From excellent Sneak ADtacknaut Jeff Francis:

[L]ast night I saw a secret screening of the new movie directed by Jason Reitman (Up In The Air). I thought of you and your Sneak Adtack site. The movie, “Young Adult,” contains excessive product placement, which made a lot of sense once I realized the director. However, where “Up In The Air” seems to use product placements that make sense in the plot of the movie, this movie crowbars just about every fast food restaurant possible into the scenes (Burger King, McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, KFC, Taco Bell). Diet Coke and Maker’s Mark get their plugs as well as Mini Cooper, VW and Jeep. Even Staples gets a plug. In fact, there is one scene where the main character is driving down the street and there is about 30 seconds of close ups of the actress (Charlize Theron) that switch to business signs (i.e. zoom in on the Staples sign) and back and forth. It was pretty gratuitousness. Oddly enough, the movie is about woman who writes young adult novels, yet there is no PP for Barnes & Noble or any other bookstore–maybe they just couldn’t find any that still exist.
There was a Q&A with the director, writer (Diablo Cody) and one of the actors (Patton Oswalt) after the showing. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get passed the fanboys to ask a question about product placements. Also, the people I was with were very much opposed to me asking a question that didn’t include falling over myself to compliment the filmmakers.  Anyway, it was a pretty terrible movie, which made looking for placements more exciting than watching the movie.
I guess they are taking the movie on a tour of the country…don’t know if they are planning to come to Boston–the Coolidge would probably be the venue–but it might be worth paying attention for it. From what they said last night, this is the main way they are trying to promote the movie–touring the country with free screenings and Q&A sessions and then hoping the people who see it advertise for them on FB, Twitter etc.

Hell, there are four product placements in the two-minute trailer alone:

Note to Jason Reitman: Dial it back, wouldya?

Note to Jeff’s friends: Get some backbone, wouldya?

John R. Carroll is media analyst for NPR's Here & Now and senior news analyst for WBUR in Boston. He also writes at Campaign Outsider and It's Good to Live in a Two-Daily Town.
John R. Carroll has 305 post(s) on Sneak Adtack