Culturally significant or common household names always found a way into literature but it is the first time I find two mentions of brands so blatantly placed that the only conclusion I’m led to reach is of paid product placement.
The book in question is “The House in the Woods”, by Mark Dawson. In the very first few paragraphs there is a mention to Hello Fresh, with a not so subtle description of the service, along with an admission of a character on how the instructions to prepare a meal are so simple even they can follow it, and a mention to Spotify. Deeper into the book I’ve already noticed a mention of Nescafé instant coffee.
None of these mentioned brands needed to be there. The writer seems proficient enough to be able to write without resorting to such name placements. The story telling is fluid, with a smooth but dense tone to it, which is something I enjoy in crime/drama/mistery novels.
Has this been a thing for a long time and only now I’m noticing the elephant in the room or is this a rising trend?
Everyone needs and deserves to make a living but not like this.
It was one of the more startling aspects of the original James Bond books. He didn’t just use an ‘expensive cigarette lighter’ and drive a ‘sporty car’, he used a Ronson and had a Bentley with an Amherst Villiers supercharger.
You’ll also find mention of Gordon’s gin, Citroën, Morland cigarettes, and Taittinger champagne.
This was certainly not the norm for literature in 1953, but was a conscious choice by Fleming to root Bond in reality, albeit a rather upscale one.
Exactly and that worked. And it was clear why the man took to those brands; his life could end the next moment and violently. He wanted to have his taste of the best he could get. It fitted the character. Regardless those references, the reader could easily forget them as they did not marked the flow of the story.
In the book I mention I’m picking up more of these references has the text advances and most are purely unnecessary which was what made them originally so noticeable. The brands are mentioned as if they are pivotal to a scene or the unrolling of the story
It was also because Fleming was paid by the companies to use their product names.
That’s a fact? Very interesting. But at least I’ll concede the man did it with a degree of finesse.
One example is that Bond drove a Bentley in the first six novels and then Fleming changed it to an Aston Martin for Goldfinger. The most famous is Bond smoking Players Cigarettes where there was advertising inserted into copies of Thunderball. The movies did much more to include product placement, though.
I remember reading someone positing that Bentley positioning them more in the high luxury segment was part of the motivation of Bond turning to Aston Martin, as the brand was more concerned with sports and racing, closer to the fast and dangerous life style of the character.
That cigarette brand never caught my eye. What did caught my eye was reference to turkish tobacco and a description of how much stronger it was.