"BRANDCASTING" HITS BROADWAY : Spotlighting product placement on the Great White Way.....
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"This little piggy went to the market and this little piggy stayed home"...but one little piggy had stars for eyes and told Hormel to license the name of a Broadway Show called SPAMALOT and the house did not blow down....
Classic fairy tale adapted by Hollywood2020 blogger Joyce Schwarz to reflect latest trend in product placement--Broadway Show spots & more...
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Sometimes you have to go across the pond to see what's happening on the homefront...."There's no business like the product placment business" according to a story in the UK Telegraph online dated 4/23/05.
"All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely marketing opportunities for major brands." maintains writer Tom Leonard in New York.
In the story, Leonard talks about:
*How product placement has come to Broadway
*Why product placement on stage is sparking fears that the integrety of productions will be compromised.
*How for the first time ever, in two new Broadway shows, their products have actually been written into the script.
*How Yahoo approached producers of "Monty Pythen's Spamalot" -- a new Broadway show to tie in with the production's quest theme...
*How Hormel, the maker of canned Spam agreed to license the Spamalot brand name -- yep you got it right-- Hormel is licensing the name FROM the producers not vice/versa...
Spam what'am....www.spam.com
TURTLEWAX MY BOARD DUDE......
And if all of this doesn't strike you as 'crass commercialism' -- consider other Broadway deals that Leonard points out including Hilton Hotels sponsoring Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Turtle Wax endorsing The Beach Boys musical Good Vibrations -- deals estimated to be worth 1/2 to $1 million depending on the length of the run and the prominence of the advertising.
SWEET CHARITY --- Scotched out by Gran Centenario Tequila? When the Neil Simon musical opens on Broadway next month the production will feature Gran Centenario Tequila because the brand paid an undisclosed sum to producers so that a waiter now substitutes the written line "A double Scotch again, sir?" for new custom-branded wording "Gran Centenario,the tequila?". Don't miss the tequila logo stamped on crates in that dance sequence later either....
and on and on and on........
.....hmmm food for thought...with the right deal maybe it could be "SWEET N'LOW CHARITY" ....and the Beach Boys GOOD VIBRATIONS could be brought to you by....well, let's just not go there right now......
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