It appears that films have emerged as a new medium of advertising automobiles, and the trend is being widely adopted by various auto makers all over the world. The auto makers these days are seen resorting to movies in order to take their various four-wheeler models to viewers of the film located all over the world. Some of the recent movies that have extensively used vehicles of some particular brands include the latest 007 movie, 'Skyfall' and the recent blockbuster “Jab Tak Hai Jaan.” Apart from this, many other movies have also featured cars of some particular brands, like the 2011 super hit movie, 'Ra-One,' which extensively used Volkswagen vehicles.
The recently launched James Bond film, Skyfall, has extensively used Jaguar Land Rover throughout the movie. The British car maker JLR, provided as much as 77 vehicles, which include Range Rover, Land Rover Defender, and Jaguar XJ for the movie. These vehicles were used both on and off the screen and as production support vehicles to the James Bond film. Tata Motors, which acquired the British car maker in 2008, believes that 'Skyfall' will help boost JLR's sales.
Karl Slym, Managing Director, Tata Motors, said, “We do expect sales to go up as James Bond is an iconic movie.” As is clear, the company looks forward to a boost in sales owing to the use of JLR vehicles in the 007 movie.
Apart from JLR's vehicles that have been thoroughly used in the recent James Bond movie, we have in the earlier 007 movies seen extensive use of the iconic Aston Martin cars. JLR's vehicles have made a come back in James Bond film after a gap of around 10 years, when it was last used in Pierce Brosnan starrer, 'Die Another Day.'
The recently released, Shah Rukh Khan (SRK) starrer, “Jab Tak Hai Jaan,” has widely used the bike, Royal Enfield. This provided huge publicity to the two-wheeler and may even increase its sales as SRK fans would want to buy one similar bike. Apart from this movie featuring a two-wheeler, the 2011 SRK movie Ra.One extensively used the German auto maker Volkswagen's cars.
Shah Rukh Khan, on the partnership of Volkswagen with the Ra.One team had said, “ I just want to say, first of all, a very big thanks to everyone at Volkswagen for associating themselves with the film Ra.One.” He further added, “Thank you to everyone here from the company and the team. I am really absolutely indebted and extremely grateful for this association. I just speaking as an actor, my wife is the producer of the film. She is very thrilled that we saved some money because you allowed us to blow up those cars.”
The list of movies that have used automobiles of one or the other company is not limited to these but goes on increasing. While film makers get free vehicles from the auto companies, the car makers, in return get global publicity. Thus, it can be said that the entire process is like a barter system, where the auto maker provides free vehicles in return of free publicity and advertisement.
