Transformers is Michael Bay’s hugely successful movie franchise that now consists of four movies, released in the span of seven years. One of the main characteristics of the franchise is blatant and in-your-face product placement.
I’ve only seen the first Transformers movie and described some of its product placement in the blog post Wishlist. I even coined the description product placement prostitution, because Chevrolet’s cars were presented very aggressively and literally pushed in our faces. No, I didn’t like it at all.
The fourth Transformers is called Age of Extinction. It’s a big budget blockbuster that grossed more than one billion dollars worldwide.
As you might expect I didn’t have any intention of watching the movie, but I read hundreds of tweets claiming that the movie is one big advertisement and should be called Transformers: Age of product placement. Strictly from the product placement point of view, I should’ve seen it, but fortunately Honest trailers came to the rescue.
Honest trailers is – as the name suggests – a website that shows us trailers in a funny way. They recreated Transformers 4 too and dedicated a large part of their trailer to product placement.
As you can see, Transformers 4 is a classic example of product placement prostitution. The majority of brands were thrown in your face without trying to be subtle for even a second.
Even though the Transformers is the kind of movie that doesn’t require any thinking at all, the producers shouldn’t underestimate movie goers. Having so much brand in the movie in showing them in such a blatant way might even work for some of them, but it will probably have negative effect on the perception of product placement.