Product Placement - are we on the wrong track?

The summer blockbuster Superbad continues to impress at the box office holding number one again last week. Over the past 10 years brands have become increasingly more prevalent and integrated into major motion pictures. So what brands are capitalizing on the movie Superbad?

Try these ones:

American Eagle Outfitters, American Express, bic, Camel, Casio G-Shock, Cheetos, Cocoa Puffs, Dartmouth College, Doritos, Ford, Frito Lay, Fritos, Geo, Honda, Kool, Marlboro, MasterCard, Motorola, MySpace, Nike, Oldsmobile, Orbitz, Pellini, Pepsi, PUMA, Quaker Oats, Red Bull, Sierra Mist, Slim Jim, Slushee, Sony PlayStation, Under Armour, Vans, Welch's

This is one area where I think our industry has become increasingly lazy. In my mind our goal as marketers, advertisers and brand builders should be to make our brands so entrenched within pop culture and to create brands that consumers become so emotionally connected to that Hollywood is forced to include your brand within the movie if it wants to be seen as relevant to a specific target market. Paying Hollywood through product placement is the easy way out. Do you think Harley Davidson paid for it's references in Easy Rider? I think not.

Thank you to brand channel for the Superbad brand breakdown.