Product placement in pictures: Fast Five

Since I had started Brands & Films I’ve been getting a lot of suggestions from my friends and colleagues about possible blog posts. I must admit that I had used a lot of their ideas, but a few weeks ago a friend of mine told me a very detailed description of one unusual product placement: Fox’s placement in the movie Fast Five. It wasn’t Fox TV channel, my friend was telling me about Fox suspension. I wasn’t familiar with the brand and I’ve never seen a placement for such product, so I decided to watch the movie. I’ve only seen The Fast and The Furious, the first instalment of the Fast & Furious franchise and now the latest one. Fast Five has some nice scenes, but in general is quite mindless and forgettable.

The company that was behind the product placement is Fox Racing Shox, one of the leading companies in the design and development of high performance shock absorbers and racing suspension products for snowmobiles, mountain bikes, motorcycles… Fox is mainly known for its products in the mountain bikes category, but in Fast Five its logo was clearly visible for a few seconds on the forks of one ATV (all-terrain-vehicle) in the beginning of the movie. Very interesting placement.

Here are some other placements from the movie:

AE Performance

AE Performance is a US company, founded in 2006, and is specialized in the design and manufacturing of car performance parts, mainly exhausts. To show their products with a classic product placement would be virtually impossible (if someone says “my car is so much better with the new AE Performance exhaust” that would be very lame). AE Performance has chosen another way of showing the brand: we could’ve seen AE logo on one car and on two T-shirts worn by Paul Walker.

The use of T-shirts was a logical way, because AE Performance also sells T-shirts and other apparel. Also, that wasn’t the first collaboration between AE Performace andf Paul Walker. Last year he participated as a driver on the AE Performance team and entered the RedLine Time Attack race series with a BMW M3.

Similar type of product placement has been used by Dearfoams slippers in the movie No Strings Attached. You can see their placement in the blog post Product Placement in pictures: No Strings Attached

Kenwood

Kenwood’s product placement was pretty straightforward, with some close-up shots of their car audio/video system, although the product was somehow mocked by the FBI agent (played by Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson), who commented Kenwood’s system in the Ford GT40 by saying:

“It’s a goddamn shame putting bullshit like that on a classic. You may as well slap neon lights on it.”

Dodge Charger

Dodge has been a key member of Fast & Furious’ car park since the beginning of the franchise.

Brahma

Brahma is a Brazilian beer, originally made by the Companhia Cervejaria Brahma which was founded in 1888. The brands are now owned by Anheuser–Busch InBev.

Honda & VW

Bad guys were driving VWs :)

Panasonic

Apple

And of course the obligatory Apple product placement.

———————

Other movies from the ‘Product placement in pictures’ series:

The Taking of Pelham 123

Morning Glory

Hall Pass

Due Date

Drive Angry

Limitless

No Strings Attached