The Persuaders

The Persuaders is an interesting documentary on how big advertisement is in our current society. Advertisement goes beyond commercials; there are many other ways that it is used to inform consumers of products. The point in the documentary that I got the most interested in was when it began to talk about product placement in films. Product placement is something that I have noticed more and more as I got older and it is not something that is uncommon in the world today or in the past.

One part of the documentary gave an example of showing a short film with an actual plot, but was made for selling a product. This actually seems like a very effective way to use product placement since the film would be much shorter and it would be easier to showcase the product that the advertiser wants to sell. There are times in television and film when the product placement is really obvious and it can come across as annoying; especially when it comes through dialogue. I don’t think it is necessarily a bad thing if something like a short film is made for product placement, but when it is shoved into my face during something I don’t want to see it in, that is when I and many others start to get annoyed by it.

I am glad that this documentary did cover product placement. Product placement is something that becomes more and more common the more you get into the entertainment industry. It can admittedly an effective way to get your product some attention especially when it is done with subtlety and it doesn’t take away from the entertainment it is placed in. The documentary made it clear that companies will use a variety of different methods to get what they are selling across to the people, and they are not above shoving it everywhere they can.