Brands demonstrate interactive talent

Advertising/Marketing: In Tom Cruise's new movie, Minority Report, his character John Anderton walks past a billboard advertising Guinness.

The poster "recognises" him and calls out "John Anderton, you look like you could use a Guinness". A second later another billboard speaks to him and by the time he reaches the subway he was been talked to by several recognisable brands.

Everything about the movie is futuristic so the approach to advertising had to be too. The idea is that interactive advertising, which is at present at a fairly primitive stage, will evolve by 2054 - when the film is set - to the point that it will actively engage with consumers. As he drives by a poster for Pepsi-Cola's Aquafina, the poster doesn't just sit there passively waiting for him to notice it; instead his car his splashed with water.

Minority Report's director, Steven Spielberg, said he wanted to use real brand names so the movie - which is wall-to-wall with every futuristic gizmo and gadget imaginable - would in the viewers' mind remain firmly located on planet Earth. As well as Guinness and Pepsi, Nokia, Lexus, American Express and Reebok are also featured.

Product placement is, of course, nothing new; most major blockbusters feature an artfully placed bottle of beer, sports car or soft drink.

To integrate the products fully into Minority Report's distinctive futuristic style, Los Angeles advertising agency 3 Ring Circus was commissioned to create space-age fictional television advertising commercials for the brands that are shown in the movie.

Spielberg envisioned that, in the future, it will be possible to download clothes from the screen so at the end of the Reebok advertisement, which shows athletes wearing hooded suits running a 100-metre race, the word download is flashed on screen. For the Nokia in-movie commercial, a split screen shows a man and a woman using a phone with a video. The brand's logo floats through the screen.

Two advertisers went further with their links to Minority Report. Both Lexus and Nokia are reported to be spending in the region of $5 million (€5.06) to advertise their product placements and the movie. In the Republic, Nokia is using Minority Report-themed advertising to promote its new 7650 handset. Press advertisements this week show the new telephone, which incorporates a digital camera, which will not be available in this market until the end of the summer.

The head of Nokia design, Mr Frank Neuvo, designed the futuristic communications devices in the film, such as the interactive screens, which are themselves branded. "Even though our daily work is to design the future of communication devices, this film provided an exciting opportunity to look even further into the future and imagine how people could communicate in 2054," he said.

Nokia's television advertisement uses scenes from the movie and the brand's customers can download various ringtones and graphics from the brand's website.

bharrison@irish-times.ie