After a trip to the cinema this week to see Contagion, Steven Soderbergh’s new film about a deadly virus that spreads around the planet, there was, admittedly, a slight uneasiness when someone started coughing on the bus home. But it’s not the fictional MEV-1 virus that’s been keeping us awake at night…

What really stayed with us wasn’t the disease depicted in the film, but the one it was infected with. Where others saw apocalyptic grandeur, oracular prophecy, or an allegory of the global financial crisis, we saw a breathtakingly elaborate 100-minute long commercial break. To us, Contagion was little more than a casualty in the product placement pandemic.

An all-star line-up including Maaatt Daaaaamon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet, Laurence Fishburne and Jude Law were really just the supporting cast in a film where big brands stole the limelight. This played out like a public information film funded by America’s corporate giants.

Some placements were arguably not that shameless in the context of the film – Purell, a brand of hand sanitizer, makes a number of appearances, and the company’s website even congratulates the film for inspiring a “heightened awareness of illnesses transmitted from person to person.”

But there are also repeated close-ups of iPhones and iPods, plus liberally scattered verbal mentions of everything from Twitter to Taco Bell and Facebook to Vicks VapoRub.

The script was serviceable, the acting was OK, the cinematography was competent, but is that really enough to warrant paying good money to have our consciousness penetrated by the filth-ridden organs of the advertising machine?

Make no mistake, product placement is to marketing men what rohypnol is to date rapists, and the putrid penis of publicity is always ready to sow its salty seed.

The laws on product placement on British TV were relaxed recently, which means we’ll be seeing a lot more of it. From 14th November, Coronation Street will feature a Nationwide-branded cash machine in Dev Alahan’s corner shop. Before we know it, David Dickinson will be varnishing himself with Piz Buin bronzer live on air and the next series of Downton Abbey will feature a time-travel subplot where servants regularly visit the future to stock up on Domestos and cheap lager.

Morgan Spurlock, the man behind Supersize Me, recently made a documentary about product placement called The Greatest Movie Ever Sold. If you want to know more about how it all works, it’s well worth watching.

Contagion certainly doesn’t take the title for worst product placement in a film – there are plenty of movies where product placement is far more blatant and shameless.

Tom Hanks has to be the undisputed go-to man for corporate-funded Hollywood guff. Remember Cast Away? Essentially one big FedEx promotion, whilst sports brand Wilson also handed a few suitcases of unmarked notes to the producers for good measure. He was also in You’ve Got Mail (thanks AOL) and, more recently, Terminal, where he plays a man stuck in an airport where corporate brands and logos conveniently find their way into almost every shot.

Adam Sandler has serious form in this area too. Just try watching Happy Gilmore without craving a Subway or stick Little Nicky on and tell me you don’t want some chicken.

Blockbusters like Spider Man and Transformers are completely infected by the product placement virus, with conspicuous corporate branding supposedly anchoring the film in reality, but really just reminding us to KEEP BUYING MORE STUFF.

Surely one of the only films that gets away with it is Wayne’s World, with its brilliantly self-conscious take on selling out:

 

So… that’s our take on product placement 8Ballers! Just think of this blog as your vaccination against a horrible disease.