Branding the movies

Chinese movies might not use product placement on the scale of Hollywood, but the domestic film industry is keen to get in on the act, Liu Wei reports

In Xu Jinglei's recent romantic hit Go Lala Go, the protagonist wins her love interest by handing him a hot cup of Lipton tea when he is tired. Go Lala Go has been widely judged a successful case of product placement. Various companies provided two thirds of the film's budget in order to appear in the romantic comedy. China only started product placement in films a few years ago, but the practice is enjoying a rapid growth.

Metersbonwe, a Shanghai-based sportswear company, even paid to appear for less than a second on a billboard in Transformers 2.