On Product Placements... Sell Ya Market Right!

I’ve been quite shameless lately! It’d be appalling if I wasn’t enjoying it… K-dramas/Chinese dramas! Even with all the times I roll my eyes at some extremely cheesy scenes… and how ridiculous are the excessive slow mo effects/side angle shots? It is a guilty pleasure I find myself indulging in with all the silliness I have to put up with. Ha!

I generally love to read and watch foreign books/movies… but K-dramas don’t fall in that categorie.

 

I’ve never seen product placement so distastefully done like in K-dramas. 

It’s always so non-discreet, you’d think the scenes were actual ads inserted in the movie... the placement most times are so random it doesn’t even blend with the scene. It’s off-putting! They’d talk about benefits of the product in conversations... like just get a room please. I thought I was the only one having a laugh at this, until I paid a visit to my friend google. I had such a laugh at people’s comments about this. Here’s an example of what I’m talking about…I got this comment off one of those Kdrama forums…

 

“I'm in the middle of watching Signal for the first time, and what do I see but our main character get served the freshest Subway sandwich and subway fountain soda straight from someone's kitchen! Now I'm no stranger to the Subway product placement but that one certainly got a chuckle out of me.”

 

“It's been awhile since I watched it so I don't remember the exact details but in Chief Kim, the main character gets angry at his rival and storms into his office, hands him some Papa Johns breadsticks out of the blue, and then they proceed to have a tense stare down and exchange some veiled threats with tons of macho posturing. It was super weird and the breadsticks absolutely did not belong in the conversation.”

 

Product placement is basically a non-traditional advertising technique used by companies to promote their products, usually through non-obvious appearance in film/media. It blends with the movie; fits perfectly into scenes you wouldn’t even know it’s a placement. That’s a far cry from our dear Asian dramas… I say Asian, because Chinese dramas are quite as bad. 

 

Perfect product placements in movies that blended in with the script and achieved its purpose, was Tom Cruise's iconic wayfarers shades in “Risky Business,” it literally rescued the Ray Ban brand, as sales skyrocketed for the company that was on it’s way to closing down. 

Sarah Jessica Parker made Manolo Blahnik shoes desirable in SATC! Women wanted to wear Blahnik’s just because... Carrie Bradshaw! She loved her shoes and the way she loved them made them desirable to us.

 

What’s the Product placement in your life? What’s so obvious without you having to shout it out for people to notice because they can’t see? Do people notice ‘there’s something different about you’? 

 

We are called as believers to “go into all the world”, The 7 mountains of society/Spheres of influence... what are we displaying? Excellence? Integrity? 

 

Let people see your Faith, that they desire what you have. That’s the idea of God’s Product placement, that’s why believers don’t leave to heaven as soon as they’re saved. Jesus prayed for God not to take us away but protect us from the evil one. (Jn 17:15) 

We are needed on this earth to go into ALL the world… as God’s product placement of grace, mercy, sprinkles of salt and rays of light to make disciples; show the world the salvation found in Christ… and how it is the answer to the heart cry of nations. Our lives and the salvation we preach are so intertwined that people don’t even realize we are ads, they just fall over themselves to have what we have when we declare the truth of salvation that is not abstract to us. It is not false advertising, or done in a way that puts people off. I read that certain K-dramas began to lose viewers because of the ridiculous influence of product placements which had no relation to the context of the plot. God’s placements are not off-putting and they blend in with the all of life’s scenes because Christ was tempted in everyway… He knows what it’s like to be human, what we face, and that’s why His grace has been configured to help us in every possible situation, and given to His brand ambassadors. 

 

I am God’s Product placement of righteousness, grace, peace, joy, victory, hope and the power of salvation in this world. I am well blended with the script of life; just living my life like it’s golden, even in the midst of gross darkness and chaos in the world. I have been transformed by the truth of the gospel. I am selling God’s market well! 

(Notice my Incense apparel Product Placement in this post?)