Morgan Spurlock’s product placement film no match for Red Green’s duct tape endorsement

Morgan Spurlock's underwriters will get some bang for their buck in Toronto on Thursday when the "Super Size Me" filmmaker opens the 18th annual Hot Docs festival with "POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold."

Product placement was considered a solution for cash-strapped Canadian television a few years ago, though, at a time when American networks still questioned how much was too much when it came to selling exposure on scripted shows.

"Train 48," the nightly soap opera aired by the Global Television Network from 2003 until 2005, initially banked on the idea its commuter passengers would use cell phones clearly furnished by Fido.

Sponsors also paid a premium to have their items featured along the walls and rails of the train.

Pfizer paid to place its Nicorette chewing gum in the CTV drama series "The Eleventh Hour", which featured one character who popped the product in the effort to quit smoking, which was conveniently mentioned in the script. "Corner Gas" produced a Christmas episode that prominently featured the Sears Wish Book catalogue.

The emergence of unscripted prime-time television also changed the game as "Canadian Idol" viewers in 2003 saw nothing unusual about incessant references to L'Oreal Paris hair products, after Coca-Cola had similarly inundated the set of "American Idol."

Yet, with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission holding firm on the rule networks could only broadcast 12 minutes of advertising per hour on a standard show, one venture was deemed too extreme.

"Rona Dream Home," broadcast by Global in 2004, and its French Canadian equivalent "Ma Maison Rona," were once ruled to have stepped over that line in the effort to subsidize a Canadian answer to "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition."

Producers argued the dawning age of personal video recorders, which allowed for easy skipping of traditional commercials, meant embedded sponsorship wasn't just for game show giveaways anymore.

Currently, the prominent integration of advertisers into the action on "Top Chef Canada" is considered a harbinger of things to come. But the competitor stories arguably exist independently of the product placement.

The ideal might be a situation where a character is so synonymous with a product a sponsorship provides greater credibility.

Red Green, the satirical Canadian handyman played by Steve Smith, dedicated so much time to one particular item that it was a long-overdue vindication when 3M stepped up to sponsor the feature film "Duct Tape Forever".

(AP Photo)