Is it a film or one long commercial

By Katherine MacColl

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NEXT�time you watch a film keep an eye out for strategically placed products. Product placement generates over $500 million a year for the Hollywood film industry and this figure is growing all the time.

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Manufacturers pay film companies hundreds of thousands of dollars to ensure that their products�are strategically placed on the film set or their brand is shown in shot on an advertising board or shop front. The idea being that as soon as you walk out of the cinema, you will change your buying habits to buy the car, tampons or soup�that the character you identified with in the film used.

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Although many people disagree with the increasing amount of subliminal advertising featured in films, it is generally accepted. When it concerns products that�are known to harm your health, however, the debate heats up.

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Recent research has found that Hollywood stars are still smoking in blockbuster movies, despite a voluntary ban on promotion agreed in 1989.

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Comparison of movies made since 1989, with those made before that date reveal an 11-fold increase in the proportion of films where actors smoke brand name cigarettes.�

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The study, by the Norris Cotton Cancer Center in New Hampshire, USA,�found that 85 per cent of films studied featured smoking, while cigarette brands were displayed in 28 per cent of films.

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The concern is that young audiences will associate cigarette brands with role models, which will help push them to take up tobacco.

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The practice of product placement of cigarettes in films, where a named brand is handled or used by the movie's stars, is a form of promotion that can reach a global audience of tens of millions. In the 1980s, tobacco companies spent millions of dollars to ensure that their products were prominently placed.

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In one deal, Brown and Williamson, the manufacturer of Lucky Strike, agreed to pay $500,000 to Sylvester Stallone for smoking its cigarettes in five movies, including Rocky IV and Rhinestone.

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In 1989 tobacco firms publicly ended direct financial payments for brand placement in films. But the survey says researchers who watched 25 US top box office films were 'unable to identify a downward trend in the frequency of tobacco brand appearances in films'.

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But, does product placement really work Can you remember what brands your favourite characters use If you can, perhaps you can help one�of The AnswerBank's readers, who wants to know if Dot Cotton, in Eastenders, smokes a brand-name cigerette. Click here to help out.