BMW Marches on Hollywood with Propaganda GEM

by Noah Joseph (RSS feed)
Nov 24th 2009 at 9:01PM

Expect to see a lot more BMWs, Rolls-Royces and Minis in Hollywood as the German automaker has signed a new deal with one of the world's leading product placement agencies. The firm, Propaganda GEM, represents such brands as Panasonic, Bang & Olufsen and Nokia, to name just a few, but is ending its 13-year tie-in with Audi – which placed its vehicles in such hit films as Iron Man and I, Robot – in favor of a new one with the BMW Group.

BMW is certainly no stranger to product placement, having launched both the Z3 and Z8 roadsters in the Piece Brosnan-era 007 films. The Bavarian automaker also launched a highly successful short-film series called The Hire in 2001 that attracted several guest directors and starred Clive Owen. But now that BMW has pulled out of Formula One, Propaganda plans on using some of the newly-available marketing funds to place BMW products – including the cars and motorcycles as well as Minis and Rolls-Royces – in more films, TV shows, music videos and video games, in addition to sponsoring events like the upcoming 2012 Olympic Games in London.

Tags: bmw, product placement, ProductPlacement, propaganda, propaganda gem, PropagandaGem