The Greatest Movie Ever Sold

In “POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold”, Morgan Spurlock takes us along for the ride as he tries to finance his film entirely by brand partners (spoiler alert: he succeeds). And the results are both memorable and quite humorous. As someone who works in the advertising field, I’m not sure if the content presented was much of a surprise to me, but the way it unfolded surely was entertaining and gives a “backstage view” of the marketing world.

Spurlock succeeds in signing on an array of brands to be official sponsors of his movie, including POM Wonderful, who bought a $1 Million sponsorship in order to have their brand appear in the title of the film, as well as be the only beverage included in the film (all other beverages are blurred out).

For me, the best part of the film was the irony present in scenes where Spurlock is interviewing people about product placement. Several times throughout the film we see people being interviewed talk about how product placement is alright, as long as it’s not obvious, and as they are speaking, Morgan is taking a giant swig of his POM Wonderful. It’s pretty well done.

The end of the movie was pretty cool as well, showing the culmination of all of Spurlock’s planning with the various brands and how all the brands have actually been placed into the film.

It’s definitely worth checking out if you’re at all interested in how marketing/advertising works, or just seeing the hilarity of the business. The brands that work with Spurlock throughout the film don’t really know exactly what they will be getting from this partnership, yet they are willing to throw A LOT of money his way. This was one of the more interesting things for me to see, since when I started in the business it was amazing to me how much money is thrown around each and every day. I mean, it makes sense, since marketing/advertising ultimately is supposed to drive revenue, but it is surprising to learn just how much is spent.

So if you’ve got a bit of time to spare and want to see Morgan try to balance playing nice with brands with his artistic vision, it’s definitely a film to see.