying about it.

Caballo got where he wanted by jumping in. Monday, I took the plunge.

by Colin Brosnan

SlideMint

Two days ago I launched SlideMint a new presentation development business.

Launching wasn’t an all-singing, all-dancing affair. It was simply making the website live and uploading a presentation. Getting the website out there was important in making SlideMint real. Something living needs to be fed and nurtured. It builds momentum.

No, the SlideMint site isn’t perfect. Far from it. It has too little content. But that can be built up over time. Sometimes the most important thing is starting.

The presentation I uploaded was created for my wife, Christina, a wedding photographer, to promote her wedding photography advice ebook ‘Ever Yours’. I needed examples of work and creating a presentation for Christina’s ebook seemed like the logical thing to do. This is the slideshow…

Over the next while I will develop the SlideMint website and some more presentation examples.

If you’re keeping track, two days ago is also when I launched this blog. Doing things makes me want to do more things.

by Colin Brosnan

Switch Flipped

After years, and I mean years, I finally flipped the switch and started this blog on what was essentially a whim late last night.

It’s been ten years or thereabouts since I registered the domain. From then to now I’ve made some false starts. Designing a website. Planning content. Never doing the most important thing: making it live. And that’s okay. It’s started now. Instead of worrying about the details and the course the blog will take the shot has been fired. I’ll aim later.

Right now I have only one goal for the site – keep writing posts for a year. It’s intimidating.

 

by Colin Brosnan