While we’re all looking forward to seeing Captain America plant a heroic fist right in Thanos’ big purple mug in Avengers: Infinity War, one thing that’s certainly not setting my world on fire is the promise that the film will see the most cross-media advertisement and product placement of any MCU movie to date.
Earlier this week, we reported on a dodgy sounding tie-in with Quicken Loans (currently being sued by the Department of Justice for defrauding the American taxpayer of millions of dollars), but that’s turned out to be just the thin end of a $150 million marketing wedge. Over the next few weeks you can look forward to Earth’s Mightiest Heroes hawking products from companies including (but not limited to), Coca-Cola, Ziploc, Go-GURT, American Airlines, Synchrony Bank, Yoplait, Duracell, Unilever, Quaker, Chevron, OnePlus and Samsung.
Many of these products will also be popping up in the movie itself, with pride of place apparently being given to the INFINITI QX50, a car described by Top Gear Magazine as “seriously expensive for a compact crossover SUV.” Mindy Hamilton, Marvel’s SVP of Global Partnerships & Marketing, whose soul reportedly exited this plane of existence sometime in the mid-2000s, had this to say about the news:
“Some of these partners are new to the family and some have been friends of the studio for years. What they all share, though, is a commitment to innovate in their industries and excel at the way they craft their stories. We couldn’t be more excited about collaborating with them in preparation for this historic release.”
The particulars of some of these campaigns include a “suspenseful [car] commercial with a twist at the end,” a series of soft drink cans with various Avengers on the side and the sale of Ziploc bags with superhero designs on them. Synchrony Bank, meanwhile, promises an advertising campaign centering around what they describe as “fandemonium.” The one silver lining in all this is that the film is also partnering with the charity Stand Up To Cancer, for which it should rightly be applauded.
I know this kind of advertising/product placement onslaught is par for the course in a major Hollywood blockbuster and is part and parcel of the whole game (Man of Steel famously made back almost its entire budget even before release), but that doesn’t mean I have to play cheerleader for it all. Fortunately, the main attraction – Avengers: Infinity War itself – looks impressive enough for us to get past all this.