Chick Flicks and Product Placement

Every guy has been stuck in the situation before...a Saturday night couples night where the girls are picking the movie. Basically it's a roll of the dice when it comes to how bad the "chick flick" of choice will be. Well thanks to Blockbuster being out of every good movie this weekend (can't they learn to order just a few extra copies of Oscar nominees), I ended up spending my Saturday night watching not only a horrible movie, but a horrible product placement as well. The culprit was Little Black Book and the product was Palm. I can see it now, a Brand Manager at Palm gets offered the opportunity for his/her product to be fully integrated into a movie...it gets verbal and visual mentions...it gets integrated into the plot...it even ends up on the movie poster! And as if this wasn't enough, the lead characters are played by that guy from Office Space and that girl from Clueless. I can see the marketing wheels spinning already. But let's do a reality check here...we aren't PT Barnum. To paraphrase, not all marketing is good marketing. Learn to pass when an opportunity seems to good to be true because it probably is.