Microsoft’s Bing & Sony Shameless Spiderman Adverising Placement

When something just doesn’t look right it stands out, especially in 3D. I was at the movies recently watching the newest version of Spiderman and couldn’t help noticing all the blatant product placement by Microsoft and Sony. I’m in the advertising world so I always think it’s ironic that product placement annoys me so much. I think if the advertisement that’s presented to you isn’t already related to what you are watching or doing then it becomes a distraction. For example when you are watching the news about the latest disaster and an ad for Viagra comes on your television. There is no context for why the ad for Viagra is on the screen, there is a disconnect with the real world. So that’s what I felt when the protagonist in Spiderman uses the Sony Xperia smartphone running Android to make calls to his gf, check voicemail, listen to the police scanner, and plays a video game. All of these functions by the way my Windows Phone can do very well. 2 students in the movie are shown watching a video of Spiderman using a Sony Tablet S. The funniest scene was when Peter Parker uses Bing to search for information about his father and spiders. Full disclosure I use Bing myself, but it was so obvious that Microsoft had paid a boat load of money to get Bing featured in the movie. I think product placement especially in movies cheapens the experience, but provides some entertainment in the form of counting the number of paid placement products being shoved down the audience’s throat. What do you think? I’d love to read some of your comments.