Clever awareness building and product trial tactics - Mutti tomatoketchup

Just yesterday I wrote about the Middagsfrid offer, and me for the first time trialing their offer of (hopefully) stress free mid-week dinner solutions. The load of groceries and recipes arrived today and I was delighted not to have to think up anything to have for dinner this week. What a saviour!

A thing that surprised me though was the Mutti tomatoketchup in the load... I scanned the recipes to see where it ketchup was needed but saw nothing...Well, when turning the recipe page there was a short little notice of 'This weeks Bonus product'. This was of course the Mutti ketchup. There we had the answer, and a clever trick of Mutti and other brands to reach the Middagsfrid target group of time-starved city folks. Great way to reach out to new users through a tactic that will delight and surprise. I already look forward to receive the next 'Bonus'.

Sex in the city 2 - suffers from too much product placement

Image via Wikipedia

I enjoyed a girls 'movie night out' in Stockholm last night. These days neither movie nights, nor girls nights are frequent occurances. Last night I celebrated in style with two lovely friends, my highest heels, my lovely Tous handbag, a glass of Bollinger bubbly... and the latest Sex in the city movie.

However, as I left the theater having survived a two hour luxury brand bonanza, I couldn't stop reflecting on the sheer and rather ghastly amount of product placements that are so frequent and too obvious throughout the movie.

Don't get me wrong. I do believe in product placement and in it's power to build brand. But I was still annoyed by how obvious product placement was done in this production. There's hardly a scene without a reference to brands. And sometimes the references are so corny too. One wonders if the movie would have gone ahead at all without the brand owners push and investments.

I hope I won't have to see this kind of product placement destroying movies again. We'll see!