IV LEVEL UNIT 10 SELL Lesson 4

Even if you ? ve never seen any of the Iron Man ____________________ , you
probably still ____________________ the star : Robert Downey Jr . and his
____________________ metallic red and gold suit . In fact , at this point it ? s almost
____________________ .

With marketing ____________________ reaching over $100 million per movie , and world - wide distribution and ____________________ , the presence of Iron Man is ____________________ . And that ? s before we even consider the number of people who have visited the theater to watch one of the Iron Man films .

A quick glance at the box of ? ce ____________________ show ____________________ numbers : $585 million in ____________________ sales for the original Iron Man , $621 million for Iron Man 2 , and an incredible $2 . 4 billion for Iron Man 3 !

No wonder then , with so many ____________________ glued to the
screen , that ____________________ companies are jumping at the chance
to attach themselves to this ____________________ .

Yes , there are TV ads , ____________________ , and ____________________ , but in this day and age , the real prize for any company is product ____________________ . After all , when people ( and especially kids ) are able to skip ads , change
channels , and avoid traditional ____________________ , it becomes harder
and harder to catch and keep their attention .

However , if they ? re watching the movie and see their favorite star drinking a Dr ____________________ , well what
could be more effective than that ?

Right from the start , the Iron Man franchise has taken full
advantage of its captive audience , selling screen time , especially
to car and food companies . In terms of vehicles , Audi is the
brand of choice ; not only does the main character , Tony
Stark , drive an Audi R8 , his assistant Pepper Potts , played by
Gwyneth Paltrow , drives an Audi too . Of course , Audi says
this is because Tony Stark ? s ? drive for ____________________ represents the
constant quest for ____________________ ? , but you don ? t need to be much
of a ____________________ to question this statement .
Perhaps more ____________________ , Audi has also publicly ____________________ that the ____________________ of their R8 is in part due to the ? lm series .

Even more blatant is the food and drink on ____________________ in the
____________________ . After talking about how much he wants an American
burger , Tony Stark can be seen with a Burger King wrapper
while he gives a press ____________________ . However , there is one
example of product ____________________ in Iron Man that is even more
surreal . It turns out that the ____________________ of Iron Man 3 ____________________
in China was four minutes longer than anywhere else .

The reason ? There were ____________________ added with Chinese actors
drinking Yili , a milk drink , ____________________ for product placement
reasons .

Of course , product placement in the cinema is nothing
new , as a look back at other older action films will ____________________
to . Take for example the ____________________ Bond movies in which 007 ,
James Bond , famously drove an Aston Martin in ____________________ ? s
Goldfinger . In the five ____________________ since , product placement has
become as common in the Bond movies as car chases and
____________________ ____________________ .
In Die Another Day , twenty different companies paid $70 million between them for the ____________________ of having their products included in the movie .

So what does the ____________________ hold for Iron Man and his many ____________________ ? Well , it doesn ? t seem like product placement is going to ____________________ ____________________ anytime soon .
To be sure , there has been some ____________________ from parents , movie critics , and ____________________ groups like Campaign for a Commercial Free ____________________ . But if the ____________________ keeps approving of these movies by opening up their ____________________ , then you can be sure that companies will keep paying for the privilege of ____________________ in their products .

Even within the ____________________ industry , various big name players
have already ____________________ themselves with other Hollywood
____________________ ? Dodge are heavily invested in the Transformers
franchise ( the ____________________ turn into Dodge vehicles ) , and
BMW is the car of choice for Tom Cruise in the Mission
Impossible movies .
Maybe the companies should just make the movies themselves ? how does Audi Man sound ?