13/12/2006

Playstation, mineral water, insurance companies, cars, credit cards: Italian Christmas releases are full of brand names, proving that, after an enormous delay, product placement has finally arrived in the country’s film industry in a staggering way.

"Finally, a law that allows me to use brand names!" a triumphant Alessandro D'Alatri told Cineuropa. In his new film, Commediasexi [+see also:
trailer
film profile] , product placement occurs nine times and his reference is to the so-called Urbani Film Law of 2004, which allows for the explicit promotion of product within films, considered until then to be "covert commercials".

"It is certainly a non-negligible source of film financing,” said Commediasexi producer Riccardo Tozzi (Cattleya). "Placement must not be forced and should not clash with the scene. Moreover, product placement allowed us to even further increase the film’s visual level".

Cattleya entrusted the nine instances of placement in the film to the Milan-based agency Camelot (advcamelot.it), which has worked with some of the top Italian production companies in the past two years and “directed” product placement in three films that will be out in theatres in the first trimester of 2007.

Over a dozen brands appear in another Christmas film, Carlo Vanzina’s Olé. According to the film’s producer, Giampaolo Letta of Medusa Film, "Our marketing department works with the brand companies even during the launching of a film". The hands-down star of the film is the latest Sony console: in one scene, a professor "confiscates" a Playstation from one of his students, only to be seen playing it later with great enthusiasm.

A group of Members of Parliament has already protested the film, labelling it "non-educational".

(Translated from Italian)