Wall-E and "Product Homage"

If you haven't seen Wall-E yet, stop reading this web page immediately and go to your local theater. It's that good. I swear. Aside from having some of the most beautiful animation ever put on film, the story is amazing and the characters are heartbreakingly sweet. It's got a 97% fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes for goodness sake. That doesn't happen by fluke.

Image from Madison+Vine

Anyways, I mention it because the film prompted an interesting article today by Beth Snyder Bulik at AdAge's Madison+Vine blog. The article, talking about the future of product placement in films, suggested that Wall-E, with its sly and unimposing references to Apple computers, might be a precursor of how companies will begin using product placement in film.

Dubbed "product homage" by Forrester Research analyst James McQuivey, the idea is that the general brand image is represented in a work rather than a specific shot of a product. In Wall-E, this is represented by the sleek design of the black and white robot EVE as well as the floating space station Axiom. More subtle, brand focused product integration would allow for a richer immersion and do less to detract from the process of viewing the movie.