Director’s consulting firm hired by Activision

Director Brett Ratner discussed the risky business of integrating brands into movies Thursday at an Advertising Week event focused on “consumer attention in a media-saturated world.” I must say, I was not a fan of Ratner’s and don’t think all the attention he gets is warranted. However, he is onto something. Not only has he started Brett Ratner Brands, he had a strong stance on product placement in movies: “…Ratner argued that forcing a soda bottle into a movie scene makes it seem like a prop and doesn’t have any branding effect because viewers will block it out. “It must be a character embedded in the story,” he said, recounting how he absolutely wanted a Porsche 928 as a younger man because it played a key role in “Risky Business.” (source: The Hollywood Reporter)

Ratner is also trying to find the right car for Eddy Murphy to drive in Paramount’s “Beverly Hills Cop”. He explained that just making a deal with a car company for $ and trying to fit the car into the story is not the right move. He is doing the opposite – making the product itself a character. I bet his agent, manager and Paramount execs are telling him to make a random deal so they can recoup budget costs, but Ratner is splashing the media with his “artistic” announcement saying that brands will come to him, not him to them. Regardless, I think he poses an interesting argument about masking product placement into movies as a character and that viewers will ultimately “buy into” the product organically.

Brett Ratner Brands has recently been hired by Activision to produce branded media for Guitar Hero with Mariah Carey and Miley Cyrus.

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