# 'Product Placement' in writing



## AshleyAshes (May 12, 2009)

Not product placement for actual advertisement but more the act of featuring specific brand titles in writing vs using more generic titles.  I wanted to hear others views on using them as writers and readers.  Often I see people more or less 'name dropping' the cool stuff their characters have in their possesion.  I personally tend to go for inspecific titles.

So instead of a character having a 'Nintendo DSi' he has a 'Handheld Game Console'.  Or someone doesn't drive a 'Black 1994 Camaro Z28' but a 'Black Sports Car'.  It seems, erm, overspecific to me?

Though at other times less specific titles don't seem as offputting like saying 'Coke' or 'Poptarts'.  Maybe because we're likely to call any generic brand of cola a 'Coke' or any toaster breakfast stack a 'pop tart' reguardless of brand?

But I thought I'd ask to see what other people think about it and how they exercise the idea in their writing.


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## Gavrill (May 12, 2009)

If the advertisement is somehow relevant to the story at large (like the car in Stephen King's Christine) I say go ahead. But it really serves no purpose (say, the story is about a search for a father and you're over here diddling with a brand of marker) it's not helpful.


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## AshleyAshes (May 12, 2009)

Christine wasn't so much an item in a characters posession but a character in and of itself.  A good example of something that certian does require more specification.


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## foozzzball (May 12, 2009)

Brand recognition, more specifically recognisable real things, can be a powerful element in description. 'Black sports car' says something completely different to 'Black Corvette'. 'Can of soda' is not the same as 'A Pepsi', 'An American President' is not the same as 'George W. Bush', 'A broken tooth' is not the same as 'a shattered molar'.

Fake branding tends to be problematic in fiction set somewhere contemporary. Reaching for a refreshing bottle of Hatch is not the same as getting ahold of a Budweiser.

Every time you're doing this, though, you're calling attention to it. Do you really want to call attention to the brands and specific things being used, and if so, why? What does it bring (or remove) from your story? The answers here are going to vary a lot based on the writer, the work, etcetera. There's no one answer to fit every situation.


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## AshleyAshes (May 12, 2009)

Hmm, I hadn't thought about inventing your own fictional brand names.   ...Yeah that doesn't sound like that'd work in most scenarios.  Especially any that were loose variations or parodies might actually be destracting to the reader, huh? "Turn off that GameStation!" Heh.


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## nybx4life (May 12, 2009)

I mean, in some stories, it does make the difference in a person's head.
Like foozzzball said, "a diner" is different than saying "a Burger King". 

Using product placement is more or less a way the reader can more readily identify things. Of course, later on the name can be changed for a more generic title, like from "Burger King" to "restaurant".


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## AshleyAshes (May 12, 2009)

How about 'Fast food restraunt'?  When I hear that, I immediately think of a McDonalds like place.

I think there are advantages and weaknesses to specifying brandnames like that.  Sometimes you might want the time and location to be a bit more generic rather than refering to brands that are exclusive to one country.  Though sometimes even the mention of a certian name can immediately bring out mental image of that place or thing.


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## nybx4life (May 12, 2009)

AshleyAshes said:


> How about 'Fast food restraunt'? When I hear that, I immediately think of a McDonalds like place.
> 
> I think there are advantages and weaknesses to specifying brandnames like that. Sometimes you might want the time and location to be a bit more generic rather than refering to brands that are exclusive to one country. Though sometimes even the mention of a certian name can immediately bring out mental image of that place or thing.


 
Well, think about it. When you just mention that a character is playing video games, instead of saying he's playing the latest Madden, it differs his character a bit (but whether that is important to the story is up to the writer)

Because:
-If the character is playing video games, that just means the character is at least a casual gamer.
-If the character is playing the latest Madden, it means that character is at least a fan of football games.

See the difference?


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## AshleyAshes (May 12, 2009)

On a side note, I think that sports gaming IS casual gaming. ^^;;;

But anyway, maybe you're being too vague?  You could say he's playing a sports game or even a 'football game' without saying 'Madden'.


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## Scienda (May 12, 2009)

I think foozz hit it on the head: it's less about the product than what purpose that product serves. To my mind, at least, "a cold beer", "a frosty Coors", and a "well-chilled Guiness" all convery different, albeit similiar, impressions.


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## VVolf (May 12, 2009)

I tend to avoid using actual brands in my writings, but maybe that's just my style. 

I can see the novelty of inventing your own brands, especially parodies when it can add some extra humor. 
_Furtronic Arts_ - "Aw man, my FA game crashed... again!"

/.-, VV


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## M. LeRenard (May 12, 2009)

I see nothing wrong with using brand names, except for the fact that you may have to get rights to the name in order to use it in a published piece.  But, you know... let's say you want to write a story that takes place in a strip mall in the boondocks of some small city.  It would sound a hell of a lot better to write: 
"They asked him to meet them in front of the JC Penney's, right across from the west entrance to Target.  The floor smelled sickly sweet; he was standing next to a dried puddle of Mountain Dew."
than to write:
"They asked him to meet them in front of the clothing store, right across from the west end of the big convenience place.  The floor smelled sickly sweet; he was standing next to a dried puddle of citrus flavored soda."
Right?
In other words, sometimes it's just appropriate to use them, if only to avoid reaching for alternatives.


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## Shouden (May 12, 2009)

I agree with Renard. It's quicker and you give the reader a better mental image when you use name brands sometime. But, again if you're writing a novel or story that you intend to be published commercially, then you might have to get permission. (this is one reason why I cut the number of name brands in my Cityscape novel....and why I had to trim pretty much ALL the name brands from my first book)

Some generic name brands you can get away with like coke and jeep and even nintendo and playstation now (my parents always use those two to refer to most systems.....gamestation is also an acceptable term.)

but it's is a lot different to say "I looked around at the rows of Ferraris and Lamboghinis" than to say, "I looked around at all the exotic cars."

Name brands can also say a lot about a character. Example: "She loved to listen to Foreigner while she did her homework" says something more to the character over "She loved to listen to music while she did her homework."


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## nybx4life (May 12, 2009)

Shouden said:


> I agree with Renard. It's quicker and you give the reader a better mental image when you use name brands sometime. But, again if you're writing a novel or story that you intend to be published commercially, then you might have to get permission. (this is one reason why I cut the number of name brands in my Cityscape novel....and why I had to trim pretty much ALL the name brands from my first book)
> 
> Some generic name brands you can get away with like coke and jeep and even nintendo and playstation now (my parents always use those two to refer to most systems.....gamestation is also an acceptable term.)
> 
> ...


 

Are you sure you need permission to mention a brand name in a novel? I mean, I've seen books that mention things like McDonals or PopTarts or Playstation, but I'm not too sure if it's actually needed.

One book had a setting in my city, using actual street names, and restaurants. I don't think it's much of product placement, unless it's sponsored.


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## Shouden (May 12, 2009)

I think the same concept of product placement in stories would be apply to novels as well, since they are just LONG stories


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## wendyw (May 12, 2009)

I think it's a useful thing to do sometimes.
As others have said using a brand over a generic term gives a much different feel. Shouden's car example is a good one. Car makes are one of those things that have certain connotations attached to them about what kind of people own them.

You don't have to mention every brand. I do think that would be overkill, but I think if you avoid mentioning any then you're missing opportunities.

I think one thing that you can do when writing is to think whether or not the character would really notice and mention it themselves in conversation. If the character that you're following for that scene is the kind of person that walks round in a daze and would somehow miss a parade of elephants going pass unless someone pointed it out then you probably shouldn't mention the brand of car they're walking past.


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## Stratelier (May 13, 2009)

foozzzball said:


> Fake branding tends to be problematic in fiction set somewhere contemporary. Reaching for a refreshing bottle of Hatch is not the same as getting ahold of a Budweiser.


Which brings to mind that bar scene in the new _Star Trek_ movie.  One of the items on the menu was specifically mentioned as a "Budweiser Classic"....


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## AshleyAshes (May 13, 2009)

But does being specific about products have a downside?  It could 'date' your material.  Maybe you don't want your story you wrote in the 90's to be specific 'The 90s' but 'Present day, present time'.  If it's mentioned that your character is playing his 'Nintendo 64' rather than just 'His Nintendo' or 'Game console', you are clearly tagging it as being in the 90s. It could be distracting to the reader years later.

Though on the other hand dating your material could be a goal.  Maybe you're doing something specificly set in the early 70's and you want to underline the presense of 1970's culture.  So your character are getting their Pong on!


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## Poetigress (May 13, 2009)

Even if you don't mention specific brand names, if you write stories set in the contemporary world, your story is still going to be dated, to some degree, by things you can't control. Technology used in everyday life will change. Whether you call the object an iPod or an mp3 player or just a digital music player, it's going to date the story to a certain extent. (One example that comes to mind is the Judy Blume novel _Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret_. While the emotions are still true, the trappings are dated, with characters using belts to hold sanitary pads in place. But that's what was being used at the time it was written, and calling it Kotex or not didn't really make any difference.)

For myself, I'm less concerned with writing works that are going to hold up years from now, as with writing something that's going to resonate with the people reading it today. And for that, I think specifics are nearly always better than general terms. (Really, for any kind of creative writing, specifics are usually better. "Dogwood" is better than "tree," "canary" is better than "bird," etc. You want to paint a picture in the reader's mind, and specific terms, whether everyday objects or brand names, help do that.) 

As with any details, yes, you do have to be careful not to overdo it, and to choose items and brands that fit the character and the tone of the story. As has already been said, a character who drinks Guinness is different from a character who's described as drinking beer or just drinking alcohol. A character who sits around all day watching TV is different from one who watches Jerry Springer reruns.

As for creating your own names for things, that has a place, too. While you don't need permission to use brand names in incidental ways in your story, you want to avoid anything potentially libelous. So, for example, if your novel centers around a fried-chicken restaurant chain that's using genetically modified food in a conspiracy to kill people, you'd probably want to make up a restaurant name instead of using KFC or Popeye's or whatever. It's also useful to create your own places -- whether a coffee shop or a city -- so that you're not overly constrained by the details. Set a story in Seattle, and unless you live there, you're going to have to do some research, because some of your readers might well have been there or live there. Set a story in a fictional city in Washington, and you have just a little more freedom to create what you need.

Creating your own brand names is also useful if you're writing something that obviously isn't set in our reality, but still needs to sound believably contemporary. The best example of this that immediately comes to mind is what Rowling did with the wizarding world in the Harry Potter books, creating brand names for everything from candy to magical tape.


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## Iburnaga (May 20, 2009)

Funny, I've never had cause to deal with branding or some such. The few contemporary settings I've done have remained within the scope of common objects outside the commodities. Really, mentioning brand names makes the story more specific and that may not be a good thing at all. It depends all on how specific one wants it.


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## nybx4life (May 20, 2009)

The only negative about name branding is if the reader doesn't know of the name brand that you're speaking of.


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