ABSTRACT
Lifestyle marketing, which was prominent in commercial communications during the 1980s and 1990s, gave way to so-called engagement marketing, whereby brands leveraged content, causes, and values that their target groups were genuinely interested in or passionate about. This chapter presents the voices of Italian promotional intermediaries, as well as film producers. It looks at the technological, economic, and regulatory factors that enabled advertisers and film producers to engage in ever more systematic forms of collaborations. The chapter focuses on the practices and cultures surrounding product placement, external tax credit, and branded entertainment initiatives between Italian film producers and advertisers by presenting the voices of the practitioners involved, with special attention devoted to the key role played by promotional intermediaries. It deals with the concrete effects that product placement and tax credit agreements have on all the major steps of cinematic production.
