I was trolling around YouTube looking for music clips recently when I came across a new song by Avril Lavigne. It’s titled ‘What the Hell’ and is the lead single from her upcoming album Goodbye Lullaby.
The preceding paragraph is the most I’ve ever typed or thought about Avril Lavigne in my life, so it’s a testament to whatever YouTube marketing she’s doing that I somehow happened upon her video, watched it and am now featuring it on my blog.
The video is worthy of my attention for two reasons. First, it opens with Lavigne lying in bed wearing just a bra and panties. She has always struck me as a particularly elfin and sexless creature but apparently she’s grown into her tiny little frame because all of a sudden she’s very convincingly sexy.
But the more compelling reason I find this video intriguing is the sheer volume of product placement contained within its 3 minutes and 45 seconds. For a minute I thought it was a satire about product placement but I did some research and apparently it’s for real.
Lavigne records for Sony and one of the first images you see in the video, after a long shot of her in her bra, is a Sony VAIO laptop sitting open on her nightstand, followed by a quick cut to her Sony widescreen TV. Then you get 20 seconds of the lingerie goodness before her next plug, this time for her own perfume line, which she sprays on after a lingering prop shot of the ornate bottle.
She later wanders into a clothes store and spots a big sign promoting her clothing line, Abbey Dawn, including a spunky ‘What the Hell’ t-shirt, which she puts on. Later, when she takes the stage to finish her song, somebody in the audience captures the moment on her Sony smartphone. Interestingly, she steals a taxi at one point and the Ford logo has been digitally erased — maybe the company had second thoughts once they saw the video.
I don’t watch many music videos (almost none if you filter out Beyoncé)… is this the norm? Or course a music video is designed to sell, but it’s supposed to sell music, not laptops. No doubt Sony would be just as happy if ‘What the Hell’ moved a few thousand smartphones as they would if it moved a few thousand copies of Lavigne’s album. And she probably feels the same way about the perfume.
All cuz I was making out with your friend
Love hurts whether it’s right or wrong
I can’t stop cuz I’m having too much fun
You’re on your knees, begging please, stay with me
But honestly I just need to be a little crazy
All my life I’ve been good, but now
I, I, I, am thinking what the hell
All I want is to mess around
And I, I, I don’t really care about
If you love me
If you hate me
You can’t save me
Baby, baby
All my life I’ve been good, but now
Whoooooooa what the hell!
What? What? What the hell
So what? If I go out on a million dates?
You never call or listen to me anyway
I’d rather rage than sit around and wait all day
Don’t get me wrong, I just need some time to play
You’re on your knees, begging please, stay with me
But honestly I just need to be a little crazy
All my life I’ve been good, but now
I, I, I, am thinking what the hell
All I want is to mess around
And I, I, I don’t really care about
If you love me
If you hate me
You can’t save me
Baby, baby
All my life I’ve been good, but now
Whoooooooa what the hell!
You say that I’m messing with your head
Boy, I like messing in your bed
Yeah, I am messing with your head
When I’m messing with you in bed
All my life I’ve been good, but now
I, I, I, am thinking what the hell (what the hell! )
All I want is to mess around
And I, I, I don’t really care about (I don’t care about! )
All my life I’ve been good, but now
I, I, I, am thinking what the hell
All I want is to mess around
And I, I, I don’t really care about (If you love me)
If you love me (you know)
If you hate me (you know)
You can’t save me
Baby, baby (If you love me)
All my life I’ve been good, but now
Whoooooooa what the hell!
Meet Me In Montauk 
I’m familiar with this song as it is being heavily featured on the stations we listen to with the kids. Rather catchy song really.
As for the product endorsements, I too watch so few videos that I don’t know how prevalent the product placements are, but I assume this is pretty much the norm. The Sony product placements in this one are particularly blatant and out of place, especially the TV and laptop.
I find the camera at the end to be the most blatant and amusing of the product placements, but I, too, don’t watch enough recent videos to know if this is a trend or an oddity.
That said, I have to admit that it’s the tie in between the musical artist/actress and the clothing/perfume line that intrigues me even more. As the mother of a teenage daughter who loves Avril Lavigne (and Taylor Swift, and Hayley Williams, from Paramore), I am all too aware of the Abbey Dawn clothing line (sold exclusively at Kohl’s! ;)) Now Swift is shilling Cover Girl, though Maddie hasn’t yet clamored for those products.
Why I should buy Halle Berry or Sarah Jessica Parker’s perfumes because I like them as actresses, I have no idea (though I do own a bottle of SJP’s Lovely, which is just that) Sarah also had a clothing line (Bitten?), as does Madonna (or her daughter, Lourdes, with “Material Girl”) and Hannah Montana (aka Miley Cyrus). This phenomenon strikes me as far more fascinating (and potentially disturbing) than a not so subtly placed Sony television in an apartment set of a video.
Still… hasn’t this whole desire to emulate the celebrity of the moment existed forever? When Maddie wanted to get the Hayley Williams haircut, it was all too easy to pull up the most recent video to give the hairdresser an image as a guide, but I remember buying up the Teen magazines in my day to find the perfect haircut to show the person who would cut my hair. How many people got “The Rachel” haircut when Friends was all the rage? And how many 80’s teenagers walked around in lace gloves to capture the look of Madonna long before she had a child, or that child had a clothing line?
To me, it’s all part of the same thing. And if Sony placing a tv, a computer, and a camera in the video means I don’t have to sit through a 45 second commercial before the video starts than I’m all for it. Product place away, I say!
(btw, you think Avril is sending her young fans off in search of Robert Palmer’s “Addicted to Love”? :))