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"Who put this poorly-fitting sticker on my Vaio?"
Uh-oh! He don't look happy. He's been using Brand X!
Here we have a can of the world's most popular cola — no names, no lawsuits.
— Richard Hammond in Brainiac: Science Abuse.
When a script calls for a consumer product, and no one has offered the producers a Product Placement deal, a television program must resort to making up a brand — or, in some cases, obscuring a real brand so that it can't be identified. Another technique is to make a lookalike label that doesn't show the actual brand name — for instance, a bright-red soft drink can inscribed, in white letters, "Cola".
Under Canadian broadcast regulations, product placement is considered a form of payola and is strictly forbidden. Real brand names can't be shown on locally-produced TV shows. Dramas, comedies, and even cooking and home improvement shows have to block out the brand names of the items they use or replace them with Brand X. (TV sports and news/current affairs programs are exempt, the first because the advertising can't be controlled and the second because news programs can do whatever they damn well want.) These rules don't affect imported content, though.
In the UK product placement is forbidden too, but there's also the issue of "undue prominence", wherein a particular brand is, outside of any product placement agreement, given excessive exposure. (Mitchell and Webb noted this in great style with the conclusion that a porn scene about a satellite TV installer would have to be a gang-bang to ensure no single brand was given undue prominence.)
Sometimes fictional products can become story elements in and of themselves, either as part of the "world background" of a show, or as running gags.
Films with blatant product placements, such as the remake of The Thomas Crown Affair, usually have them obscured when they are syndicated.
In addition to Brand X, some movie and TV producers may choose to use discontinued products as a point of style. Quentin Tarantino is known for using boxes of discontinued cereal in his movies, such as "Fruit Brute". Wes Anderson used a discontinued brand of European cigarettes in The Royal Tenenbaums.
At one time this was a universal practice in advertising, allowing a marketer to compare his product to a competitor without actually naming the competitor and reminding the viewer of why he might prefer it. The competitor would often be referred to as "the leading brand," giving rise to the question, "if your product is so good, why is the other brand leading?" In the last two decades, advertising has gotten bolder, and it is more common to see a real competing product in an ad than not — or at least a minimally veiled reference to a competing product (ie, a detergent box with the basic design and color scheme of Tide, but no logo). The practice of explicitly naming the competition was arguably begun by the great McDonald's/Burger King ad wars of the late '70s and early '80s. (Specifically, in a Burger King commercial starring a then-four-year-old Sarah Michelle Gellar.)
However, in some cases it may be mandatory. For example, in Germany it is against the law to specifically bad mouth a competitor's product, even if the statement is true. So if your tuna fish is completely mercury free, and a competitor's still has mercury in it, it's prohibited by law to say so while mentioning the name of the competitor's product, even though your statement is true.
In some kinds of advertisement, items other than the one advertised that would normally be used in its own branded packaging will be found in some kind of neutral or unbranded packaging. The most common examples of this are advertisements for cereals, in which milk will be poured from clear glass jugs rather than the carton or bottle it is sold in. It is probable that this is done in order to reuse the advertisement in different countries as much as for avoiding giving exposure to those other products.
Bland Name Product is a subtrope. See also Acme Products, which is any generic corporation that seems to supply everything a character, or entire cast, uses. When this happens with firearms, it is an AKA 47.
Incidentally, the notion of using fake brands that resemble the real brand (Using a pear instead of an apple, for instance) is being seen by marketers as something that improves awareness of the real brand. Amusingly, they're calling it Product Displacement.
Not to be confused with the band Brand X.
Examples
Apple Computer Parodies
- Many computers in fiction (especially cartoons) will prominently feature a logo consisting of some kind of fruit, usually a pear, as a reference to Apple Computer's various products. Some of them (especially during the early iMac's time) will also bear a strong resemblance in other ways:
- Although they look somewhat different from the iMac, the Navis in Serial Experiments Lain are made by Tachibana General Labs (Tachibana translates to Mandarin Orange). Of course, there are also some non-disguised references to Apple computers, such as a (small) picture of an iMac with an Apple advertising slogan.
- In Digimon Adventure, the brand of laptop Koushiro (Izzy in the dub) used was never named, but it looked like a PowerBook and had a pineapple symbol on it.
- A similar laptop shows up in Ouran High School Host Club, right down to the glowing pineapple logo.
- The newspaper comic Foxtrot does this with the "iFruit" brand, whose computers were originally shaped like the fruits they're named after. At one point, Andy attempts to collect them as she would collect *ahem* "Bitty Babies".
- Other parodies abound, including "Iron Mysticus," a reference to two separate games. It also had a sequel, "Rivabolo."
- The Cheat's computer in Homestar Runner is obviously a tangerine iMac DV. See below.
- Which is later replaced, in the "redesign" e-mail, with either a G5 or first-generation Intel iMac.
- Kevin And Kell has "carrots" whose logo is, of course, a multi-coloured carrot with a bite taken out of it. Steve Jobs is, consequently, a rabbit.
- Rob in Get Fuzzy has a Pear laptop.
- So did Stephan in Ozy And Millie, and his thoroughly resembled a tangerine iBook.
- This troper remembers one instance, although he forgets what show/film it was, where the brand name on a "pear" computer was plainly visible: "Bosc."
 Points to the set-dresser who thought that one up.
- Pear computers on both Zoey101 and iCarly, which has also mentioned PearPod and PearTunes and the PearPhone.
- Probably the ur- and most famous example predates the iMac by over a decade: the Banana Junior computer from Bloom County, which became a character unto itself.
- In Rick & Steve: The Happiest Gay Couple in All the World, Rick uses an iBook-a-like laptop with a probably-suggestive banana in place of the Apple logo.
- Grand Theft Auto IV features advertisements and an in-game website for Fruit Computers, whose logo is a bowl of fruit and released a phone that looks exactly like a banana-shaped iPhone.
- Every GTA game since III has done this, all of them with suggestive or violent names, such as "Burger Shot" (Burger King) and "Sprunk" (Sprite).
- The online RPG Forum Warz has a store called Plum Computers with 3 products: the iPrune (standard desktop unit), the Prune Book (a laptop) and the Prune Serv (a server).
- This troper remembers an episode of the Disney version of Doug where the characters are locked in the school during a snowstorm and the Rich Bitch of the group pulls out a laptop to try to communicate with the outside world for help. While the laptop itself was pretty indistinct, the desktop environment it exhibited was unmistakably Apple's Classic Mac OS, with a Beet (a running gag in the series) in the place of the Apple on the top-left corner of the screen.
Anime
- Excel Saga had "Across 2000" (a parody of Windows 2000).
- In Futari Wa Pretty Cure, Honoka has applied "PRE-Q BAN" brand adhesive bandages to at least two different people's minor wounds. (This is a pun: "Pretty Cure" is sometimes known as simply "purikyua" [pronounced more or less "pre-cue"].)
- L and Light apparently both own laptops with bananas on them.
- Don't forget Fanasonic!
- Also, if you look real closely, the search engine that Light uses is called "Generic". (It looks an awful lot liike Google Image.)
- The opening credits of Princess Nine include, in what is presumably Koshie stadium, advertisements for "Mitsuhishi", "Sont", and "Ranasonia", in fonts highly reminiscent of the Mitsubishi, Sony, and Panasonic brand-names.
- Fictional fast-food brand "Amigo Tacos" is used as a throwaway name in an early episode of the anime El Cazador de la Bruja. The name is brought back several times in later episodes, gaining a logo, official waitress uniform and annoying commercial jingle. Eventually an entire episode is set in an "Amigo Tacos" restaurant.
- Seto No Hanayome featured "Ningyonet Explorer", the mermaid web browser.
- Azumanga Daioh has Adidas gear — oh wait, that's Abidas. My mistake.
- Ouran High School Host Club introduced the world to Hescafé brand instant coffee and Mational light bulbs.
- In the Pet Shop Of Horrors anime there's an audition for a movie by Raramount Pictures.
- "WcDonalds", a stand-in for the rather obvious, is a fast-food chain non-specific to any particular anime (the chain has made appearances from Inuyasha to the American-produced MegasXLR). Much like the above immediate example, anime "Brand X" brands are often created simply by switching or reversing a letter from their real-world counterparts ("Somy" and "Parasonic" have been known to pop up from time to time in various animes).
- WcDonalds' most recent appearance, as of early August 2008, is in the new Rumiko Takahashi short anime It's A Rumic World, where it appears in its rarely seen fully spelled out form.
- The upside down golden arches also appear in Gundam 0080, but this time the W stands for "Wonderland Burgers".
- Zeta Gundam, however, has "McDaniels" hamburgers, complete with clown mascot. Since both of these are Universal Century shows, we have to assume that McDaniels and Wonderland Burger exist in the same universe and are competitors.
- Nogizaka Haruka No Himitsu had Haruka excited to get a "PDS" or "Portable Dream Station". The visual representation made it some sort of crossbreed between a PSP and a DS.
- The first Mahou Sensei Negima anime has Asakura using the "Bagle" search engine.
- In Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, the search engine "Qoogle" is used.
- In Diamond Daydreams Karin accesses the internet with her "Aivo" laptop.
- Averted in Kannagi. "It's a Sony", indeed.
- Minami Ke has Zamazon, among others.
- Skip Beat has a Wos Burger (after Mos Burger, a popular Japanese chain).
- The anime Prince of Tennis had the main character drinking Ponta, though in the original manga it was actually Fanta.
- Graviation has Zenny's Restaurant. Like Denny's but more Zen.
- One Piece has the fake clothing brand Criminal as well as the Doskoi Panda brand which includes everything from shirts to footballs. Doskoi Panda even has two knockoff brands, Dosko1 Panda and Cyberpanda.
- This troper had quite a bit of trouble finding Real Drive's cool "Sous-Marin" sunglasses—and then found out they are actually made by Rudy Project.
- In the third Angelique OVA, there is a product logo that reads as "SQNY" ...but only if you are well-versed in the series' stylistic font which makes you wonder if this was just a dorky Easter Egg.
Comic Books
- Parody product and magazine names abound in the comic strip Fox Trot.
- This troper recalls a strip in which the brand name on a bag of chips changed in every panel.
- The DCU has lots of these, some of which only appear in one story (or in stories by one writer), while others get taken up across the board. The cola brands Soder and Zesti have both had stories focused on them.
- Soder also appeared in the Diniverse Superman series as a nod to the DCU.
- Big Belly Burger is the DC Universe's answer to fast food joints. Which allows parodies and in one instance, using a dead fat man for cover in a gun fight.
- More DC examples; WGBS is a media outlet in Metropolis, run by an evil nut job. LexCorp, of course, has its fingers in everything. WayneCorp is an easy one to go to when a writer needs a brand name.
- The Birds of Prey sub-series occasionally features the SunDollar brand of coffee (it's also appeared during Kurt Buseik's run on the Superbooks). One or two issues also reference Barbara Gordon and other characters bemoaning the ineffectiveness of the Curtains 98 operating system.
- Originally averted with the Martian Manhunter's fondness for Oreos. Once it turned out he was literally addicted to them, they suddenly became "Chocos".
- In the comic strip Bloom County, Oliver Wendell Jones's Banana Junior 6000 computer bore a suspicious, if bright yellow, similarity to the original Macintosh. Except, of course, for its self-awareness, feet and propensity for troublemaking.
- The Spider-Man special "Skating on Thin Ice" features a cover where a group of young kids finds Spider-Man's secret stash of Beer-brand beer and Cigarettes-brand cigarettes, as well as a vial, syringe, and bottle of prescription tablets.
- Kurt Busiek's Astro City has "Beautie" not "Barbie" dolls. Then, there's the superheroine Beautie. What else would a girl Gadgeteer Genius make?
- In Mark Tatulli's comic strip Heart Of The City, the title character often plays with "Karlie and Ben" dolls.
- Almost everything in Watchmen is created by Veidt Enterprises or some sub-company. Of course, there is a more sinister reason behind this: the sales of these products help finance Adrian Veidt's plot.
- This Troper remembers a Disney Adventures comic involving Doug buying a "Brandexx" jacket, which becomes popular for a while until someone else starts wearing "Branday" which then becomes popular at "Brandexx"'s expense.
- Loch Lomond whiskey (Captain Haddock's favorite brand) in the Tintin comics. (When The Black Island was redrawn in color, Loch Lomond replaced what was Johnnie Walker in the black-and-white version.)
- Dykes To Watch Out For has "Bounders Books and Muzak" instead of Borders Books and Music.
Film
- The View Askewniverse has "Nails" cigarettes, "Chewlies" gum, and the entire Mooby corporate empire.
- Quentin Tarantino includes not only discontinued products, but Brand X references in all his films (most notably "Red Apple" cigarettes and "Big Kahuna" burgers) as a way of implying that they all take place in the same Verse.
- Parodied in Coming to America: Cleo's restaurant "McDowell's" seems like one of these, but it turns out that McDonald's also exists in the movie's universe, and they're desperately trying to build a case against him.
- In Repo Man, every single consumer good is in plain white packaging with the name of the item on the front — "Beer", "Potato Chips", etc. Bear in mind, however, that this film was made in the blessedly short heyday of "generic" products; witness the protagonist opening a can of "FOOD" — not necessarily "HUMAN FOOD", even. (These jokes are still funny, but in places like the UK they're even funnier, since generic brands are still extremely common — ever been to Tesco?) As a counterexample, three supporting characters in the film are named or nicknamed after real-world brands of beer.
- This American troper assumes the Tesco comment above is in regards to "store brand" products, which are quite common in the States and do indeed declare their literal contents in large print (with the logo of the store or affiliated brand much smaller).
- The film Return of the Killer Tomatoes took this gag one step further: at the start, the characters all use the relentlessly generic items, until about halfway through when the film's "director" suddenly appears on-scene and announces that they don't have enough money to finish the flick, so they're selling product placements. From then on, the placements become ever-more numerous, overt and obnoxious. During a lengthy spiel for some Californian motorcycle dealership, the hero finally breaks down and asks the director if they have enough money to finish the thing. Pan over to a shot of the director partying down with hookers, booze, etc. "Huh? Oh. Yeah. Go get 'em guys.."
- In the 1989 film Batman, the Joker announces his lethal tampering with Gotham City cosmetics with a mock commercial. Walking up to a living bound and gagged victim (a disclaimer at the bottom of the screen reads "Not An Actor"), he exclaims, "Uh-oh! He don't look happy. He's been using Brand X!" ("Oh No!") Then he walks to a corpse with a hideous Joker grin and says, "But with new Joker Brand, I get a grin, again and again!"
- The movie Small Soldiers shows that the main character's younger sister collects "Gwendy" fashion dolls. They are later recruited and animated as cannon fodder by the sentient action figures, after a request to go on leave with the plastic beauties is shot down.
- Roger Ebert on The Lonely Lady:
Proper nouns are missing from this movie. It seems to exist in a generic alternative universe in which nothing has its own name. The Oscars are known as "these awards" or "the awards." After Pia and her first lover leave a movie, they have this conversation: "I liked him better." "I liked her better." No him or her is identified. This is the kind of conversation that results when a screenplay says, "They leave the theater and briefly discuss the movie," but the screenplay doesn't care what movie they saw.
- Four words: Shop smart. Shop S-Mart.
Literature
- In Stephen King's The Dark Tower series, Roland and his companions from Earth find themselves from time to time in parallel versions of Earth distinguishable only by the fact that the popular brand names of consumer products are different (Nozz-a-La Cola, Shinnaro cameras, Takuro automobiles, etc.)
- Consistently mentioned in a few of his other works (The Stand and Kingdom Hospital, for example) for the sake of The Verse.
- In The Kraken Wakes by John Wyndham, the main character works for the EBC (English Broadcasting Company). It gets extensively lampshaded — a Running Gag is that every character is introduced saying "don't you mean BBC?", and later gets subverted, when the government takes over the media and the narrator explicitly mentions that the EBC and BBC are now one and the same.
Live Action TV
- When the MythBusters use an off-the-shelf consumer item in examining a myth, they usually cover it with a plain white wrap featuring the "MythBusters" logo in black. (In one episode, while testing a myth about using vodka to clean a bathroom, the tester actually wrote the words "Brand X" on the wall.)
- One of the few times they ever break from this practice is in the "Diet Coke and Mentos" testing, using the name of both soda and candy directly, in part because everyone in the world knows the phenomenon by that name and calling it the "Diet Soda and Candy" episode would have seemed patently absurd. The decision seems to have been made only during post-production, however; while graphics and the narrator use the brand names often, anyone actually on-camera always says "diet soda" or "candy" and all the labels are still taken off.
- In addition, certain chemicals mentioned in narration are censored due to fears the audience will try to recreate the experiments at home; instead of "bleep", the audience hears a random animal noise. Lampshaded entertainingly in at least one episode:
Kari: OK, we're gonna add a half ounce of
[Donkey sound]
Kari: to an ounce of
[Rooster sound]
Kari: slowly!
Narrator: When you add donkey to rooster you get a violent reaction.
- One specific example involves Adam holding up two bottles of chemicals for the camera, with — of course — blurred labels.
Adam: Remember, kids. Never mix blur and blur.
- In the above examples the chemicals being mixed tend to be components of explosives. Besides being particularly dangerous to try at home there are probably federal and local laws governing/forbidding their use and procurement without licences.
- They also blur out commercial logos on people's clothing. In one memorable example, this (evidently) included the manufacturer of Kari's diving suit, turning her entire chest into one big blur.
- They sometimes use other methods to block out logos — this troper has seen what looks like duct tape on the front of Tory's baseball cap several times.
- They apparently hadn't filled their duct tape quotum for that episode.
- This one's been able to deduce what brand "Mythbusters Brand" products are anyway, sometimes.
- During the episode about drunkenness myths, this troper concluded that being a Mythbuster enables you to indulge in some nice perks — despite the labels being obscured, it was still clear that Jamie was drinking Gray Goose vodka, and Adam 12-year-old Glenlivet scotch.
- For the first several seasons, the manufacturer logos on the regular M5 Industries fleet vehicles were unobscured. The big GMC box truck even had a former owner's company name plainly visible (the vinyl letter decals had been removed, the sticky residue hadn't and was gray with grime. Must've driven Jamie up the wall.)
- The kids' magazine programme Blue Peter used to have a craft feature which usually required cereal boxes, empty drinks bottles and so forth... all with the names obscured, because the BBC, being publicly funded, didn't allow any commercial product placement. Sometimes it was patently obvious what the obscured brand was — only the lettering would be blanked out on a cornflake box, leaving the Kelloggs' rooster visible. Famously, most projects included "sticky tape", known to everyone else as Sellotape or Scotch Tape, and "sticky-backed plastic" (known to everyone else as Fablon. "Sticky tape" is now called Sellotape, though, now the producers have realised that the name was well and truly genericised. "Sticky-backed plastic", however, stuck so deep in the public psyche that now it's used as the name for the stuff instead of the brand.
- Another instance of the BBC not allowing product placement was duly mocked in an episode of Top Gear, where the three presenters (and The Stig) participate in a 24-hour endurance race in their modified BMW. As a final touch, they wanted to put product placements all over their car, but BBC regulations prevented them from doing so — so they made up their own, including such products as Peniston Oil and Larsen Biscuits (which appears as "Penis" and "Arse Biscuits" when the door is open).
- The BBC's policy was mercilessly spoofed on at least one episode of Have I Got News For You:
Jeremy Clarkson: It makes Irish stout taste like a chocolate milkshake.
Paul Merton: Is Irish stout some kind of relation to Guinness?
Ian Hislop: The BBC frowns on product placement.
Guest: What's that can of Pringles doing on there then? (points at the Wheel of News, which sure enough has a Pringles can on it)
Merton: Maybe he'll refer to them as one of Britain's most popular concave crisps.
- I Bet You Will (reality show dare on MTV) uses "I Bet You Will" paint, etc.
- When characters on '80s American sitcoms read magazines, the back cover frequently had an ad for "Walt's Wintergreen" gum, which bore a resemblance to Wrigley's Spearmint ads of the time.
- Lost uses a similar approach with the Dharma Initiative food supplies, with most of the food being in blank white packaging labelled with the Dharma logo and a description of the food inside. (E.g. "DHARMA Ranch Dressing")
- Truth In Television: in real life, government/military supplies and rations (as well as supplies and rations from some non-profit or school groups) follow this convention (this is actually where Lost got the idea in the first place) though there are notable exceptions; M&Ms (specifically invented for military rations) and other durable commercially available foods will be supplied in their commercially available packaging.
- Oddly, in the flashbacks and in other aspects of the show, where there is ample chance for product placement, there is none. Hurley, who has a self-confessed food addiction, never eats Brand Name Food. It's always some made up brand. Is this done on purpose? Hmmm...the trees are shaking.
- Virtually all of the products in The Adventures Of Pete And Pete, from Kreb of the Loom underwear to the family's Krebolet, are made by KrebStar.
- Used in Red Dwarf, in both variations. In the first series, everything on the ship comes in plain grey packaging with just a label. After that, fake brand names are used (such as Leopard Lager).
- And then of course you have Binford tools, the official tools of Tool Time on Home Improvement.
- Home Improvement also did this with some non-tool products in the background, such as "Nickers" and "Runch" candy bars.
- In a clever homage, you can spot a Binford Tools toolbox in Toy Story.
- The Chef At Home seems to be a casualty of this. All of his ingredients are in glass jars, and he refers to them as such.
- Alton Brown on Good Eats also used "That drink powder" in an episode about pickles. He had a guy in a red glass burst through a wall in order to "tell" us what it was. Alton then remarked "Aren't you supposed to be a pitcher?"
- Alton Brown is also a big fan of Brand X and "Greeking" (as the process is more formally called). In a "behind the scenes" episode of Good Eats he explains the process behind "Greeking." That said, it's always obvious what grocery store he's shopping at (either Kroger or Harry's/Whole Foods, depending on how old the episode is), and episodes before season 5 don't bother with the greeking.
- All Food TV cooking shows do this, with mixed success. Rachael Ray puts on entirely new labels.
- Likewise, Food Network Challenge frequently has challengers working with "puffed cereal treats". Rice Krispies didn't even jump on the bandwagon when they broke a world record sculpting with the stuff.
- Notably subverted in Freaks And Geeks when characters were shown drinking "Faygo" brand cola, which really exists but is hard to find outside the upper Midwest.
- Lampshaded in an episode of House MD. House, while being hypnotized by Chase, expresses his dislike for "'Beer' brand beer" when presented with a row of generic bottles. There are also bottles of "Liquor" brand liquor.
- This troper interpreted that more as a statement about which details people tend to remember. He didn't care which alcohol it was, so he didn't remember it as a specific brand.
- The Middle Man uses Captain Ersatz of recognizable products and gives them names that are different but still similar enough to invoke familiarity with the actual product they're spoofing or implying.
- On CSI, many crimes or events happen at the Tangiers hotel/casino, which doesn't actually exist.
- The Tangiers was originally created for the gangster film Casino as a stand-in for The Sands (though unlike its real world equivalent, the Tangiers was demolished in the wake of the mob trials, which precludes the possibility of any continuity with CSI). What's strange, though is that CSI has also mentioned The Sands on occasion.
- This Troper remembers this being subverted in an 80s science/maths TV series starring Carol Vordermann which regularly featured jars of "chocolate beans" about which on one occasion it was commented "we won't name as we've already given Smarties too much free advertising".
- Wasn't that called How 2? I remember that show. I must find it again.
- In addition to the Pear computers (see the Apple section above), Zoey 101 and Neds Declassified also greeked laptop computers using stickers with the logos of their respective fictional schools.
- Chuck works at "Buy More" (Best Buy), who is in competition with "Large Mart" (Walmart).
- Large Mart also has a strong resemblance to Costco.
- Cans of soda on The Big Bang Theory are clearly designed to mimic real brands, but with HD one can clearly see that they are drinking "Diet Cola" (styled like the Diet Coke logo), "Z-un" (styled like the 7-Up logo), and a brand with literally no name but a perfect copy of Sprite's interlocking-fruits symbol.
- The BBC's policy is actually quite inconsistent. For every instance of a Brand X there's a passing reference to an actual product, often an alcoholic beverage, that's too fleeting to qualify as Product Placement.
- Friends. Joey apparently enjoys "Nickers Bars".
- And Ross uses Uberweiss laundry detergent.
- Firefly has 'Blue Sun' products just about everywhere.
- The X-Files has the Cigarette Smoking Man, among other characters who smoke, preferring the extremely popular but fictional Morley brand of cigarette. There is even an episode of the show titled Brand-X featuring the company that makes the cigarettes. Morleys apparently get around, because they are used all over the place in television, even amongst series that have no connection to each other. The Other Wiki has a list of them.
- The Masters Of Horror episode The Screwfly Solution had plenty of examples, like "East Coast Airlines" and "Flazzle Cola" (in a red can, no less), and in the shop scenes they make sure to keep the camera zoomed out (though a Budweiser sign comes up in the edge of the shot, so they forgot at least one thing). They also have nameless "Kidney Beans" cans and an internet search engine with no marker at all.
- Law And Order loves this trope. Probably because many of its episodes are Ripped From The Headlines.
- Though this trope doesn't apply when referring to their bankroller — for instance, reporters will have NBC branded microphones. There was also an interesting exchange during a bust when mobsters were caught flat-footed watching TV:
Det. Briscoe: "MSNBC, huh? Your father would've had the game on."
- Nearly completely averted in Survivors. Hung looter in a Netto? Check. Decomposing corpse in McDonald's? Check.
- Mad Men spectacularly averts this. Sterling Cooper may be fictional, but they've done stuff or tried to do stuff for:
- Pampers
- Kodak — Calling a kind of slide projector a Carousel was apparently Don Draper's idea.
- American Airlines, an attempted grab for their contract of that airline, which is trying to get good publicity back after the Flight 1 disaster of 1 March 1962. In the show, Pete Campbell's father is a victim of that crash.
- Mohawk Airlines, who are bumped off the client list for the American Airlines attempt.
- Bacardi
- Odd example on Peep Show — Jeremy refers obliquely to a real-life advert for a popular cold and flu remedy, while Mark is shown pouring said brand into a cup, with the logo obscured... at which point Jeremy offers to "bring your Lemsip in for you". Didn't seem to be a lampshading, or deliberate joke — just odd.
- It may be that mentioning the semi-genericised Lemsip is acceptable, but that showing Lemsip-brand Lemsip was undue prominence. In some countries, there's a rule against showing a product and mentioning its name at the same time. So there's no problem if they're mentioning Lemsip, they just have to obscure it.
- Yet more BBC, in The Apprentice many of the candidates have worked for major companies in the past, but it is described as stuff like "developing markets for a major international coffee company."
- As terribe a show it was, This Troper found the way they rebranded products on Full House amusing (Mountain Do, Shesta Cola, Sarf Color-Safe Bleach, Ail Laundry Detergent, to name but a few).
- In early episodes of the new Doctor Who series, Rose tries looking for information about the Doctor on search-wise.net, a domain name intentionally reserved for use as a Brand X search engine.
- In episode 2-12 of NCIS, the case hinged in part on two different brands of cigarettes: Triboros, and Llamas (the latter in a package resembling Camel cigarettes).
- A Justified Trope within the context of Sabrina The Teenage Witch. Due to legal reasons, witches cannot conjure up brand name products; trying so only results in Brand X knock-offs such as "Popsi" and "Butterthumbs".
- As seen in the page image, this was done with blatantly incomplete obviousness on Community, where an ill-sized oval changed Jeff's laptop's brand from a Sony Vaio, to, apparently, a teapot.
- French humorists "les nuls" made a fake ad where X stands for X-rated. Brand X washing powder shows sex positions on its packaging.
Merchandising
- When licensed NASCAR products are released to mass retail, the logos of beer companies are replaced with generic logos including the driver's name, due to U.S. law prohibiting the advertising of alcohol to minors. This is not the case with high-end "adult collectibles," however.
- This troper once came across a cigarette lighter shaped like Rusty Wallace's Miller Lite car with the brewery's logo replaced by his first name.
- The high-end collectible market isn't immune to cigarette advertisement restrictions though — the L&M logos are missing from one of this troper's models.
- When Mark Martin's sponsorship was switched to Viagra, this troper noticed "Ages 21 and up" on the Revell model box where the "tahrs and awl"-sponsored-car kits had "Ages 10 and up". If you need Viagra before 21, you're probably worried about other things than family-unfriendly logos...
- There is a Listerine commercial that actually says that "people prefer it two-to-one over the leading brand." To be fair, this can be interpreted charitably to mean "the leading brand made by a competitor." But if it's possible for "the leading brand" to mean this, then that might be the answer to the question, "Why isn't your brand the leading brand?" Maybe it sometimes is the leading brand!
- One way ads get around this dilemma is to say "the next leading brand".
Newspaper Comics
Radio
- Many comedy series which feature computers will give them names of fruit, for instance "Satsumas" in the BBC Radio 4 comedy Mind Your Own Business. Possibly more common in the UK, since as well as Apples, we had the Apricot and the Acorn.
- The makers of the Oric 1 and Atmos computers (would-be rivals of Sinclair's ZX Spectrum) were originally known as Tangerine Computer Systems.
- Several BBC Radio 1 DJs, as a result of the BBC not allowing product placement, often say things like "generic MP 3 player" rather than iPod. Some do this so frequently that callers also use such phrases.
Video Games
- In Ratchet: Deadlocked, one of the randomly generated bits of Witty Banter from announcers Dallas and Juanita explicitly mentions "Brand X Gelatin".
- Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations used "Coldkiller X" as a brand of medicine for cold.
- Which actually would seem to be a case of Xtreme Kool Letterz, since it was translated from Kazegoroshi Z.
- Thirsty for some Cielo Mist? Or perhaps a One-Up? Persona 3 has 'em for the low, low cost of 120 yen!
- Persona 3 was filled with them, Every vending machine had some type of American drink just to show how well Atlus actually translates the games. Some of the most memorable ones were : (Dr. Salt: Salty soda. Popular, but an acquired taste.) (Mad Bull: The most caffeinated drink available.) (Starvicks: Famous coffee, mixed with cough syrup.) (Fountain Dew: A disturbingly yellow soft drink.)
- The painkillers in Max Payne are referenced by name in Max Payne 2: "Interfectum 600mg: a serious painkiller for serious pain".
- A truly vast number of freeware games — especially Japanese games — open with ripoffs of old video game loading screens. For example, "Kobami" from La Mulana.
- The Medic/Assault's first aid box in Battlefield 2142 contains painkillers named "Dicepirin", among other things.
- The game was developed by DICE.
- The Fallout series has Brand X in spades — featuring Snap-Off Tools, Mary May cosmetics, Nuka-Cola, and so forth. However, due to threats of Think Of The Children Austraila giving the game an Adults Only rating, they needed to change Morphine to Med-X.
- Sim City buildings fall under this. There's the Kong Tower, Quigley Insurance, Byall Means Travel Agency, Wright and Daughter, Dragon Dr., Justin Brown Plaza, Bob's Grease Pit, Curtin Fabrics, and Pump & Scoot Gas just to name a few.
- And let's not forget the dreaded Wren Insurance building!
- Silent Hill 1 has Vestal Gigastore, a riff on Virgin Megastore. And if you know what a Vestal Virgin is, and you've played to the end of the game, you know what a Does This Remind You Of Anything that is.
- There are also McBurger and Queen Burger restaurants about town.
Web Animation
- Homestar Runner uses "world" products almost exclusively, with a few exceptions, like Mountain Dew.
- Notable Brand Xs include the Cold Ones series of beers; especially the Coldson Lite, who looks like a can of Coors Lite, yet whose name resembles Molson. Interestingly, Molson and Coors have since announced that they were merging together.
- This is doubly subverted with the Tandy computers. Tandy was a real brand, once, but Strong Bad's "Tandy 400" computer resembles nothing ever produced by it. Furthermore, its logo is a multicolored star with a bite taken out of it. In case the parody wasn't obvious yet, this same logo is later seen on obvious Macintosh lookalikes.
Webcomics
- Misfile has beer bottles and cans labeled "BEER". The author has stated that he doesn't drink and didn't want to depict any particular brand.
- This heavily narmed-up comic strip by Dan Nuckols has a particularly charming example in which a character is seen reading pornography, but the author doesn't care to name the pornographic publication, nor is he comfortable depicting anything remotely suggestive on the cover. The result is a dull brown magazine with "PORN" written on it in big black letters.
Western Animation
- "World background" products include Cuckoo Cola from Darkwing Duck and Chip And Dale Rescue Rangers, Cheesy Poofs from South Park, Manitoba Brand Cigarettes in King Of The Hill, and Acme Products. Also "Duff" Beer from The Simpsons, and "Pawtucket Patriot" beer in Family Guy.
- Kim Possible has, in addition to its thinly veiled celebrity archetypes, a slew of in-world brands: Mexican fast-food establishment Bueno Nacho, big-box retailer Smarty-Mart, fashion boutique and clothing line Club Banana, and so forth.
- Just about everything in the 90s Australian cartoon Lil Elvis Jones And The Truckstoppers is 'Junk' brand, from cola and a clear Vegemite analogue, to the only television station shown. 'Junk Corporation' just happens to be owned by the Corrupt Corporate Executive villain, W.C. Moore.
- The makers of the Over The Hedge animated film decided to use only fictional brands (such as "Spuddies" canned potato crisps) for the junk food that was so important to the plot.
- In the world of Metalocalypse, almost every single store or service is named after a real world extreme metal band, if not after Dethklok itself. Thus, Finntroll Groceries, Dimmu Burger (a pun on Dimmu Borgir), a restaurant called "Burzum's", the Gorgoroth hardware store, etc. etc.
- Futurama has Slurm soft drink, which is central to the episode "Fry and the Slurm Factory". Also, Lightspeed Briefs and Mom's Old-Fashioned Robot Oil. It also uses parody brands, such as Admiral Crunch and Archduke Chocula on "The Series Has Landed" and Sonya speakers on "Amazon Women in the Mood".
- Don't forget Burger Jerk, Fishy Joe's, or Chizzler. It's debatable, depending on what you hear, whether Molten Boron is a brand or a state. "No one does/nt/it like Molten Boron".
- Another example is the product "Third and Third and Third" in the episode "I second that Emotion", a parody of "Half and Half."
- Several shows are "sponsored" by made-up brands and products, including Arachno-Spores, Thompson's Teeth and Glagnar's Human Rinds.
- Invader Zim has Poop brand cola, candy bars, etc.
- Also in the episode Door to Door, where characters would ordinarily be referring to Band-Aids, their speech is overdubbed with some guy saying "Adhesive medical strip!".
- The Simpsons has Duff beer and Krusty Burger, among others.
- They ampshaded this in a conversation between the cop, Lou, and Chief Wiggum. Lou mentioned eating at a McDonald's in Shelbyville, but Wiggum had never heard of it, despite there being 2000 locations in the state.
- There's also Laramie cigarettes.
- In the episode "Scenes from the Class Struggle in Springfield", several TV brands are shown: Panaphonic (Panasonic), Magnetbox (Magnavox), and Sorny (Sony). It's implied they were knockoffs, however.
- As well as Bart referring to a "flying novelty disc" instead of a Frisbee.
- "MegaLoMart" from King Of The Hill.
- The DCAU uses Soder as its brand of...well, soda. Most prevalent in Superman The Animated Series.
- Not to mention the Flash's "Lightspeed Energy Bars". You get a big boost of flavor in every bite!
- Cartoon Network has its Whisbees.
- Beavis And Butthead worked at "Burger World," whose sign is obviously a McDonald's sign with the arches inverted.
- The Powerpuff Girls had, well, a number of different cereals combined into one brand: "Lucky Captain Rabbit King Nuggets". The mascot for this brand seems to be a mash-up of Lucky the leprechaun, the Trix rabbit, Captain Crunch and King Vitaman.
- Even the slogan is Brand X: "Ridiculous Lucky Captain Rabbit King! Lucky Captain Rabbit King Nuggets are for the youth!"
- The Flintstones were probably parodying the practice, in an episode where Fred and Barney enter a sponsored baking compettion/commercial. When Fred and Barney's cake wins, they end up being disqualified when Barney inadvertently reveals they used brand X flour. As the emcee frantically explains afterwards, they can hardly declare the winner to have used one of the competing brands.
- Daria frequently walks by the Lackluster Video store.
- Pretendo seemed to be a common video game console amongst animated characters. This troper remembers it appearing in episodes of Doug and Muppet Babies.
- Family Guy often depicts Chris and Meg eating "Generic Puffs", the decoration on the box being just the brand name on a white background.
Other
- Pretty much the whole, if satiric, point of Wacky Packages bubblegum.
- Morley brand cigarettes (frequently substituted for popular American brand Marlboro) have been used in both Film, Television, and a few Video Games. That Other Wiki has an article dedicated to it as well.
- Another reason to question if they're really as serious as they make themselves out to be.
- Similarly, Oceanic Airlines has been the most common choice of fictional airline since its first appearance in 1996. That Other Wiki article here.
Truth In Television
- For a short while, there was a pop group called Brand X. This editor misses it. A lot.
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