Yes, lots of Coca-Cola going on in movies and series, as well as drinks, fashion brands and anything you’d ever think of. I am sure you all remember the Bridget Jones cheering on a huge screen. Or the Apple computers in Zoolander. But does product placement still work for popular movies and TV series?

I have to say I’ve started to overlook a lot of it. From clothes, to what they’re drinking or some of the gadgets they’re using. Then again, it also depends on how much the brand is shown off! If someone types behind a laptop for over 3 minutes, I might notice the brand. Or if you keep showing the computer game box each time you show the kid’s room, I might see it’s Heroes V Especially if I was a fan of Heroes III and IV

But other than that, do you buy something just because it’s shown on a TV screen but not during advertisement breaks? Is it a more effective advertising method? I mean, really, would you switch to the Head & Shoulders shampoo just because it was used to kill aliens in a rather silly movie?

I for one think it happens as it happens to all advertising: we learn to ignore it and it’s just wasted money. Are there any successful campaigns? Do you know of any and have you ever bought something just because you saw it in a movie?

Being the Twilight freak that I am, I had to find out a little more things about the books, their writer, the movies and the actors. Besides, after seeing the movie over 10 times and finishing all four books in about, well, 8 days, what else can a girl do?

This is how I ran into some interviews with Robert Pattinson (Edward Cullen). What really struck me was his story of being sent to a center to learn how to handle his image. As he was playing a vampire, they said he should put on his bad boy face. There are a few things disturbingly wrong with that statement: first, it shows signs of a disease you can see all over in the PR and marketing worlds: generalization.

Sure, have the guy promote the vampire who wouldn’t have sex before marriage by being a bad boy! The always bound to do the right thing Edward would surely benefit from that! Then it shows who ever gave that advice has no idea who Robert Pattinson is. I don’t say I do, but it’s enough to see a few interviews and photos to see his charm comes from charisma, goofiness, being genuine. Why spoil that?

And now we get to the part where I would start giving advice: there’s no official Robert Pattinson website. Sure there’s quite a lot of fan generated content. But no online presence? How can that be? I understand elusiveness, I understand not really wrapping your mind around what’s happening when you get famous overnight. But this normal-wannabe star admittedly has two options: music and acting. He seems great at both of them. But how does he expect to be the idol of the Facebook and MySpace and blogging crowd if he’s never online?

I’d say he needs his PR team to start working on it. Maybe they are, the robertpattinson.com domain has been already bought by someone. Will it be another fan generated site? Or has our young man finally realised the imense power the online has?

TV series are great! I love quite a few of them. But the major problem with them is that they are well, seasonal. While it’s fun to watch each episode, the long half-year (or longer) hault might be annoying, or just perfect for the audience to fall in love with another series. HBO’s True Blood already has a pretty hot spot to start it’s second season: summer of 2009, when most series I’m addicted to are long gone and fans are waiting for the autumn to come with new stories. But it’s been a while since the last episode and there’s a long wait till the summer.

So what can one do to keep fans close by, excited and crazy about your show? How about Twitter and blogs? There are quite a few Twitter accounts and blogs for the characters in the movie. Sookie is tweeting, Vampire Bill is too, and oldest and strongest vampire of the region, Eric Northman, is also tweeting quite fervently.

I have no idea if these accounts are indeed related to the True Blood cast, but if they’re not, those people should start asking why they didn’t think of it first.

Judging by the posts on these blogs and other from related characters, I believe they are not completely unrelated to the TV show. If you’re wondering why such a stunt has great results, it’s simple: we all think of the character name first, and the actual actor’s after. We all associate an actor or actress with the part we loved most. Of the top of my head, I’d think Alexis Bledel who’s always going to be Rory Gilmore and not the girl in Sin City.

And I cannot begin to tell you how much I want the new series to get here, seeing that the Sookie-Vampire Bill story is non-existent on Twitter and the blogs and has been replaced with a Sookie-Eric thing. Intrigued? You bet!

On the other hand, being identified with a part may harm a certain actor. Think Johnny Weissmuller and Tarzan for example. Plus there’s the risk of an actor leaving the cast, which would probably mean dead blog and twitter account. If HBO is really behind this, I am sure they have a good plan to manage issues and crisis that might occur!