BRANDED CLIENTELE
Phil Hart spends his days scouring scripts for product roles
O F F I C E S P A C E
W•
alking through the showroom
on the way to Phil Hart’s office,
you are surrounded by rows of
products lining the shelves: bottles of Pepsi, bags of Lay’s potato chips, boxes of Microsoft software and cases of Gatorade, among others.
“It’s not a convenience store,” Mr. Hart quips, although you might be forgiven for thinking so. The products belong to clients he represents as president of MMI Product Placement, a company that gets their merchandise into movies and on television shows.
Mr. Hart reads scripts that studios and TV production companies send him and looks for opportunities for his clients’ products. Then he negotiates with the art directors, prop masters and producers for placement. In short, he acts as a
casting agent for products. He also protects a client’s reputation by indicating where their products cannot
be used. For example, if there’s a scene where someone breaks into a luxury car, he won’t allow that car to be a BMW ( a client of his). “ That would send the wrong message,” he says.
Curiously, he doesn’t keep scripts in his office: They are scattered on tables and shelves around the showroom, although the highlighters he uses to mark up the scripts are lined up at the front of his desk.
Since 1985, Mr. Hart has placed products in approximately 2,200 productions, including Scary Movie, Mean Girls, The Butterfly Effect, Degrassi and Instant Star. On a wall adjacent to his desk is a poster for the original X- Men movie. “Wolverine is from Northern Alberta and you see him drinking a Molson Canadian,” he says.
This example raises an important point about product placement. “ Clients don’t want their products to be in the background; they want close-up encounters,” he says.
Some products are easier than others to place, and when Mr. Hart takes on clients he looks for ones that are film- friendly. “ Placing Colgate toothpaste in a bathroom scene is a lot easier than placing Viagra,” he adds.
Mr. Hart works on about 150 projects a year and to keep on top of all the work, he writes
lengthy to- do lists in the pages of a notebook, which he keeps on his crowded
dark wood desk. He also keeps a large
whiteboard in front of his desk, where
he writes down quarterly plans.
Clients pay Mr. Hart an annual fee
ranging from $15,000 to $50,000, depending on the type of placements he believes he can achieve for them. His target is to deliver five to 10 times the cost of the retainer. So if a prominent placement is worth $5,000 and the product receives 20 placements in a year, his service carries a value of $100,000. (TV and film companies do not pay Mr. Hart.)
Is this investment more effective than advertising? Mr. Hart says that is the wrong question to ask. His service works best in tandem with advertising, he says. ( To keep on top of advertising news he reads Marketing magazine, which lies on the floor in front of his desk.)
Advertising first builds a recognizable brand, he says. Then product placement brings the brand to top of mind. While television stations are not eager to do away with revenue-generating commercials, in this age of the remote control, product placement in a program has a greater chance.
There’s no greater satisfaction than seeing a TV show or movie that includes his clients’ products, Mr. Hart says. This week he’ll get satisfaction as Edison, starring Kevin Spacey, Morgan Freeman and Justin Timberlake, closes the Toronto International Film Festival. Firing up his computer on a wood shelving unit behind his desk, he says Pepsi, Visa, Frito Lay, and Colgate products all have parts in the movie.