The history of product placements in motion pictures dates back to 1927, when the silent film Wings, starring Clara Bow and Gary Cooper, prominently featured a bar of Hershey’s chocolate. Since then, corporations have paid Hollywood big money to insert their products into scenes, be it the gratuitous positioning of every brand known to man in the Transformers films or the luxurious automobiles displayed in the James Bond series. But what happens when wokeness becomes a product placement? Perhaps Netflix is offering a sneak preview into the future of content creation and consumption.
Netflix’ Product Placement Plans
Over the last year, Netflix has been starving for funds. The streamer has been exploring various ways to generate money to keep the business afloat, from altering its password model to launching ad-supported subscriptions. But, moving forward, embracing woke capitalism might be another crucial revenue generator.
Netflix recently signed an agreement with General Motors to showcase and normalize electric vehicles. The arrangement officially launches during the Super Bowl on Feb. 12 with a commercial starring Will Ferrell. The actor will ostensibly drive a wide range of GM electric vehicles through multiple Netflix programs, such as Army of the Dead, Bridgerton, and Squid Game. In addition, the tech-entertainment juggernaut will insert GM EVs into a broad array of scripted and reality series, including Love Is Blind and Unstable.
This initiative aims to “accelerate the transition” away from gasoline-powered automobiles, effectively “normalizing” electric cars, said Deborah Wahl, GM’s chief marketing officer.
“I think you can see with this we’re working together to create a blueprint for the whole entertainment industry in how to think about normalizing EVs and showcasing this all-electric future, because we all know it’s good for all of us if we accelerate that transition,” Wahl recently told The Hollywood Reporter.
This leads to a crucial question: Will businesses and organizations spend good money to ensure wokeness becomes the new product placement in film and TV?
Wokeism as a Product
GM buying ad space in Netflix content is perhaps the beginning of woke brands paying vast sums of cash to advance their agenda on the big and small screen. But, until drag queen organizations and the Democratic Party purchase scenes in movies and TV shows, it will be woke ideas planted into scripts that will function as the product placement. In fact, this Operation Mockingbird-esque crusade has been the norm for many years.
(Photo by: Joan Slatkin/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
It is no secret that Planned Parenthood has collaborated with film and television producers for the last several years to normalize abortions. A recent investigation by Fox News Digital learned that YouTube Kids is flooded with videos featuring drag queens, hosts discussing sexuality, and LGBTQQIP2SAA themes. The content is also hard to avoid since many of the videos are plastered on the front page. In addition, late-night talk shows, such as The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, and Jimmy Kimmel Live!, have turned into one-hour snooze fests championing leftist causes and personalities while slamming anything and anyone on the right. Case in point, Colbert doing a “Vax-Scene” dance, Fallon singing about a COVID variant, or Kimmel ignoring President Joe Biden’s litany of gaffes.
Since much of Hollywood stews in leftism, the next question becomes: Will content distributors only accept product placement from certain companies? Or, worse, will the pitchforks come for producers who accept money from businesses that have committed the cardinal sin of wrongthink?
Go Woke, Go Broke?
(Photo by Mark Makela/Getty Images)
Companies have become incentivized to go woke. Indeed, gone are the days of Michael Jordan’s philosophy of “Republicans buy sneakers, too.” A 2018 study by Cone Communications revealed that 88% would be more loyal to a business if it supports environmental or social issues. A 2022 survey learned that 66% of US consumers – and 80% of young adults – would pay more for “sustainable products.” But are there limits to this wokeness? A recent Rasmussen Reports poll discovered that 87% of American adults note that the quality of a company’s products or services – and not so much the promotion of causes – is important in buying decisions.
That said, it is challenging to quantify if the mantra of “go woke, go broke” is accurate, although the public understands many entities have been afflicted with the woke mind virus. The vocal minority will tweet, garnering the attention of headline-starved writers, who will then publish articles that will generate rage clicks. Brands will then scan Twitter feeds and make decisions based on what two perturbed non-binary people shrieked to the digital heavens on Twitter. Remember when Fox News host Laura Ingraham lost a couple of big-name advertisers because former pillow tycoon David Hogg crafted a tweet targeting these companies?
Leftist dogma supersedes balance sheets and bottom lines. Continual investments in wokeology and routine concessions to the online mob prove that Accounting 101 practices are no longer in vogue.
