Product Placements Part 2

I guess I created a real stir about movie product placements yesterday. I’ve received dozens of emails about where to find quality placements. I’ll continue to help direct you guys and if I have anything available with the studios that I’m working with I’ll offer it to you.

I want to continue to give you ideas on how to find Filmmakers.

I posted in a comment on my other thread that looking for Casting Calls is a sure way to find films in the process of both casting and securing last minute funding.

A film is generally pretty close to begin filming when they are doing the casting calls.

For example, in Boston, one of the main casting call websites is NewEnglandFilm.com under Classifieds. You can also find a lot under your cities Craigslist section. Some cities are obviously easier than others. You can look in Los Angeles, New York City, Boston, Miami, Montreal, Toronto, Dallas, Chicago, etc etc.

You can also try cold calling a casting agency and asking them to put you on file in their office as a product placement advertiser. Ship them a sample or two of your product and tell them that any time a indie or short film maker comes to them for extras or casting that they also present your product placement offer to their clients. Let them orchestrate and negotiate, just give them your minimum amount. Then they can come to you and you can decide if the film and filmmaker would be a fit for you.

Think of how many businesses made millions putting clothing on stars in movies. They all started on the indie film circuit, paying “up and coming” actors to wear their gear and doing this kind of guerrilla marketing. The same goes for almost any brand based product you can think of, not just clothing. One of the best things that you can do for your business is get it in front of peoples eyes. No better way to do that than movies.

Movies and TV are still the most powerful medium in the world. There’s no easier way to influence millions of people.

If someone sees your supplement or brand on TV or in a movie they are going to google it and buy it on the spot OR be much more likely to buy it when they see your offer again online.

You can also look at Film Festival lists for COMPLETED films, and ask them to place your logo, web address or brand in their credit sequence at the end as a sponsor. It won’t be as affective as something placed IN the movie but it could get you some targeted traffic when they screen their film at future film festivals.

Here’s one final idea to kick around.

Films and even Plays tend to do heavy marketing campaigns in their local communities, posters, flyers and event programs. Often times the mindset of a filmmaker is to get a buzz going locally which will grow to national attention as local, state and nationwide press pick it up.

Want to see one killer product placement campaign?

(The ring is an actual product called “Ms Taken” and they are sitting at over 5.1 MILLION views just on this YouTube video alone.)