Audi Man 3: Product Placement Fatigue

There’s an Audi commercial where Zachary Quinto and Leonard Nimoy drive german cars. Then there’s an Audi commercial where Robert Downey Junior and Gwyneth Paltrow drive Audis blah blah blah.  I mean a movie.  Iron Man 3.  And while one could make a case that “Vorsprung durch Technik” (Advancement through Technology) which is the main slogan for Audi is an appropriate motto for a guy who uses a robot suit to do superhuman feats, I have run into product placement fatigue.

There is a point where I notice the not too subtle placement of company brands and logos and it begins to diminish their cache and appeal in my eyes.  Do I really need to see the various server racks in Tony Stark’s house with prominent Oracle Sun logos?  Do I really think that Tony Stark would keep a bunch of OEM equipment around?  And just how many 1U servers does it take to host Jarvis?  Perhaps part of him exists in the cloud.  Is Jarvis now an Amazon Web Service? (NOTE: no Amazon Web Service logos observed in Iron Man 3).

Sometimes when you go back and watch films certain product placements seem amusing because either they don’t fit or the company didn’t last. For some reason I remember that Silicon Graphics was used in the movie Lost in Space…but at this point I think it’s safe to say SGI will not be with us in our interstellar exploration.

Back to the Future had a few Pepsi product placements including the lines of dialogue that now must be explained to younger generations:

Marty – Alright, give me a Pepsi Free.

Lou – You want a Pepsi, pal, you’re gonna pay for it!

Since I’m so young I’ll try and explain it to myself.  I think what Marty is asking for is a product currently marketed as Diet Pepsi which could be considered free of calories.  Of course we all know that if Marty was really a cool kid he would ask for a Diet Coke since Diet Coke is the second most popular soda (even more popular than Pepsi).  Since Diet Pepsi / Pepsi Free did not exist back in October 1955, Lou is confused.  He assumes that Marty is asking for a Pepsi free of charge.  This of course annoys Lou because Lou is not accustomed to giving away free soda to punk kids like that slacker, Marty McFly.

Where was I?  RIGHT IRON MAN 3.  I think there’s a point in the middle of the film where Tony steals a car and it’s an Audi.  Or I don’t know where that car he’s driving around in comes from but it’s an Audi.  The cars that plunge into the ocean are Audis.  The car at the end towing his robot arms is an Audi that is not going into production.  (As far as I know, the e-Tron is dead. Who knows what the future holds? That’s why we build time machines and blog posts).

It is possible that there is some easily persuaded wealthy people who sees the fancy lifestyle Tony lives in the movie and is convinced that they want to be like Tony Stark and drive an Audi.  I’m not one of these people.  It is possible that I don’t believe that Audi is a company that makes products for people like me and that the over-exposure of their products makes me resentful to me in some fashion.  But I think it’s also possible that it is possible that too much exposure can actually damage a brand.  I’m sorry if I’ve whipped out my iPhone in your face too much.

As far as a review of the movie Iron Man 3:  a mediocre positive review.  I saw it in 3-D and I think there was something glitchy with one of the lenses in the glasses so that was a slight annoyance during the entire film.  I didn’t care for the plot and I feel like Marvel wasted an opportunity here.  If you’ve seen the trailer, you probably know whether or not you’ll enjoy this film.  Dumb Boys will like it.  Girls might not.

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