Is it an ad or is it "Mission Impossible?" Product placement in movies isn't a new thing. And does anyone even notice anymore? I must admit that I get excited when I see a Macintosh product being used by Sandra Bulloch, Tom Cruise, and the cast of "The West Wing" on the silver screen. Don't ask me why...

There have been classic oldies that are nothing but pure propaganda for some product or brand... "Miracle on 34th Street" was a 90 minute advertisement for Macy's department store. And a more recent quirky film, "The Coca Cola Kid," though a story of a tirade against Coke (which led to the inevitable lawsuit) still put Coca Cola front and centre on the marquis.

And then there's Tom Hanks. This guy only makes movies about bigtime American brands. That little thing he did with Meg Ryan - "You've Got Mail" - hello? AOL? Like THEY need a bigtime movie star pushing their cheesey little internet thingy. And now, Hanks is all over the movie theatres in a trailor for something called "Castaway." What's this about? Well, it looks like his character is a solid steady FedEx guy who spends the first half of the movie showing us how wonderfully efficient FedEx is. Oh I can't wait for THIS to be in theatres! But wait, there's more! After a fatal plane crash, our brave Tom gets stranded on a deserted island! Oh, original, Hollywood! "Survivor" anyone? Our crack squad of investigators dug up an unpublished poster for this yet to be released film. Take a look and see this Tom Hanks cyberbrand machine for yourself!

And now this is where it gets pretty dodgey... the crack Pigdump investigative journalists came up with some other scary Tom Hanks movie posters. You see, this goes way back to the first movie that garnered Tom a best actor Oscar nomination: "Big." Frightening, isn't it? And who'd have thought that the intense movie with a message, the film for which he won his first Oscar, "Philadelphia", was actually hiding another brand message just below the surface? Take a look, if you can stomach it.

Tom Hanks, who's paying your bills? Do you have a free AOL account? Are all your packages FedEx'ed gratis? Do you sleep at night? Pigdump is watching you, Tom, waiting for your next cheap Hollywood commercial that will make the fat cats even fatter. Shame shame on you!
 

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