The Supersize Me star puts product placement under the microscope at Sheffield's Doc/Fest.
Watch a video interview with Morgan Spurlock
If anyone could sell spoons to Sheffield, it'd be Morgan Spurlock. On the outside, he's a game, genial guinea pig. Within lies a salesman who could flog you anything, and plenty of it.
The Doc/Fest audience was accordingly putty in his hands yesterday, after so much friendly pummelling. Spurlock peddled and peddled and peddled. With the Guardian alone he did a video, podcast and an interview for Film & Music, then there was the press conference, the meet and greet, the Q&A after the film, the party; on Saturday, he's back to host a masterclass). But this is a Barnum whose USP is transparency. These are light touch jazz hands: a breath of confident showmanship in a genre not notorious for it.
It helps he's hawking quality wares: Pom Wonderful Presents the Greatest Movie Ever Sold is a very cute movie. An examination of the mechanics and effects of product placement and advertorial tie-ins at the movies, funded by exactly that, it's a touch less gimmicky than McDonalds-for-a-month experiment Super Size Me. And a lot more tone-appropriate than bounty-hunting travelogue Where In The World Is Osama Bin Laden? (which, despite a critical mauling, has apparently done a roaring trade on Netflix since the man himself was located).
The other aspect of the film which makes it such an easy sell is that the story since the shoot is part and parcel of the movie itself. Indeed, its promotion at Sheffield is a spin-off of the contractual obligations demanded by the 15 corporate investors who, between them, demanded alarmingly high target media impressions and cinema runs.
The headline sponsors, who paid $1m in exchange for their brand running above the title, were, it turns out, about 39th on Spurlock's list of target beverage companies. Yet they have, said Spurlock yesterday, got "more press out of this than they knew what to do with" - particularly welcome in light of a US Federal Trade Commission legal challenge to claims about the benefits of Pom with regards to cardiovascular and prostate health. ("If I were to drink this for a year," claimed Spurlock, "I'd get the greatest erection ever sold.")
Spurlock managed to avoid screening the film for any of the sponsors before its Sundance premiere, fearful that a cold showing in an office filled with lawyers might lead to trouble. The ecstatic reception it enjoyed in Park City meant that even companies who had been eager to emphasise the non-monetary nature of their involvement, such as human/equine shampoo Mane & Tail, were then lining up with proposed promo ideas.
Spurlock himself has been bombarded with offers to direct ads ? even by the very companies who initially rejected his overtures. His own brand (identified as "mindful/playful" by a commercial strategist in the film) has been enhanced no end, after the dip following the release of Bin Laden. For all his humour, he's a canny operator, with more ethical savvy than many of his more superficially serious-minded colleagues. "It's not a question of selling out 30% or 40%," Spurlock said yesterday, in one of the few moments of controversy in a cosy press conference. "When you take this kind of money, you have been corrupted 100%. That's just how it is."
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2011/jun/09/morgan-spurlock-product-placement-docfest
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