Spurlock Sells Out

"The Greatest Movie Ever Sold" is a faction documentary directed by controversial filmmaker Morgan Spurlock, that tells the story of how marketing is intertwined into the media in a multitude of ways. Spurlock sets out with a goal to raise $1.5 million in funding by pitching the idea of advertisement of "the greatest brands ever" via his movie. Throughout the movie, Spurlock exploits the idea of product placement in movies and even interviews renowned filmmaker, Quentin Tarantino, who says that shoving brands in your audiences’ faces is a no-go that can break the reality of the film.

Since Spurlock’s film explored the ever-growing nature of marketing in media to begin with, there was no reality to break as the expectations for this film (unless abrasively averted by the title: “The Greatest Movie Ever Sold”) were already to do with brands and marketing. Spurlock proved his point by selling out and on-boarding whichever companies were desperate enough to take his playful pitches seriously and incorporating them as part of his own brand, “The Greatest Ever”. Spurlock was able to completely sell out his $1.5 million idea to twenty-three brand inve

stors, so as to completely cover the cost of the movie and have pure profit from the day the film hit the theaters. Spurlock claimed that his investors were “buying in” instead of him selling out, in his efforts to put his own creative spin on each advertisement throughout the movie. Which, ultimately he does have the investors buy into his shitty movie idea that he maintains creative rights over.

check out the product placement in this early 2000's music video: Here LMFAO is advertising Beats by Dr Dre in their "Party Rock" music video

The first problem with buying into Morgan Spurlock’s idea is his own reputation of sabotaging his own investors reputation with negative publicity from his first popular documentary; “Super Size Me”, which prompted less people to eat at McDonalds than before the film was made. A second problem that I argue is the bigger of the two was best worded by a Sheetz representative (who later ironically invested in the film):

“Morgan is an idiot who thinks all Americans are idiots and anyone who invested in this movie is an even bigger idiot.”

The bigger problem is that these brands are admittedly, not the greatest. We see greater brands turning down Spurlock’s offer only for him to label a lesser brand “The Greatest Ever”. Spurlock is trying to peel back the veil of deception between advertisements we see in movies and how they impact our lives without us even realizing it. However, he does so in a manner that appears to be a 90 minute commercial drawing attention to the boring corporate voices that typically pay for advertisements for a reason. The audience that the movie retained was likely already marketers or advertisers, and really didn’t reach much of an audience other than those who were already looking to watch a film about product placement in media - and then had POMW, Mini Coopers, Hyatt, and Sheetz paraphernalia shoved down their throat for ninety minutes.

Spu

rlock was contractually bound by POMW to selling a certain amount (~250,000) of tickets when the film hit the theaters, and it’s shocking that he met the metrics in order to receive their $1 million of funding. While the film definitely does not live up to it’s name, it does do a great job of illustrating the relationship between marketing and film to the viewers eye in a different light than has ever been done before.

Having watched “The Greatest Movie Ever Made” in the same day as “Jurassic Park: Jurassic World” for a second time, it gave me a whole new appreciation for the product placement seen throughout the film. I’ve found it far more difficult not to notice products in movies after having watched “The Greatest Movie Ever”. For example, in Jurassic World one of the main characters is scaling the side of a mansion

in the rain when we see several up close shots of her black Chuck Taylor Converse.

The next day I watched the newest Jurassic World in theaters, in which the product placement was much less obvious than it was in the 2015 film, yet still featured at least nin

eteen brands, one still being converse. While I was trying to enjoy a nice night at the movies, Spurlock’s documentary made me notice every product placed within the movie.

My Summary

Morgan Spurlock completely sold out and changed the actual advertisement for each brand to meet the brands desire, instead of having the brand buy into him. For example, we saw him tailor the POMW commercial to nearly exactly what other POMW commercials say as well. Although we do see that overall, Spurlock was able to receive the funding needed to support his movie and used advertising to fund his movie showing funding as a solution to a problem. There’s no problem with product placement in a movie - Jurassic World has nearly twenty sponsors too. Product placement in a movie crosses a line when it becomes apparent to the viewer that the on-screen product is an advertisement. While Spurlock’s film was beneficial in shedding new light on product placement as a solution to a problem - in many facets - it ultimately shoved way too many brands towards it’s viewers and completely disregarded any credibility according to the title of the film.