Why do TV and movies use fake names for products

[DrFaroohk]

I still see it sometimes today, but I think it was more prominent a while ago. The people in the TV show, they don't drink Budweiser. They drink a brown bottle with the red crown logo or whatever it is, but its just called BEER. Or Budmaster or something.

Is that because the TV show doesn't want to give free advertising to the product, or because they don't want to have to pay for use of the name in their show? I don't know how it works either way, but I always wondered.

[bara]

High Budget movies get paid to do product placement.. low budget ones have to pay to use it.

[Bloodsoul]

"So the elderly (Connor) MacLeod goes to Opera to watch opera..."

[Andara Bledin]

Some shows don't want to advertise other people's products. In some situations, product placement can be a huge revenue stream. Another possibility is to not alienate possible advertisers.

And then there are some people who have so little in the way of lives that they will write letters to a show to bitch about a character drinking one brand of beer over another.

^-.-^

[HYHYBT]

Reasons vary... I have heard that at one point product placement in England was against the law; to the point that a Volkswagen Beetle offered as a prize had to have its logo covered up. (The old Beetle, so nothing remotely current about that).

Sometimes it's because they tried to get paid placement and failed, or would like to get paid in the future. (This is why some years ago The Price is Right stopped giving full ad-like descriptions for unpaid grocery items and small prizes, or even mentioning their name in the description.) And sometimes it's because the logo would be distractingly obvious if it were present, as with the large, lit-up Apple on the backs of their laptops.

[Bloodsoul]

Sort of an opposite of this, but I always found it humorous that the old VHS cassettes of the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movie would be prefaced by a Pizza Hut commercial, even though the brand of pizza the Turtles ate was Dominos.

Although in an attempt to stay on target, I am now reminded of "Little Nero's" from Home Alone.

[AdminAssistant]

I prefer it when directors invent brands for their movie universe, like Red Apple cigarettes (Tarantino) and Chango beer (Rodriguez).

[BlaqueKatt]

I prefer it when directors invent brands for their movie universe, like Red Apple cigarettes (Tarantino)

yeah and the interesting thing, red apples are actually american spirits(In kill bill and a couple others, you can see the logo)

What about Kevin Smith and Nails brand cigarettes, Chewlies gum, or "Mooby's", plus the fake sports teams-the monroeville zombies.....

[blas87]

Don't forget Great White Bites cereal

[jackfaire]

If a company decides they don't like that you used their product in a movie they can and will sue you for it.

It's basically a likeness rights issue.

When Spielberg shot ET he had to get permission to use a brand name candy. M&Ms turned him down.

Reese's Pieces said yes.

Guess whose sales shot through the roof.

Part of it also is what you want to do with it. For example if you want to blow up a fast food restaurant it's easier to invent one and blow it up than to get permission from an existing chain to blow up one of their's

For example Mooby's in Dogma they basically portray that chain as being Satan's minions all of the Board of Executives minus one were evil in some way. Can you imagine any real restaurant chain that wouldn't sue over something like that?

[Mytical]

Totally off topic, but now I want to have a restaurant called "Hellfire BBQ" with either one of the following two catch phrases. "Hottest food north of Hell." (if it is indeed north of a city in America that was named that), or "Food so hot it is sinful." if not.

[Gravekeeper]

Dante's Inferno, Bar & Grill: It's Not A Sin If You're Already In The Circle.

-.-

[Ginger Tea]

Repo Man (tracked it down on DVD recently ) had shelves and shelves of white boxes, jars and cans with black wording of "Beer" "Cereal" "Jam" etc, it kind of looked like going shopping in the aftermath of "They Live" (although it was years after that I saw that movie).

Fast Forward to the late 90's and the basic brands of supermarket food for the big 3 started to appear like this, although they started to phase them out as I think illiterate and people who didn't use english as a first language complained that they had no idea if they were buying peas or pet food.
I still see the odd tin, but only in the cheaper version of the shop brand which always seem to look like they were made with the floor scrapings of the generic store brand version.

BBC does not advertise so alot of their 'brand products' seen in shows like Eastenders just look like real brands, but if you were to look closely (as an extra or some other on set person) you could see they were not benson and hedges.
I barely know this as the woman who played Pat Butcher said her characters brand was "bla" and she made sure to put here own cigs in the box to smoke and not whatever the prop master inserted as they were all shite.

Blue Peter do the black tape over the Kellogs logo even though the Cockerel is still blatantly visible as brand recognition, when I was a child it was always the same brands of washing up liquid to be turned into rocket ships and always Kellogs, I don't know if they ever migrated to generic store brands as that could be seen as endorsing one supermarket over an other.

[BlaqueKatt]

"So the elderly (Connor) MacLeod goes to Opera to watch opera..."

"I like to go to 'bar' and have 'drink' and 'sandwich'."

[smileyeagle1021]

In some cases the fake brands are actually used for realism.
For example, if the show is based in what is supposed to be a different world than the one we live in (either in the science fiction sense of literally a different world or dramatic sense of different than what we think), then it wouldn't make sense to see Budweiser, Pepsi, and Oreos, because, after all, how would those brands exist in a different world?