Why a kicking from Morgan Spurlock is good for our industry
In this guest post, former Campaign Palace Sydney planner Arwa Mahdawi, says that the kicking Morgan Spurlock’s new film gives our industry just might be good for it.
If there’s one thing you can say about documentary-maker Morgan Spurlock it’s that he’s good at stating the obvious.
In Super Size Me we learned that junk food is bad for you. Then, in Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden? We learned that, um, nobody knows where he is. Now, in Spurlock’s latest project, The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, we’re shown how branded messages are everywhere and product placement is on the increase.
But while Morgan Spurlock is often obvious, he’s always interesting and he’s undeniably good at engineering debate. And that is exactly the point of The Greatest Movie Ever Sold: to increase awareness about branded messages within content and to start a public debate about both its merits and its evils. For all of us who work in advertising, this should be a very interesting debate to watch unfold, not to mention contribute to.
And then there is always Bill Hicks’ take;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDW_Hj2K0wo
Good piece. An unusually well written, interesting agenda free piece of Opinion on Mumbrella
i disagree – i don’t think this piece has shared anything except a protracted exposition of Spurlock’s film, and a rag-tag collection of “what person X though, although person Y thought something else”.
Opinion pieces should offer an opinion. It seems the best this item could muster is a glib “lets respond with good old fashioned british dignity”.
Yawn.
I guess thus is why she us former campaign palace, oh please
I agree there is a lot to be explored around the issue of product placement and whether this needs to be made clear to consumers of the content.
I also think the advertising industry needs to be thinking more about the influence that large advertisers sometimes exert, or at least try to exert, on the integrity of news editorial in print and on screen. I’m sure most industry people are aware of multiple instances of this, but it’s a topic that gets very little oxygen.
For instance, I imagine the executives of a large supermarket chain would’ve had some interesting reactions to all the recent articles about the pressure it’s pricing policy is putting on local farm producers.
What is the ethical response to this? Is it appropriate to use advertising heft in an attempt to influence the news?
“In Super Size Me we learned that junk food is bad for you”
– Well done for simplifying thing into meaningless. Super Size Me changed the Maccas menu, it catalysed positive social change.
Where you aware that brands engaging in product placement have little to no editorial rights in the filmmaking process? They are not producers. Ever seen that clip from Wayne’s World?
Also, you’d do well to point out this is the first documentary with PP, doco filmmakers work hard to avoid litigation by inadvertently including brand related stuff in their films. Drama on the other hand with bigger budgets)and movie stars, loves a bit of PP. It is part of every studio release. Some do it tastefully, it’s the every other film that’s in Spurlock’s sight.