Dismal product placements in Indian movies

The upcoming movie” Tara Rum Pum” has some in-movie-advertising of GM in the form of brand Chevrolet. The movie's star, Saif Ali Khan, is a stock car racing champion for the Chevrolet team. Sure enough, one can make out Aveo stickers on the racing machine.

Not good direction – the movie is based on stock car racing, an American sport, and the Aveo is not a model, Chevrolet will be stickering on to their racehorse in the US of A.

But then, in movie product placement, has not been done very successfully till now.

Does anyone remember the Swift in Bunti aur Babli? There was a fleeting image of it and one sequence where Amitabh Bachchan utters the word Swift. Maruti would have received much greater bang for their buck had they watched some James Bond flicks to know what product placement is all about.

Some of the most sensational automotive product placement in recent times have been in James Bond flicks and Basic Instinct III (Spyker C8 Laviolette – Spyker fended off competition from Merc SLR to get the ‘role'. Sadly, Indian films are yet to reach the level of maturity to have a subtle, yet unmissable, product placement in a movie.

Deepesh Rathore

Research Editor

deepesh.rathore@supplierbusiness.com
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