Products have been placed in films since the appearance of Sunlight soap in a 1896 film. However, in-film placement has started to gain much traction in recent decades due to technological advances, such as the internet, Digital Video Recorders, and over-the-top providers that have been lessening the impact of traditional marketing. Product placement expenses in the American media have risen from $190 million in 1974 to around $3.5 billion in 2004 (Lehu, 2007). The practice is also existent in major regional film centers such as Bollywood, Korea, and Egypt. This study examined the in-film placement trends in Hollywood and Egypt through a quantitative content analysis of the top earning films between 2010 and 2013. Results show that the average number of placements was 35.30 and 27.65 per Hollywood and Egyptian films respectively. The practice was aligned in both in terms of modality, product category, scene setting, and character association.

Kareem El Damanhoury is a Presidential Research Fellow pursuing his PhD at Georgia State University's Communication Department. He holds a Master of Arts from Scripps College of Communication at Ohio University and a Bachelor of Arts from the Faculty of Mass Communication at Cairo University.