Morgan Spurlock - PRNewser

Morgan Spurlock Seeks Members for the ‘Failure Club’

Tonya Garcia — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 12:03:30 +0000

Morgan Spurlock is launching a new documentary-style Web series for Yahoo and he’s using the Web to find cast members.

The new program, “Failure Club,” will follow ordinary people as they try to accomplish something they’ve always wanted to but haven’t for fear of failure. Of course, Spurlock has built his career on documentaries like Super Size Me and The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, where he puts himself at the center of the story the film is telling. (You can check out our Media Beat interview with Spurlock where he talks about his method and his movies.)

You’ll recall that Spurlock has turned to the Web for help with projects previously, auctioning off the naming rights to a TED talk he delivered earlier this year. If you or someone you know in the New York area would be interested in participating, click here for more information on how to apply. Deadline is October 7.

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Budweiser Not Responsible for ‘The Hangover’ in Part II

Tonya Garcia — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 16:57:13 +0000

Product placement everywhere you turn. Except for that one scene in The Hangover Part II where Bradley Cooper said Budweiser but they didn’t actually flash the beer logo all over the screen. Missed opportunity?

Not if you ask Budweiser. Unlike other companies, they actually said no the movie because the scene wasn’t in line with their marketing.

“The brother-in-law in that scene was underage,” Anheuser-Busch’s director of marcomms Mike Bulthaus told the Vulture blog. “We invest a lot of money in our efforts to combat underage drinking. It’s an issue we take seriously.”

Well well. Companies that were featured include IHOP, which was in a scene where someone yells out the naughty C-word.

Product placement has gotten so ubiquitous Morgan Spurlock made a movie about it and the next James Bond movie has $45 million worth of it.

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New Morgan Spurlock Film Takes You Through The Product Placement Process

Tonya Garcia — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 15:41:10 +0000

We had the chance to sit in a comfy chair in a Sony screening room yesterday evening to watch Morgan Spurlock‘s new documentary Pom Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold. The definition of “meta” (literally), the movie is a step-by-step account of Spurlock’s attempts to get sponsorship and product placement deals for this movie. Spurlock navigates the contracts, branding, and negotiating that have become common in modern movie-making. And while the film’s poster makes the declarative statement “He’s not selling out, he’s buying in,” it’s actually posed in the movie as a question.

You would expect that the guy behind Super Size Me would use the movie to assail marketers and the marketing industry. And while the idea for the movie may have come from a negative experience, the movie just presents the information and leaves the opinion-making largely to the viewer.

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EMC Says Winning Bid for Spurlock’s TED Speech Was Money Well Spent

Tonya Garcia — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 12:42:06 +0000

As we reported previously, Morgan Spurlock auctioned the naming rights to his TED conference talk on eBay, with the winner, EMC, bidding $7,100. What exactly did EMC get for its money besides the naming rights? Well, that’s it. But if you ask EMC, a whole lot.

“When the opportunity presented itself, it was a natural for us to try and win,” Richard Snee, VP of marketing for EMC’s Greenplum division told us. “We got an opportunity to be at TED, which we weren’t going to go to, and Morgan Spurlock was my spokesperson. I flipped it around in my head and thought that was an opportunity I wasn’t going to pass up.”

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Win A Mention at the Next TED Conference

Tonya Garcia — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 12:09:58 +0000

A tipster put us on to an interesting eBay auction happening now. (Thanks tipster!)

Filmmaker Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me and The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, which was at this year’s Sundance Film Festival) is taking bids for the naming rights to his 2011 TED talk, taking place March 2 in Long Beach, CA. The topic is “Worlds Imagined.”

Spurlock’s pitch says:

In my discussion, I will explore the world of branding, advertising and the entertainment industry. If you are the highest bidder, then during my talk I will make reference to your company, reflect positively on your placement and share the process of how you got involved.

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PR Impacts Relations Between Documentarians and Corporate Execs

Tonya Garcia — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 14:48:45 +0000

The Sundance Film Festival is happening through this Sunday and one of the films getting attention is The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, the latest from Super Size Me filmmaker Morgan Spurlock. The new film takes a look at product placement and marketing, with Spurlock talking to reps from brands including Pom Wonderful, the pomegranate juice, and JetBlue.

“It took finding businesspeople who were willing to stick their necks out in a big way,” Spurlock told The New York Times. Indeed, McDonald’s is likely still a little stung by that “other movie.”

A 2009 study by the Center for Social Media at American University found that “documentarians ‘often’ don’t treat corporate executives in the same manner as everyday citizens, partly because executives have access to public relations experts.”

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