PRODUCT PLACEMENT

did anyone else notice alot of product placement going on...like someone mentioned with the vacuum cleaners and i saw an episode where monica and chandler were carrying around dasani water for a good portion of the show and one time rachel had fugi water and one episode chandler asked monica if they had any fruit rolls ups...anyone notice any others>?

"Roni232" wrote in message news:[email]...

and

they

Monica reading a Mental Floss magazine, but I can't remember which season or episode.

On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 13:40:44 -0600, "Karen in MN" <ask.me.for.my.email.address> wrote:

Wonder how much they got paid to product endorse.

Christopher +++++++++++ "Never take anything for granted."

Benjamin Disraeli

[email] (Roni232) wrote in message news:...

But how do we know they were outright product placements? I've never seen anything on the show that was blatant. The fact that some products do appear can be cultural references, might even be the choice of someone at the show for deliberate (yet obscure) reasons.

Rachel once wore an MC-5 tshirt. The band hasn't been together for thirty years and it's not like they have received a major breakthrough with an old song. There is no way that anyone paid for her to wear that tshirt. I have no doubt it was there deliberately; it just seems too weird that someone would pick it out at random. Yet, we never saw any background then or later to suggest why she had it on.

One time I was watching Saturday Night Live, and one of the characters in a skit was reading a Noam Chomsky book. I'm quite sure nobody paid for it to be there, I am quite sure that someone at the show chose the book.

Yes it has been tradition for a show to keep products generic, so when specific brands are shown or listed it can sometimes be jarring. But they can also be there because they are part of the culture. Seinfeld had all kinds of mentions of products, yet they were so common and introduced in such a way that they certainly appeared to be because they were cultural references. Putting Pez in an episode can simply be a reference to the odd dispensers, and a neat little joke about distracting someone at a concert.

Michael

Product placement is really not that uncommon in tv or film.

Sometimes it's not done on purpose but they don't bother covering up something that would be obvious anyway...and it would look funny.

Like if someone was drinking diet coke but some prop guy changes it to say diet cola. The audience still knows it's diet coke anyway

"Michael Black" wrote <<snipped 2 the point>>

Its interesting that you bring up Seinfeld. I rarely watch it since its been in syndication but tonight I happened to catch the episode where George gets Susan fired for kissing her at work and Jerry dates a virgin. While I was watching the episode they kept mentioning Snapple. Offering it to different people as they came on scene. I thought to myself (having missed the part that led up to that scene) I wonder if this is their way of mocking product placement. Oddly though as Elaine drank her Lemonade Snapple I noticed that the bottle had no label. I thought that was strange. After all they had already stated (several times) what the product was. Why remove the label???

"Roni232" wrote in message news:[email]...

The most obvious product placement for me were the omnipresent cans or bottles of beer on top of Joey's refridgerator.

I can't recall exactly how often they changed. I remember bottles of Bud and Becks - there were definitely cans of Boddingtons there during series five - which ties in with the Joey's "I'd walk back to London for another frosty one of those bad boys!" comment from Episode 502 - TOW all the kissing.

It IS good beer BTW but at about $10 a can here in Japan I tend to pass up the chance to indulge.