Where’s Spalding ?
Many times I’ve heard older people and sometimes even my peers say they wish they could go back to when they were younger. In the movie17 Again Michael O’Donnell gets that opportunity. Mike is at the lowest point of his life.
He’s two weeks away from finalizing his divorce from his high school sweetheart and his nearly grown son and daughter want nothing to do with him. Not to mention, he’s also just been fired from his job of 16 years. Then something miraculous happens. He encounters a mysterious janitor at the high school where he experienced his “glory days” of basketball and wishes to do it all over again.
Mike, played by Matthew Perry is transformed into the attractive and young Zac Efron; his younger self. With the help of his rich best friend Ned, Mike gets the high school experience every teen dreams of. The best clothes, and the fastest car. Throughout the movie you find this journey of his is about a lot more than reliving his glory days.
Products disbursed throughout the movie included Xbox 360, Apple, Coca-Cola, Nutella and Audi just to name a few. If I wasn’t watching the movie specifically looking for these products I don’t think I would have consciously noticed that it was a form of advertising; they appeared in very natural situations. Whether Mike was driving down the street or making a sandwich.
Seeing as one of the central points of the film is basketball, Spalding had the opportunity to show their product frequently throughout the film. It may have been during flashbacks of when Mike was in high school playing, or when he and his unsuspecting son played as teammates in the present.
It may be pure coincidence that the basketballs are angled perfectly to see the brand every time they’re in the actors’ hands, but I doubt it. Another product that was placed particularly well throughout the movie were JanSport backpacks. Almost every student walking down the halls of Hayden High had the same brand bag.
These products were most likely chosen to be placed strategically in this movie because of the content. It’s a coming of age story with the setting in a public high school during basketball season. With hundreds of students walking through the hallways almost every other scene it would make it easy to place there brand throughout the movie. I feel that the product placement was very subliminal and effective.
My Silver Lining 
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