Product Placement

I forgot to post last night. Maybe I'll be able to catch up at some point, but I'm not worrying about it too much. This blog every day for a year thing is supposed to be for fun, not something to stress out about.

Part of me is tempted to bring back drama reviews. For one, it'll give me something to post about on the slow days, but mostly because this is a blog about my life, and dramas are a massive part of what I do in my free time. I don't know, I'll see how I feel when I finish Degree of Love.

Speaking of Degree of Love, something that always amuses me in dramas is the product placement. Sometimes it's fairly subtle, like the characters frequently eating subway or going to certain coffeee shop brands. I mean, that's not subtle at all, but it's not really distracting from the story. The funny ones are the ones that have no place in the story and are practically a sales pitch. Like in the episode I just watched, there was a really random scene in which the main character was hovering with a dyson. Some form of interaction with another character was chucked in, but for the most part, it was just a load of close ups of the vacuum cleaner. Even an extreme close up of her turning it off. They might as well have stuck one of those red star shaped price label and order number on the screen.

The industry is aware of the ridiculousness of it all, and aren't afraid to make fun of themselves for it.
The female lead in Because This Is My First Life starts the series as an assistant writer for a drama series whose whole job is to write in product placement. She has a character going around on a Segway hover board screaming in frustration. It was great.

I also really enjoyed when one drama, and I can't for the life of me remember which one, was sponsored by trip advisor, and they literally had a character book up and then leave a review for somewhere, talking the audience through the whole process. It took like 5 minutes.

Of course, I'm an absolute sucker for advertising. Series sponsored by Papa Johns or subway are a nightmare for me, and one day, I really want to drink this stuff. I don't even know what it is, but everyone drinks it and I want to drink it too.

It's probably just water.