I can't even watch it anymore...

I was flipping through the channels the other day and one of the Transformers movies was on.  Within the first 5 minutes of watching I counted at least a dozen brand name products.  Now, thinking about all these marketing themes and ideas, I had to google product placement in Transformers.

What really got me thinking was the presents of the Army.  Did the Army pay Hollywood to be in that movie?  Is part of our military spending budget labeled Hollywood?  So, dollars that could be spent taking care of soldiers past and present is use to show how the Army can kick some fictional robots butt.  Does anyone else see a problem?

I guess I wouldn't say I didn't know it was there, but The Persuaders had said something about becoming desensitized... I really didn't think about the actual money spent until we began discussing product placement.

I can't even watch it anymore... I've been trying to find any kind of dollar figure on what the military spent on product placement.  I found one article from USA Today discussing Army spending with NASCAR.  If they continue their sponsorship of NASCAR it will cost $8.4 million this year.  They're talking about discontinuing sponsorship, but how much have they spent already?  That's just with NASCAR... it's makes me wonder if the payoff is worth it.

U.S. Army to discontinue NASCAR