RE: RARA-AVIS: Product Placement

Words from the Monastery (anthony.dauer@erols.com)
Fri, 8 Jan 1999 17:46:26 -0500 I think you're going to have a fairly intensive search to find out that warm
Dr. Pepper equals the mountainous areas of Virginia ... look at warm beer
... it's equated to the whole of Europe while it's mainly a British taste.

volente Deo,

Anthony Dauer
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/4640/
http://www.onelist.com/subscribe.cgi/writers-cafe

Practice random acts of Xeroxing ...

-----Original Message-----
From: On Behalf Of Bill Hagen
Sent: Friday, January 08, 1999 4:23 PM

Duane points to a risk in using product names--that a subsequent generation
of readers won't "get it," because the product has changed identity (been
nationalized by the company that bought it out) or is no longer in
existence. John Updike's famous little story "A. & P." is nowadays
accompanied by explanation of the title, when it is anthologized. In the
case of Dr. Pepper, to make it indicative of a certain region (at a certain
time?), you'd show a preference for drinking it warm (as it was in the
mountains of Virginia). That is, you'd create a scene or situation in
which gave it a "character" any reader would pick up.

To "fill" a story with products, however, would "fix" it in a definite
place and time, even give it a sort of planned obsolescence. If it was
good enough to be reprinted often, I guess, at a certain point, it would
need footnotes.

I guess... What do the writers think?

#
# To unsubscribe, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to majordomo@icomm.ca.
# The web pages for the list are at http://www.vex.net/~buff/rara-avis/.