The most common products to be promoted by product placement in movies or television are automobiles. Ford is the brand with the most appearances in movies with 24 in 2007 and 18 so far in 2008 (www.brandchannel.com, 2008). In fact, a Shelby GT500 is used very extensively at the beginning of I Am Legend. When using product placement as a way of advertising cars, according to Kelly O’Keefe, executive education director at the Virginia Commonwealth University, “the idea is to grab the attention of consumers without being too obvious, while also creating a positive image for the automaker” (O’Keefe, 2008). He says that when done effectively, the practice has been shown to boost sales, and it can be very affordable for companies. This is a very cheap way to advertise for these companies since they can get their products placed often by simply providing them for free. The goal of such big-screen appearances, according to company officials, is something intangible: “brand awareness.” Get the name out there, get the emblem in people’s heads. Yet, people do not actually think that product placement in movies affect their purchasing decision. Only 20% of respondents thought that such advertising strategies would influence their decisions. On the other hand, 68.1% of respondent thought it was a Ford Mustang when it was actually a GT500 which is very similar. Only 21.3% identified the car correctly. This can be linked to people’s involvement with cars. In fact, 19.2% of respondent affirmed to be interested of very interested in cars suggesting that when having to identify a harder issue, people more involved with the type of product are more likely to recognize it better. Nielsen Media Research found that in a study that 57.5% of viewers recognized a brand when viewing a product placement in combination with a commercial as compared to 46.6% of those viewers exposed only to a commercial for that brand. This suggests that product placement does boost brand awareness. An...