Superman shills for phones and razors

Posted Thursday, June 6, 2013 at 4:20 PM Central
Last updated Thursday, July 18, 2013 at 4:20 PM Central

by John Couture

Do you remember the good old days? You know before CGI and the countless number of product placements in films?

It's gotten so bad that they've created a movie that tackles this single epidemic. Of course, the problem with wanting to see the biggest and best explosions possible is that they are really expensive.

Unless you're happy with seeing a dude in tights as the superhero you look up to, then you're forced to suffer through some ads and the proliferation of product placement. We already wrote a piece talking about that, so I'll try not to rehash all of that stuff.

What I've noticed recently though is that advertisers are starting to branch out in terms of their direct and indirect advertising of their products in relation to films. For instance, it's no longer enough to simply have everyone in the film use Apple products in the movie, now Apple wants to present exclusive content or have the cast create new content for them.

The below "Official Nokia Exclusive Trailer" is a prime example of a company utilizing the former strategy. Not only will Nokia products assuredly feature prominently in the film, but they are able to advertise their phones before and after this last pre-theatrical trailer for the film.

OK, so it could have been worse. Can you imagine Superman placing a long-distance phone call on his Nokia phone to his long-dead father? Instead, we get an odd, yet cool, interaction between father and son in space.

Of course, Superman didn't just stop at selling phones, apparently Gillette saw an opportunity to capitalize on a point of contention that stems from an early trailer. In the trailer, Superman has a beard and then later on, he's back to his more familiar clean-shaven visage.

That sharp contrast in the trailer brought up a point that hasn't until now been properly addressed. How does Superman shave?

Given that Gillette is in the shaving business, they creating a little campaign around this question enlisting some help from their friends, such as friend of the site Kevin Smith to come up with their theories on how Superman shaves.

They also have theories from Bill Nye, Mayim Bialik and the Mythbusters guys that you can check out on HowDoesHeShave.com. Currently, Bill Nye's Material Sciences Theory is in the lead.

So, what's next? Thor selling hammers? Spider-Man hawking bug spray? Or is this simply an acceptable price to pay to see bigger and badder films?