Every marketer of a famous brand has had that phone call. A production company wants to use your brand for product placement in a scene.

There's a difference between allowing your product to be filmed in response to ad hoc phone calls and a strategic entertainment marketing campaign. Your brand's show business career needs to be well managed.

The stories of careers ruined through choosing the wrong roles or simply wrong projects are many. Your brand is no different. It can have a mediocre show business career or a great one.

It can be argued that any exposure for your brand helps. But, in fact, there are product placements that can have a negative effect and there are product placements that have a negligible effect.

Managing how and where your brands and products appear helps you focus not only on the right demographic and geographic targets for greater strategic value. Managing entertainment appearances can help you get roles that make your brand a memorable part of the story.

Did the hero's life take a completely different turn because he stopped to buy your product? It can be that simple. Yet there are thousands and thousands of examples of how products play a part in the great stories we all consume and remember.