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One of the more popular Russian movies to come out in the past few years is Nochnoj Dozor (Night Patrol), a sci-fi flick based on the first book in a trilogy by Sergei Lukyanenko. It was hailed as the first real Russian blockbuster, and its director, Timur Bekmambetov, has been called “Russia’s answer to Quentin Tarantino” by Nikita Mikhailkov. As a matter fact, Quentin Tarantino himself has become a huge fan of the movie and played a big part in getting Fox Searchlight to acquire the rights to release it in the States.

But the point of this post is not to go into the details of how Nochnoj Dozor is really just a strange amalgamation of Star Wars (in ND an order of knights fights against the Dark Ones (тёмные) with lightsaber swords, the young boy with superhuman powers turns out to be the long-lost son of the protagonist, the son chooses the ‘dark side’), The Matrix (climactic rooftop fight scene chock-full of special effects, the sidekick chick clad in tight leather and dark sunglasses), Lord of the Rings, and Blade. Though the film was made for a mere $4 million, the special effects are right on par with any of the American films mentioned above.

One thing that really stands out in the film though, and this is the reason I’ve added it to this series, is that it has the most blatant product placement that I’ve ever seen in any Russian film or serial.

A few brands in particular pop up numerous times throughout the film:
MTS - Quite a few shots of MTS billboards, including one power blackout scene where the MTS advert is the only sign lit up across the skyline of Moscow.
Nescafe - A supermarket scene with tons of NesCafe displays, then the cashier repeatedly scans the jar of coffee, unable to get the barcode reader to recognize the product. One of the good guys comes up, scans it right for her the first time, and turns to the woman next to him and recites the slogan of NesCafe. A close-up shot of a NesCafe coffee jar in a scene where the character drinks from a red Nescafe coffee mug.
Sam Samych Pelmeni (yep, from part 1 of this series) - the Chosen One chooses Sam Samych.
Rambler - The Lights’ search engine of choice.
Channel One - Russian Channel One helped make the film, so it’s no surprise that all the news segments feature their graphics and logo.
Nokia phones - The mobile phones touted by the Light Knights are all Nokia models.
Kristall Vodka - This one’s pretty minor, but I caught it nonetheless…

Last year I had a business English student named Diana who worked for MTS. She told me that her company paid big bucks for that ‘commercial’. Goblin estimates about 400,000 US Dollars. I’m not sure how that compares to Hollywood product placement standards, but for fun you can compare that to the going rate of $2.4 million for a 30 second commercial during the Super Bowl.

Perhaps what is even more interesting than the shameless, intentional product placement in Nochnoj Dozor, is an unintentional placement which got put the film in hot water for a while. Aeroflot was unhappy with their logo being on one of the planes in the film and threw a fuss about it, threatening to take legal action if the logo was not removed when the DVD hit the streets. However, Aeroflot didn’t have basis for a lawsuit unless they could prove significant revenue loss from the ‘negative’ publicity they claimed to recieve from the film; Russian copyright law also states that it’s only a violation if the registered trademark is used in the same sphere as the rightful owner; since Channel One isn’t in the airlines business, they aren’t guilty of infringement.

There doesn’t really seem to be a Russian term for product placement. I’ve heard скрытая реклама, but that’s more along the lines of hidden advertising… In Night Patrol it’s anything but hidden. Let’s just hope that продукт-плэйсмент doesn’t catch on… Oops, I guess it’s too late…