The pitch: Movie offers product placement for e-cigs

A tobacco control advocate passed along this email, dated 30 August 2016:
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Subject: Opportunities for e-cigarette companies in TV and film [MARKETING]
 
We are representing a Hollywood feature film which offers really great featured product placement for an electronic cigarette partner. If you aren’t the primary point we should be speaking with, I’d greatly appreciate your updating me to who is the relevant individual.
 
STARBRIGHT is an upcoming $27MM budget film, from the producers of Life of Pi, X-Men and Divergent.  The film is a very highly stylized fantasy/adventure, with distribution secured throughout Europe for Q1/Q2 2018, and the US pending shortly.   We shoot in Louisiana and Oklahoma from September 15 – December 2016, and in Sicily, Italy January 15 – 31, 2017.  
 
I’d like to talk with you about the opportunity, and would need to have you sign a confidentiality agreement so we can share more details ... [Link deleted]
 
I look forward to receiving your feedback!
 
[Name deleted]
 
Who We Are
 
Hollywood Branded Inc. is an entertainment marketing agency that creates multi-faceted partnerships that impact sales and drive conversation using the power of celebrity.  Offering Brand Integration, Celebrity Endorsement and Event Activation - services which have helped build brands like BlackBerry, Canadian Club and Club Med ...
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Behind the scenes | On its web site, Hollywood Branded suggests that a “TV/SVOD/Film Placement Program” will cost the marketer “$50k - 7 figures.” 
 
Starbright—a film stalled since 2010—lists three production companies: Ingenious Media (UK: The Maze Runner, X-Men films); Andertainment Group (New Orleans); and Starbright Corporation. No US distributor is identified. Hollywood Branded (El Segundo, CA) is recorded as the film's product placement agent. 
 
Starbright's IMDb.com entry included only two actors on 30 August, two weeks before production was slated to begin. However, the film boasts more than a dozen producers, executive producers and associate producers.
 
The movie's summary: "A young orphan escapes the realities of her life by fantasizing about and then entering a fairy tale world.” Writer-director Francesco Lucente’s last feature film, Badland (2007), went straight to video.
 
Who else pays up? | The e-mail names the film's production locations, all with film subsidies. Louisiana offers a 30 percent tax credit, capped at $10 million per project. (Producers can cash in the credit for 85¢ on the dollar.) Oklahoma dangles 35 percent, with a $5 million annual program cap. Italy awards 25 percent, up to 5 million Euros.
 
E-cigarette tally | About a dozen actors have been shown using e-cigs in movies since 2010. TV series in 2016 featuring e-cigs include On the Night Of (HBO: Time Warner) and Jean-Claude Van Johnson (Amazon, pilot). 
 
This post was prepared by Jonathan Polansky and is cross-posted from the Smoke Free Movies blog at https://smokefreemovies.ucsf.edu/blog/pitch-movie-offers-product-placement-e-cigs