Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 888, Advertising in TV and Movies.
This is English as a Second Language podcast, episode 888.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Our website is ESLPOD.com.
Go there and become a member of ESL Podcasts.
This episode is a dialogue about advertising or having commercial advertisements in the world of television and movies.
Let's get started.
Congratulations are in order.
I just scored a product placement for our brand in the latest McQuillinator movie.
Thank you, thank you very much.
Really?
That's great.
Will it have a prominent place in the movie?
Well, you know how these things are.
Our logo goes by in the blink of an eye, but millions of people are going to see it.
So will the star be wearing our logo on his shirt or something?
Something like that.
But not that.
No, it's a little more subtle than that, but it'll be embedded into an important scene.
But where are we going to see it?
Is that really important?
The important thing is that our brand will be associated with a major Hollywood movie.
What more could we ask for?
Stop beating around the bush.
Where in the movie will our logo appear?
All right.
It'll be on the bottom of the star's shoes, on the sole, and the audience will be able to see it when he's running only if he's running in slow motion.
But he won't be right.
If it goes by that quickly, it'll be more like subliminal advertising.
Exactly.
I hadn't thought of it that way, but hordes of people will be going out to buy our products and they won't even know why.
I'm even more of a genius than I thought.
Victoria begins by clearing her throat.
To clear your throat is to do this.
You are making a low sound, almost like a cough, to get rid of anything that's in your throat.
Victoria begins by saying, Congratulations are in order.
To congratulate C-O-N-G-R-A-T-U-L-A-T-E someone means to say they've done a good job, to give them your best wishes after they have accomplished something.
Someone who wins a race or wins a competition will be congratulated by other people.
Good job.
Congratulations.
Congratulations are in order is a phrase used when you are talking to a group of people typically and you want to congratulate one person.
You want to announce some achievement or accomplishment by this person and tell him what a good job he did.
Victoria says, I just scored a product placement for our brand in the latest McQuillinator movie.
We learn immediately then, that Victoria is congratulating herself, or telling other people to congratulate her, because she's accomplished something.
We don't normally ask other people to congratulate us, but Victoria does.
This is Hollywood, after all.
She says I just scored a product placement.
To score here means to get or to obtain something that is very good.
I scored us two tickets to the Bruce Springsteen concert.
I was able to get I was able to buy.
I was able to obtain two tickets.
Product placement is when a company's product appears usually in a television show or a movie.
So if you're watching a TV show like Friends or 24 and you see somebody drinking a can of Coca-Cola or drinking from a can of Coca-Cola, That would be an example of product placement.
Usually the company pays to have its product in the movie or in the television program.
Victoria scored a product placement for our brand, she says.
A brand.
B-R-A-N-D is a type of product or product related products that are sold under a single name.
Coca-Cola is a brand name.
It's the name of a group of products that are similar.
Victoria scored a product placement for Victoria says, Thank you.
Thank you very much.
She's sort of making a joke.
She's congratulating herself.
Gerard says, Really?
That's great.
Will it have a prominent place in the show?
Prominent means important or easily seen, easily noticed, so that people will see it easily.
Victoria says well, you know how these things are, which means you understand this kind of situation.
Our logo goes by in the blink of an eye.
But millions of people are going to see it.
A logo, L-O-G-O, is a small image that represents a company.
The expression in the blink of an eye means very quickly, almost without noticing it.
Victoria said the logo goes by in the blink of an eye.
But millions of people will see it.
Gerard says, so will the star be wearing our logo on his shirt or something?
He's asking if the main actor in this movie will be wearing something that has the logo of the company on his shirt.
Victoria says something like that, meaning, well, not exactly, but something similar to that.
Gerard says, but not that, meaning not that exact thing I just said, wearing the logo on his shirt.
Victoria says, no, it's a little more subtle than that.
To be subtle, S-U-B-T-L-E means not obvious, not easily noticed something that is there, but you may have to look for it.
Victoria says the logo will be embedded into an important scene.
To embed, E-M-B-E-D, means to put something inside of something else, almost to become a part of it.
The logo then will be embedded into an important scene, an important part of the movie.
Gerard says, but where are they going to see it?
Where are they going to see our logo, the thing that represents our company?
Victoria says, is that really important?
The important thing is that our brand will be associated with a major Hollywood movie.
To be associated with means to be connected to, to be related to.
Their brand is going to be related or connected to a major or very important Hollywood movie.
What more could we ask for?
That question means, what could be better than this situation?
The idea, of course, is nothing more.
Gerard says, stop beating around the bush.
The expression to beat around the bush means to be very indirect in describing something or telling someone about something.
You're trying to avoid saying exactly what you're talking about.
To beat around the bush is always a bad thing.
It's a negative way of describing what someone is doing in talking to you.
Gerard says, Victoria replies It will be on the bottom of the star's shoes, on the sole, and the audience will be able to see it when he's running.
The bottom of your shoe is called the sole, S-O-L-E, of your shoe.
Of course, usually you can't see the bottom of someone's shoes.
Victoria says that the logo will be on the sole of the shoe and people will see it when the star, the main character in the movie, is running with these shoes.
Gerard says only if he's running in slow motion, but he won't be, right?
Slow motion refers to playing a video recording at a slower speed so that it looks like the people are moving and talking very slowly.
Kind of like our podcast, English in Slow Motion.
Gerard says, but if it goes by that quickly...
It'll be more like subliminal advertising.
Subliminal S-U-B-L-I-M-I-N-A-L advertising is advertising where the message only appears on the TV or movie screen very quickly, for less than a second.
The idea is that people see the image, the message, and their brain captures it, but they're not aware that they saw that message.
That's called subliminal advertising.
Victoria says, exactly.
I hadn't thought of it that way, in that manner, but hordes of people will be going out to buy our products and they won't even know why.
Once again, the idea of subliminal advertising is that people get an idea but they don't know where they saw it, because they weren't consciously able to see the message or the image.
Victoria is trying to make the best of a not very good situation by saying that, oh yes, our advertising will work.
And hordes of people will be going out to buy our products.
Hordes means a large group of people, many people.
Hordes is a word that you need to pronounce carefully.
You need to have the D at the end of hordes.
Otherwise, you get the word whores, which... means something very different.
It means a prostitute.
And of course, you don't want to be talking about prostitutes when you mean a large group of people.
I'm even more of a genius than I thought, Victoria says.
A genius.
G-E-N-I-U-S is a very smart or intelligent person, someone who is smarter than the rest of us.
In the 20th century, we often talked about Einstein as being one of the geniuses of science.
Victoria says that she is smarter than she even realized, because she has created this subliminal advertising by putting the logo on the bottom of the star's shoes.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Congratulations are in order.
I just scored a product placement for our brand in the latest McQuillanator movie.
Thank you, thank you very much.
Really?
That's great.
Will it have a prominent place in the movie?
Well, you know how these things are.
Our logo goes by in a blink of an eye, but millions of people are going to see it.
So, will the star be wearing our logo on his shirt or something?
Something like that.
But not that?
No, it's a little more subtle than that, but it'll be embedded into an important scene.
But where are we going to see it?
Is that really important?
The important thing is that our brand will be associated with a major Hollywood movie.
What more could we ask for?
Stop beating around the bush.
Where in the movie will our logo appear?
All right.
It'll be on the bottom of the star's shoes, on the sole, and the audience will be able to see it when he's running only if he's running in slow motion.
But he won't be right.
If it goes by that quickly, it'll be more like subliminal advertising.
Exactly.
I hadn't thought of it that way, but hordes of people will be going out to buy our products and they won't even know why.
I'm even more of a genius than I thought.
Congratulations are in order for our wonderful scriptwriter, Dr. Lucy Say.
Congratulations, Lucy, on another great script.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again right here on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2013 by the Center for Educational Development.
