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HIGH TECH GOES HOLLYWOOD
Electronic gadgets are playing a bigger role in movie product placements
Carrie Kirby, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, April 15, 2002
©2002 San Francisco Chronicle

URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/04/15/BU31610.DTL

When Ben Affleck disrupts a terrorist bomb plot as a young incarnation of CIA agent Jack Ryan in the summer flick "Sum of All Fears," employees at RSA Security in San Mateo won't be watching for explosions or chase scenes.

Instead, they'll be waiting for the shot in which Affleck wears their product, a key-size identification device, on a cord around his neck. They're hoping that scene won't end up on the cutting room floor.

Once, high-tech devices in movies and on television were laughably unrealistic -- picture the shoe phone on "Get Smart." But now that high-tech firms are getting hip to product placement, more and more real-life gadgets -- many of them not well known -- are getting cameos in films, making onscreen technology look more realistic than ever.

RSA, whose security technology has already played a role in the John Travolta hacker thriller "Swordfish" and "Antitrust" starring Ryan Phillippe, isn't the only one in on the act.

Vancouver's Sierra Wireless has a laptop modem that appeared in "Swordfish" as well as the 1995 movie "The Net." And Nexian, based in La Jolla, has an add- on device for personal digital assistants called HandyGPS that has been used on the popular Fox TV show "24."

Purveyors of well-known consumer products, from Gordon's Dry Gin ("The African Queen," 1951) to Reese's Pieces ("ET," 1982), have long used placements in movies and TV as a means of advertising. It makes sense: Humphrey Bogart drinks Gordon's, so why shouldn't you?

But firms selling new technology often don't have such recognized brand names, or, like RSA, don't even sell their goods to the public. They see product placement simply as a way to introduce their brand to the world or to tell people that a new technology exists.

"Our kind of technology has yet to hit the mainstream, and any exposure we can get makes the 'I didn't know you could do that' statement," said Sierra Wireless co-founder Andrew Harries.

In fact, technological improvements -- which have translated into smaller devices -- have made Sierra's brand name less and less evident on film. In "The Net," the bad guy hunting down Sandra Bullock's character used a small modem with a flashing light that attached to his laptop. But in "Swordfish," all viewers saw of Sierra's product was a small antenna protruding from a laptop -- with no brand name visible.

Harries does the placements simply to spread the word that wireless Internet access from laptops works.

"Since there's a technology phobia, putting (gadgets) in a movie and showing people how they're used might be valuable," said Mike Kamins, professor of marketing at the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business.

The biggest force pushing high-tech firms into product placement now is economics, said Eric Dahlquist Sr., president of the Entertainment Resources and Marketing Association, a product placement industry group.

"The high-tech industries are suddenly finding themselves without the resources they once had, because their stock has gone down, so they're looking for other ways to gain image and market their products. Product placement is a very attractively priced way to do that," Dahlquist said.

RSA didn't get into product placement under financial duress -- although its share price has fallen recently due to several quarters of disappointing earnings. The firm was doing well when it started doing placements 2 1/2 years ago. But RSA does get its movie roles for small fees or for no fee at all, said Marina Donovan, RSA vice president of marketing. Major consumer brands can pay millions for prime screen real estate, but tech firms pay mostly in free products and technical consulting.

"With 'Swordfish,' I spent hours with them," Donovan said. "They wanted to know how you could break code, what it would take."

Donovan would not disclose how much RSA spends on product placement fees.

RSA also offers cross promotion in lieu of payment. The firm devised an encryption breaking contest that ran on the "Swordfish" Web site, and arranged screenings for employees and corporate customers.

In "Swordfish," John Travolta plays a spy who persuades a hacker played by Hugh Jackman to steal millions of dollars through government computers. But RSA's security is not breached in the film -- the logo appears on a computer screen reading "ACCESS DENIED."

It's very important to RSA that its software doesn't play the role of a defeated security system. In fact, RSA turned down a role in "The Farm," a movie about CIA recruiting scheduled for release this fall, for just that reason.

"The script changed and it was going to look as if we were being breached, so we didn't do it," said Layne Sipole, RSA's agent.

Sierra Wireless doesn't have much influence over how its products are used, Harries said, but so far it hasn't been a problem.

"We'd be a bit miffed if somebody in the movie took the (modem) card out of the laptop, threw it on the ground and said, 'Damn thing doesn't work!' " he said.

No one seems to complain, though, when technology is shown performing far beyond its real capabilities. Remember the scene in "Independence Day" where Jeff Goldblum uses an ordinary Apple PowerBook to upload a virus to an alien spaceship, thereby saving the planet?

Apple declined to comment on whether the scene exaggerated the PowerBook's prowess.

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TIVO DEVICE SHOWING UP UNSOLICTED ON TV SHOWS

Some companies get their tech gadgets demonstrated onscreen without even having to promote them.

TiVo, the digital TV recorder company based in San Jose, never pushed for product placement because the company figured that viewers probably wouldn't know what that box sitting next to the television was, according to Rebecca Baer, corporate communications director.

Yet TiVo has been popping up on all kinds of shows this year, both as a prop and in dialogue. It has been seen on "Sex and the City," "Dawson's Creek" and "Friends."

"It appeals to a lot of people in the entertainment industry. TiVo's just part of their vernacular, and that has resulted in a lot of mentions and visibility in TV programming," Baer said.

The product was incorporated in one episode of "Friends" this season, in a fashion few companies would have paid for.

In the episode, Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) plans to tell her father that she's pregnant. She brings along her pal Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow) for moral support.

When the dad asks what's new, Rachel tells him that she recently got TiVo.

"What's TiVo?" he asks.

"It's a slang word for pregnant!" Phoebe blurts out.

TiVo would never have paid for that placement, and in fact hasn't paid for any placements so far, Baer said.

Baer described her co-workers' reaction to the mention: "Everyone watching said, 'Did she just say that?' "

Of course, for those who couldn't believe their ears, TiVo fortunately has an instant replay function. -- Carrie Kirby

E-mail Carrie Kirby at ckirby@sfchronicle.com.