If you’ve ever seen a James Bond movie you’ll know that the hero gets around in a smart Aston Martin car. Even if you know full well that you could never afford such an expensive vehicle, you don’t forget the name, or the car. Why? You have been subjected to product placement.
Companies pay for a film to place their products in the movie. Product placement took off in the West in the 1980s and is now catching on in China. Two Hunan Satellite TV series are recent examples：Ugly Wudi and Let’s Go Watch the Meteror Shower（《一起去看流星雨》）. Shampoo, mobile phones, cars— anything can be product-placed. Advertisers value the great appeal (吸引力) of the movies, knowing that a successful film can showcase their goods to hundreds of thousands of viewers. But when product placement takes over, artistic value can take a back seat.
Cai Zhiyong has been product-placing for years. The Beijing-based advertiser admits there is a conflict between art and business. He explains cash-strapped filmmakers often have to sacrifice (牺牲) the quality of their work because they need money from advertisers. In the original story for Meteor Shower, the heroine’s mother owned an ice cream shop. But no ice cream company wanted to give away money to the film. For this reason, the story was changed. In the film the man drinks 20 cups of milk tea where it was originally intended that he would eat ice cream.
Even here incredible, you may see the power of business over the movies, since the flim was perhaps written so that a product could be placed— whether it was ice cream or milk tea.
James Bond movies are mentioned in the first paragraph to show _________.
A. how popular James Bond is B. how great the Aston Martin car is
C. how to make a movie more artistic D. how well product placement works
Product placement can have a bad effect on the _________ of a movie.
A. sound effect B. appeal
C. commercial success D. artistic value
What does the underlined word “cash-strapped” in Paragraph 6 probably mean?
A. Short of money. B. Self-moneymaking
C. With a lot of cash. D. Intending to earn money
We can learn from the example of Meteor Shower that __________.
A. business has a big say in the movie
B. the original story was not good for a movie
C. filmmakers care more about making money.
D. milk tea companies are more successful than ice cream companies.
