It’s that time of the year again: the awards ceremonies are in full swing!
While we are patiently waiting for the Oscars to happen next month, we had the privilege to attend and sponsor the London Critics’ Circle Film Awards on Sunday. The awards took place at the May Fair Hotel in London, a star-studded event that celebrated the best of film.
As Seesaw Media has been working closely with countless films and TV shows for more than 20 years and helping productions and directors bring their visions to life with real-world products from cars to cruise ships, costumes to champagne, we were delighted to support the ceremony.
2023 has been a tremendous year for British cinema so it was fantastic to witness everyone’s hard work being recognised by the Critic’s Circle. We got to celebrate many wins for both newcomers as well as industry legends.
Seesaw Media sponsored the ‘British/Irish Performer of the Year’ category which the brilliant Paul Mescal won.
The overall winner of the night was the film ‘The Zone Of Interest’ by Jonathan Glazer which took home Best Film, Best Director as well as Technical Achievement for best Sound and Music.
Among other well deserved winners, Andrew Scott won the Best Actor category, the British indie hit ‘How to Have Sex’ by Molly Manning Walker won two awards and Jeffrey Wright won the The Dilys Powell Award for Excellence in Film.
‘All of Us Strangers’ by Andrew Haigh won Best British Film of the Year and Justine Triet and Arthur Harari took home ‘Screenwriter of the Year’ for the excellent ‘Anatomy of a Fall’.
It was marvellous to celebrate all these wins and we’re excited of everything that’s still to come from the awards circuit, notably with the BAFTAs taking place next week!
Now that January is coming to an end, this is the perfect time for us to look back at Seesaw Media’s favourite placements of last year!
But first, how can we talk about entertainment in 2023 without mentioning the writers and actors’ strike? The WGA and SAG-AFTRA unions ended up striking for nearly 6 months. After many negotiation rounds, both sides managed to come together in an agreement for fairer working conditions, compensation, as well as protection against AI. The long months of striking meant many productions were put on hold. However, this didn’t mean all films and TV shows had to be paused.
Today, Hollywood has evolved and is no longer a local and homogeneous business. Smaller independent film companies that respected the interim agreements were allowed to go ahead with filming. Additionally, in the last few years, many big Hollywood productions and studios have started basing their filming locations in the UK. This meant filming could go ahead over here. Some of 2023’s biggest films were shot in England. The list includes box office hits such as “Barbie”, “Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning”, “Wonka”, “Ant-Man Quantumania” and “Fast X”.
Ryan Gosling and Margot Robbie in Barbie
As for Seesaw Media, the strike did not stop us from working and doing what we do best: securing our clients exposure in many of your favourite films and TV shows! 2023 was a year of many genres and fantastic movies. A multitude of films were released which allowed us to see the result of our work on the big screen with exciting action blockbusters like “Fast X”, “Meg 2” and “Expendables 4”.
Jason Momoa in Fast X
2023 was also the return of the rom-com in cinemas! We were thrilled to secure exposure in both Lily James’s film “What’s Love Got to Do with It” as well as ending the year with “Anyone But You”, the highest grossing rom-com since Bridget Jones’s Baby (another one of Seesaw Media’s films!). “Anyone But You”, still in cinemas, is delivering strong box office numbers and is now way past the $100M mark.
Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney in Anyone But You
From political dramas like “The Diplomat”, to the fan favourite final series of Netflix’s “The Crown” as well as Apple TV’s nail-biting “Hijack”, (which recorded a record-breaking 357M minutes of viewing time), 2023 was a great year for our clients on the small screen too!
Marvel’s latest spy series, “Secret Invasion” gave us an opportunity to once again dress the wonderful Emilia Clarke. And speaking of spies and espionage, we also got to work on the third series of “Slow Horses” which finally came out in December, with an ending making us wish series 4 would come sooner!
Emilia Clarke in Secret Invasion
On the lighter side of entertainment, we saw the return of TV’s favourite radio shrink Frasier Crane in the Paramount+ reboot. We learnt he still very much enjoys the finer things in life and has great taste in whisky.
Now that we’re well into 2024, we’re looking at the year ahead and are very excited and grateful to be off with such a strong start already! The Netflix movie “LIFT” starring Kevin Hart has been number one in 82 countries resulting in client exposure having been seen by 36.5M viewers in one week alone! And that’s not the only action-packed film that is currently available to watch, “The Beekeeper” starring Jason Statham is now in cinemas.
Kevin Hart in LIFT
Now that everyone in this industry is back at work, 2024 is shaping up to be a great year for entertainment and Seesaw Media! Stay tuned for more…
2023 may only be halfway through but it has been bursting with blockbuster movies. The box office is showing signs of consistency after some tough years during and after the pandemic with big hits Like Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3 and The Super Mario Bros. Movie enticing audiences into their local cinemas With the return of blockbusters come their brand partners, whether live action or animated, from sneakers to aeroplanes, there are many ways brands can help bring a story to the big screen for audiences to enjoy.
The return of Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt in Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One is sure to be one of the biggest films of the year, with the previous instalment Fallout grossing $800m worldwide and Cruise coming in off the back of the biggest film of 2022; Top Gun: Maverick. Whilst the Honda motorcycle in Cruise’s newest iconic death-defying stunt, previewed in the trailer, has generated a lot of interest, Etihad Airlines have just revealed their partnership with the spy blockbuster – “Etihad Airways is teaming up with Paramount Pictures to celebrate the theatrical release of the highly anticipated feature film Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One…You can catch a glimpse of the iconic sand-dunes of the Liwa desert as well as Midfield Terminal, Abu Dhabi’s upcoming new flagship airport terminal and Etihad’s future home in the latest movie trailer.” (etihad.com)
(Abu Dhabi’s Midfield Terminal featured in the M:I 7 trailer)
The partnership will see the new terminal featured in the movie as well as other Abu Dhabi locations to promote the growing tourism trade in the Middle East. To promote their involvement in the movie, Etihad Airways will be serving themed snacks and cocktails on their flights, as well as launching a dedicated in-flight entertainment channel playing the six previous Mission: Impossible instalments from 1996 to 2018 as an option to entertain you on your flight, should you choose to accept it.
(Tom Cruise by the Etihad jet with M:I livery)
The Transformers series has always given brands a unique experience of making their products action heroes, and the latest instalment Transformers: Rise of the Beasts allows for some classics to shine, being a prequel set in the 1990s. The film’s robot lead, Mirage, voiced by Pete Davidson, disguises itself as the cult classic Porsche 911 Carrera RS, while other characters disguise themselves as a Ducati Motorcycle and a VW campervan.
(The automotive stars of Transformers: Rise of the Beasts)
A vehicle can achieve cult status as the chosen transport of a hero on the big screen, the Aston Martins of James Bond or Vin Diesel’s Dodge Charger in the Fast & Furious series being prime examples. But the Transformers series allows the vehicle to become the hero, a unique opportunity for car brands. Porsche will be hoping to repeat the success of Chevrolet from the 2007 original Transformers movie where the fan favourite Bumblebee became a yellow and black Chevrolet Camaro. The Camaro was a failing model selling 29,009 models and ceasing production in 2002, The 2007 movie was an opportunity to reintroduce the Camaro to a new audience. The model featured as Bumblebee was released two years after its introduction in the movie in 2009 to 81,299 models sold (GM sales numbers 2010),showing how a well thought-out placement can transform a brand.
One of the biggest films of the summer so far has been the animated superhero sequel Spider-Man: Across the Spider-verse. In both movies in the Spider-verse series the lead character Miles Morales wears a pair of Nike Air Jordan 1s. The animated pair are made to look exactly like their real world counterparts, and even featured in the marketing for 2018’s Into the Spider-verse.
Miles in his Air Jordan’s in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse (Source Spotem.com)
Miles’ shoes were made available to the public as the ‘Origin Story’ Air Jordans in 2018 and again in early 2023 with an updated version, ‘The Next Chapter’, incorporating some of the films’ iconic artistic style released to tie in with the premiere of the new film.
Origin Story Jordan’s (Source Nike) The Next Chapter Jordan’s ( Source Esquire)
In a video released by Nike’s SNKRS app, one of the directors of the film speaks on their decision to feature a real pair of shoes in the film as opposed to generic sneakers:“Authenticity has always been the key. And I think that when kids saw Miles, his outfit, his clothing, particularly his shoes became almost one of his defining characteristics… Yeah. I think Miles without Jordans isn’t Miles.” (Nike SNKRS)
Clothing brands have often been used to define a character in live action, Maverick’s Ray-Ban’s in Top Gun or Indiana Jones’ licensed Belstaff Jacket in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, for example. The Spider-verse films use Miles’ Air Jordans not just to define his upbringing and culture but to ground the animated world in the real world that the audience inhabits. This trend is seeming to stick around as Pizza Hut have been appearing in promotional materials for this summer’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, opening up a whole new world of product placement.
2023 has been an exciting year in cinema so far, with many more hits with many more partnerships scheduled to hit our screens this summer – Barbie, Gran Tourismo, Ghostbusters: Hell’s kitchen and many more. It’s sure to be another bumper year for cinema and the brands that appear in them.
After the pandemic brought cinemas to a stand still in 2020, it now looks like 2022 has seen the return of the movie blockbuster and audiences with it. Flooding back to local cinemas and multiplexes box office numbers are close to pre-pandemic figures.
Not only are the blockbusters and audiences back, but so are the many brands who partner with movies and benefit from their on screen exposure, through product placement.
As the big studios have released their summer blockbusters, we take a look back at some of this year’s biggest and best and the brand partnerships contained within them.
The highest grossing film of this year with $1.4 billion worldwide is Tom Cruise’s aerial phenomena: Top Gun: Maverick. Thiscritically acclaimed and highly rated sequel responsible for bringing thousands of moviegoers back to the big screen. Its also currently the 11th highest grossing film of all time (according to Boxofficemojo). Just as in the original 1986 blockbuster that helped cement Tom Cruise as a Hollywood movie star, Maverick has a number of brands appearing on screen, many of which appeared in the original. From the Top Gun recruits drinking Budweiser in the bar, to Maverick riding alongside a jet on his original Kawasaki motorcycle, to pilots sporting the requisite pair of Ray-Ban’s – the latter seeing the similar increase in sales that they did when they appeared in the first movie
Top Gun: Maverick 2022
The 2nd highest grossing film of the year is Jurassic World: Dominion, the final film in the Chris Pratt led trilogy, is also just shy of the billion dollar mark. Whilst it doesn’t feature as many brands as Top Gun, this monster of a movie that was filmed during the midst of the pandemic, still has a few noticeable companies that help bring the big screen adventure to life. Jeep, the official automotive partner of the movie, not only appeared in the movie but also implemented a global marketing campaign. In terms of two wheels Owen Grady (Pratt) can be seen tending to his Triumph as featured in the earlier films at one point drives through the streets of Malta on a Honda Montesa 4Ride.
Jurassic World: Dominion Poster (2022)
Marvel’s first film of the year Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness takes 3rd place, also close to the billion dollar mark with a very respectable $955 million.Whilst the superhero blockbuster is slightly lighter on recognisable products due to its multi-dimensional story there are one or two stand out placements. The most noticeable is Strange’s Jaeger-LeCoultre, the watch Doctor Strange was given by his love interest in the original movie. More than just a prop, the watch book ends the sequel showing how Strange’s life has changed over time.
Doctor Strange’s Jaeger-LeCoultre (Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness 2022)
Rounding off the list is the first Blockbuster of the year back in March, the Matt Reeves/Robert Pattinson/Zoë Kravitz/Paul Dano critically acclaimed gothic masterpiece The Batman with $770 million. The gothic superhero movie uses product placement to ground their movie, to connect to the audience using brands and imagery they know to make the characters and locations feel real. The Batman is set in the gloomy fictional city of Gotham, illuminated by a Times square esque set of billboards featuring real world brands everything from Puma to Little Caesars, Westin to Ardbeg whisky.
Gotham’s introduction (The Batman, 2022)
Whilst these may be the biggest films of the year so far, there are plenty more cinematic releases enticing audiences back to the big screen, many of which are full of brand partners. The most noticeable of which is the high speed Brad Pitt actioner Bullet Train which apart from the iconic mode of transport as referenced in the film’s title, and the Breitling worn by Brad Pitt’s character (who coincidentally happens to be a Breitling ambassador), gives a large portion of screen time to the Tumi briefcase that everyone is after – a marketing tagline that Tumi used when promoting their association globally in stores
Tumi X Bullet Train campaign (2022)
However, the biggest placement goes to Fiji Water, who not only appears throughout the movie but gets a whole scene dedicated to it. According to co-star Brian Tyree Henry’s interview with hype.com; “I didn’t know that you could make a Fiji water bottle another character but we managed to do that.” The Fiji bottle was a scripted feature and something the studio Sony took directly to Fiji water, showing how a recognisable brand can steal the show when placed in the right movie.
Ladybug, Lemon and the star Fiji water bottle (Bullet train, 2022)
With big films still left to come this year including Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and Avatar: Way of the Water hopefully audiences and brand partners will keep returning to cinemas and multiplexes as the film industry gears up for a packed 2023.
Christmas and advertising go together like turkey and gravy. As the season of giving, it has become the season of shopping, with a guaranteed boom for the retail industry set off each year by the starting gun of Black Friday. We also see a boom in advertising, with every retailer appealing to customers’ festive spirit by decorating their stores, releasing limited-edition product lines, and creating idyllic Christmas scenes in their television campaigns.
In 2021, advertising has developed so that product placement is now a key component of any good Christmas campaign and savvy holiday movie. The film and television industries’ love of Christmas stories and the context of gift giving offer plentiful opportunities for brands to present their products as aspirational or thoughtful, associated with the excitement of Christmas. The celebratory nature of storylines set in the festive period, often featuring parties and dinners, also serves up bountiful opportunities for food and drink brands to gain placement.
The key benefit of placing a brand in a Christmas film is of course that such films are re-watched year on year. Like a good Christmas song, festive films become embedded in culture as they are revisited every time the holiday rolls around. This means that the potential reach of their product placement spans not only the world, but the rest of time. Christmas films have an emotional claim on audiences, and the products featured in them – whether children’s toys, sugary soda, or designer accessories – are remembered for their association with them.
Here, we’ve rounded up some of the most memorable and effective placements of Christmas films over the years, from cult classics like Home Alone to potential future classics like the recently released Happiest Season…
Home Alone (1990) – Pepsi
Fuller (Kieran Culkin) drinks Pepsi in Home Alone [source: YouTube].When Kevin McCallister’s (Macaulay Culkin) extended family comes to stay before the family’s big Christmas trip to Paris, to his dismay, he is forced to share a bed with notorious bed-wetter, cousin Fuller (Kieran Culkin). It’s no wonder that Fuller’s mum tells him ‘go easy on the Pepsi’ before bedtime. Interestingly, in Home Alone 2, Kevin’s soda of choice is Coca-Cola.
Macaulay Culkin in Adidas for Home Alone [source: House of Heat].Home Alone’s cultural impact is palpable today as Adidas’ new collaboration with the film proves that its association is a hot commodity. Their newly released Home Alone x adidas Forum Low takes inspiration from the sneakers that Kevin wears in the film, with signature red stripes over a white shoe and added accents like burn marks which reference Kevin’s troublesome antics.
Elf (2003) – Etch A Sketch
Buddy’s Mona Lisa portrait on the Etch A Sketch in Elf [source: StackExchange].In Elf, Buddy (Will Ferrell), a human being raised by the elf community, likes to communicate by Etch A Sketch. When he feels rejected by the biological family he is visiting in New York, this is how he chooses to write his goodbye letter. The Etch A Sketch therefore becomes synonymous with the festive spirit of the elf community and the antics of Christmas-loving Buddy, whose skills are so refined he even uses the toy to decorate the department store that he works in with a portrait of the Mona Lisa. With such extensive screentime scripted, Ohio Art Co., the toy’s owner at the time, happily cleared the placement with the Elf filmmakers and prepared for a boost in sales like the one they experienced with Toy Story in 1995.
Four Christmases (2008) – Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 Elite in Four Christmases [source: Product Placement Blog].When Kate (Reese Witherspoon) and Brad (Vince Vaughn) visit his family’s home for Christmas, they bring expensive presents for all the family, including an Xbox 360 Elite for their nephews. Little do they realise, the rest of the family had agreed on a $10 spending cap…
The Night Before (2015) – Red Bull
The Red Bull limousine of The Night Before [source: Product Placement Blog].Childhood friends Ethan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), Isaac (Seth Rogen) and Chris (Anthony Mackie) have spent every Christmas Eve together since they were kids. With major life changes on the horizon, this will be the last year of their tradition, so they embark on the ultimate night out. Chauffeured in a Red Bull branded limousine, it’s clear that they’ll need their energy.
Noelle (2019) – iPads
Noelle holds up an iPad [source: SCREENRANT].Noelle Kringle (Anna Kendrick), daughter of the late Santa and sister of his successor, is determined that her brother’s first Christmas as Santa Claus will go smoothly. Heavily involved in preparations for Christmas Eve, she helps sort through the nice and naughty lists and organise presents for the children of the world. It is a running joke throughout the film that all children want an iPad for Christmas, with Noelle claiming ‘It’s not just about the presents we get but the one we give – love and understanding … and an iPad’. Highlighting the ubiquity and desirability of the iPad, Noelle utilises the gift-giving storyline to create a continuous verbal and visual placement for Apple.
Happiest Season (2020) – Moët & Chandon
Abby stands by a bottle of Moët & Chandon champagne [source: Product Placement Blog].When Abby (Kristen Stewart) spends Christmas with her girlfriend Harper’s (Mackenzie Davis) family for the first time and she finds out that she has been kept a secret from them, the perfect family Christmas that she expected doesn’t go to plan. However, like any Christmas holiday, with family tensions and disagreements also come lavish dinners and parties. Moët & Chandon provides champagne for two such parties, reinforcing its image as a tipple for the special occasion.
Overall, it seems that despite the trials and tribulations of the Christmas period that we see in the movies – family disagreements, lost presents, and sold-out toys – the brands featured in these storylines always find a happy ending in product placement. As we have seen with the iconic line ‘go easy on the Pepsi, Fuller’, Christmas films and the products they reference, are remembered for generations, with onscreen exposure promising brand recognition for years to come.
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