Lady Gaga’s New ‘Bad Romance’ Video Is Weird, Has Lots Of Product Placements…
Sharing November 11th, 2009
Lady Gaga’s new video is out, and no surprise, it’s effing weird.
According to Lady Gaga: “There’s this one shot in the video where I get kidnapped by supermodels. I’m washing away my sins and they shove vodka down my throat to drug me up before they sell me off to the Russian mafia.”
The funny thing - when you view the video, it’s actually weirder than her description.
As a song though, the ‘ohhh’ and ‘rarara’ bits at the beginning are more than a bit stupid, but it gives way to a nice 80’s beat and vocal style remniscent of ‘Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)’. But probably closer to the Marilyn Manson version than the Eurythmics version.
But either way, this isn’t about Lady Gaga’s music, or her career. Though I would say I enjoyed about 68% of the song and video.
Nope, this is about…product placements! Can you guess how many product placements were squeezed into one video? For fun, watch the video first before reading the rest of the post…
Watch it below:
Anyway, here they are, I had fun spotting them!
Product placements in ‘Bad Romance’ by Lady Gaga:
Parrot by Starck ($1600)
(0:11)
Nemiroff Vodka ($50)
(0:16, 02:28, implied throughout video in glasses)
Heartbeats by Lady Gaga ($99.95)
(0:24, 0:30, 0:34, 1:12, various times in video)
Carerra ‘Safari’ Sunglasses ($ unknown)
(03:56)
HP Envy ‘Beats Limited Edition’ by Monster ($2,299)
(2:44)
(There’s also a Nintendo Wii controller at (02.43), but it’s probably not a paid placement.)
In total, there are about 8 placements for 5 products, each between 1-4 seconds in a 5-minute video!
You’ll probably see a lot more of this as record sales continue to drop and artistes continue to find other ways to make money around their music, instead of directly from the music. Am I against product placement? Not as long as it’s not too intrusive and it’s interesting (I might consider buying the headphones in the vid) - the format of a music video usually only allows for 1-3 seconds at a time anyway, but the scary thought you have to think is this - will there be a future where all music videos will be this weird, so as to accomodate product placements more easily? As brands can’t fit as smoothly in grassy fields, normal-looking living rooms or plain white backgrounds. Everything will look like weird stuff from Japan!
Oh, and look out for the surprise ending of Lady Gaga sitting on a bed a burnt out skeleton! Really.
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There is actually an iPod before they show the Parrot. It’s to the left side of the video on a stand… gaga’s right.
The video isn’t strange because of product placement. Lady Gaga is a performance artist. Her productions cost a lot of money, so she uses different things to make more.
For example, after her normal concert shows, she schedules other smaller venue shows to help pay for the extra set costs.
She works her sexy little butt off for us. Let’s appreciate her more.
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Thanks for the comment!
Noted on the iPod, though I doubt it’s paid placement - probably to go with the Parrot.
The video is just strange (sets, costume, hair, etc), and not because of the product placement
I work in advertising, and I notice this things more than usual.
I actually do like the video, quite a bit of thought was put into it, and musically (except for the ‘rara’ bit) I think this is a much stronger single than ‘Poker Face’. That said, if Lady Gaga ever comes over to my side of the world, I would definitely want to check her out!
Haha. I like your ending sentence, can’t argue with that!
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I came across your blog when I was looking for that Parrot music player thing. I didn’t know what the brand was and only saw the word Parrot lol
I’d go to her show too if she came here…but look what happened with the Beyonce concert. I’m pretty sure there’ll be TONS of protest if GaGa does decide to have a concert here *sigh*
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I didn’t notice the product placement as much as how much choreography and video style was jacked from other artists like Britney, Beyonce, and Michael Jackson to name a few.
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And then there is “Bath Haus”
Video style reminiscent of Gwen Stefani’s album as well.
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Don’t forget the Burberry coat at 2:02! hahaha.
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This was also reblogged at: http://www.webseriesnetwork.com/profiles/blogs/josh-lim-spots-8-product
Happy to be there
Check it out, the site’s got quite a bit of other entertainment news.
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its because she needs the money! hahaha
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and the alaxander McQeen spring summer 2010 shoes and dress 3:34
Shoes are over 12″
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wii controller at 2.44
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Emphisis on the spine lol wdf is with her spine ps the guy she likes in there is ugly lol but shes awsome my bf and i dance to this song lol
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Vitamin water, XXX flavor, on the table at 2:04 , 2:11 , and 2:33.
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