Transformers 4 is going to be big business for Chinese brands looking to drop their products in scenes shot in the Wulong district of Chongqing municipality. Wulong has sponsored 10 million yuan (US$1.6 million) for the film, while four Chinese firms put down a US$1 million each for product placement, the Beijing Daily reports.

Product placement, or embedded marketing, is any form of audiovisual reference to a product, a service or a trademark during the film.

The upcoming Hollywood films The Avengers 2 and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 may also offer showtime for Chinese brands, the report said.

Reach Glory Media Group, which designed product placement for TCL Corp in Iron Man 3, will be the agent to help four Chinese enterprises conduct product placement in Transformers 4, said Ben Ji, managing director of Reach Glory.

China’s film market is getting bigger and giving higher returns for Hollywood producers, while the increasing box office sales for imported films have also been very attractive to Chinese brands, Ji said.

Movie market expert Jiang Yong estimated the starting price for slipping a product reference into a Hollywood film is at least US$1 million. The price is six to seven times that for product placement in a major Chinese film, but it is still very attractive to Chinese enterprises.

　　

Most of the Chinese brands in these Hollywood films will be cars, televisions, computers and articles for daily use. “We’ll read the script in advance so as not to undermine the principle of creative drama, and based on the film plot, we’ll weave in appropriate ads,” Ji said.

Via the cooperation with major Hollywood films, Chinese brands can change their low-end image and become more internationalized, said Peng Kan, research and development director at Beijing-based consulting company Legend Media.

　

So far, the product placement by Chinese brands in Hollywood films still remains unrefined, Peng said. The most clever product placement is to let the brand become a part of the story. Foor example, when mentioning the movie 007, people will automatically think about BMW cars and Omega watches, Peng said.

　　

Ji said more product placement will be seen in the future following the expansion of the Chinese film market. Ji estimated that product placement revenues could reach nearly 500 million yuan (US$8.1 million) a year in the market.

Source: https://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?id=20131115000042&cid=1202

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