Run Fatboy Run (brought to you by Nike)

Last night I saw the film Run Fatboy Run. Seeing this film came with much anticipation for me having absolutely loved Simon Pegg's previous 2 films, the brilliant Shaun Of The Dead and the even better Hot Fuzz. I was fully expecting this film to follow the trend and be even better than the last. This, sadly, was not the case and the film was nothing more than a bog-standard RomCom with a brilliant cast sadly wasted on tired jokes and a hackneyed plot. That's not to say I didn't enjoy it: it was entertaining, and reasonably funny in places, but I left the cinema feeling somewhat indifferent.

What made the film a lot less palatable was the product placement, or perhaps I should say brand placement, of Nike.

*A few spoilers may follow, though nothing that would really spoil the film, as the plot was horrendously predictable.*

Firstly, the whole premise of the film is based around the main character Dennis running a marathon. The marathon is sponsored by Nike, with Nike logos emblazoned across the start and finish line banners, and along the entire length of the course. The commentators and news reporters in the film, naturally, mention the sponsors of the marathon many, many times.

I can handle this just fine, in fact it does add a sense of realism to the film that would be taken away by having the supposed marathon not sponsored by any brand (which simply does not happen) or inventing a fictional brand to sponsor it. However the sheer volume of Nike swooshes (the tick logo) to be seen was somewhat over the top.

What made this product placement unbearable, however were the ways in which the shoes had been worked into the plot:

Dennis is presented with a pair of running shoes by his assistant coach prior to the marathon. Cue a close up of Nike running shoes followed by the comment "the man in the shop said they were the best!" Cue cringing from the entire audience.

One of the other marathon runners proposes to his girlfriend at her birthday party. He gives a speech about how he's running the marathon, and how marathon running is normally a solo pursuit, but he would like his girlfriend to become his partner. He hands her a birthday present the size of a shoebox. She opens it and, lo and behold, inside is a pair of Nike trainers! Out of the trainers he pulls a ring box and proposes to her. Cue puking from the entire audience at the most clumsy product placement they've ever seen.

As I said previously, I don't mind the sponsorship of the marathon by Nike. That is product placement that makes sense. I could almost handle the fact that he was given a pair of running shoes and told that they are the best if it wasn't for the close up shot of the clearly Nike shoes. But to have a character propose by giving someone a pair of Nike shoes and pulling the ring out of the shoe is just about the most desperately ridiculous way of working in a product to a film that I have ever seen.

And guess what everyone is wearing when they run the marathon. You guessed it: not only do they wear Nike numbered bibs (which makes sense, and I don't mind) but they were all kitted out from head to toe in Nike gear. This is ludicrous: even if a marathon was sponsored by Nike, people would turn up wearing a whole host of other brands, even a mix of brands (Adidas shorts, Puma shoes, Nike t-shirt, maybe) but in this film EVERY SINGLE RUNNER was kitted out from head to toe in Nike gear, and this was made oh so apparent by the constant close ups of shoes, shorts and anything else with the Nike logo on it.

I'm all for product placement. I think it plays an important role in building up brand retention amongst consumers, and placed subtly it can work wonders. This Nike placement, however, was so constantly and obviously rammed down the audience's throats that it actually made for uncomfortable viewing at times and several audible groans could be heard towards the end of the film. If anything, I think that it will damage Nike's image amongst film goers. If they had stopped with the sponsorship of the marathon I think people could abide it, and would've gone away with Nike in their head without necessarily noticing. Unfortunately the sheer volume and lack of subtlety in this film meant that people went away feeling angry and annoyed with Nike. I heard a few people grumbling about the product placement, and one person angrily (and sarcastically) exclaiming "Yeah! Of course EVERYONE wears NIKE don't they?!" as we exited.

I hope this isn't the beginning of a trend towards more brand placement of this ilk. If it is I certainly will find myself going to the cinema a lot less. In the future I hope that companies just DON'T do it like Nike did.

A glass and a half of awesome

I have a new favourite advert. I have a new favourite advert every few months: I can never settle on just one great piece of work to say is my absolute favourite, it really depends on when you ask me. The same goes for music: I still don't know what my favourite song is after 21 years of life and gigabytes upon gigabytes of albums. Perhaps I'm just indecisive, but I prefer to think that I'm open minded and people keep creating new masterpieces every day, and when I discover them they temporarily take the number 1 spot along with a whole host of others.

To get back to the original point of this post, my new favourite advert is for Dairy Milk and features a gorilla playing the drums along to the classic Phil Collins tracks "In the air tonight".

Here's the ad in question:


I think Fallon have created an instant classic that people will remember for many years with this advert. I think it plays very well on the British love of off-the-wall humour and the simple fact that anything can be made exponentially more entertaining by placing a guy in a gorilla suit into human situations - see The Mighty Boosh and Trigger Happy TV for evidence. Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure that Bollo the talking gorilla from The Mighty Boosh is also a drummer: this may well be a deliberate link, I'm not sure.

Anyway, the advert is also very attention grabbing, both visually and aurally: the simplicity of the music and the close-up on a gorilla (which isn't obviously a man in a gorilla suit until further into the ad) is very powerful. When I first saw it I missed the opening "a GLASS and a HALF FULL PRODUCTION" which, of course, instantly informs the viewer that this is an advert for dairy milk, with a welcome return of this classic slogan. By missing it I thought that I was watching an advert for an animal abuse charity at first and I was intrigued to see where it was going. Needless to say I absolutely lost it when he (I'm assuming it's a he; I don't know why) started playing the drums. Somehow they've managed to make the gorilla's face gurn perfectly in the same way all drummers (myself included) do, which is a brilliant touch: he really looks like he's feeling the music.

I think one of the main reasons this advert is so good is that it is a refreshing change from the more standard in your face "here's the product, this product is great, did I mention the name of the product? Buy our product, here's the logo, slogan, blah blah blah buy our product!!" school of advertising. It is entertaining, and it mentions the product very briefly. Simple, effective, and I crave a dairy milk every time I see it.

I haven't yet seen any other media from this advertising campaign, but I hope that Fallon have integrated this advert across other platforms - billboards, digital and POS featuring the gorilla would serve as neat reminders of the TV version, get people talking about it and, of course, buying the chocolate bars. I am, in all seriousness, going to buy a big bar of Dairy Milk next time I go to the shop, just to say thanks for this great piece of advertising (honest, that's the real reason, nothing to do with cravings the likes of which have never before been felt by someone who wasn't pregnant).