ADS IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING : FROM BEER TO CARS: PRODUCT PLACEMENT IN MOVIES AND TV ENRICHES ARTISTIC, CORPORATE PARTNERS AND SPAWNS NEW INDUSTRY.

Byline: Deborah Adamson Daily News Staff Writer

As filming begins on the set of ``The Lost World,'' actors communicate via Motorola two-way radios on an island of dinosaurs.

It will be no accident if Motorola's name is splashed over the ``Jurassic Park'' sequel.

Nor is it any coincidence when Saabs turn up in ``A Time To Kill'' and ``Seinfeld.'' Or that Schlitz beer is prominently poured in a back-in-time sequence for the new ``Star Trek Generations: First Contact.''

It's called product placement, and it's a sweet deal for TV and movie projects - they get free props, promotional support and sometimes extra income from their corporate partners. The promoted products benefit, too - garnering high-profile exposure with coveted audiences.

While some decry the commercialism, the widening use of product placement has fueled a thriving industry of about 100 promotion companies around the Southland.

Major studios have departments that handle this type of work. But entertainment executives often find it quicker and easier to call for outside help. Among the largest independent firms are Norm Marshall and Associates in Sun Valley, Unique Product Placement in North Hollywood and Davie-Brown in Santa Monica.

``Companies are realizing that the opportunities out there are excellent,'' said Linda Swick, president of International Promotions Inc., an 8-year-old firm in North Hollywood. She represents Saab, Stroh Brewery, Idahoan potatoes and other products.

Like most promotion marketers, Swick works on retainer and holds exclusive contracts with her clients. Studios send scripts to such companies, which then find ways to place their clients in choice scenes. The studio may choose to write in a scene just to showcase a product, if it fits into the plot of the movie.

Negotiations for product placement may involve payments to studios and producers for placement. But increasingly, major studios will bargain for extensive advertising campaigns from their corporate sponsors.

BMW, for example, got James Bond to drive its new Z3 roadster in ``GoldenEye'' by promising an extensive advertising campaign through its dealers and on network TV, cable, print, radio and global TV spots, according to Norm Marshall and Associates, which represents the car maker.

``The whole deal was not about traditional product placement but about marketing,'' said Karen Sortito, senior vice president of worldwide promotion and corporate sponsorship at MGM/UA in Santa Monica, which distributed the Bond movie. ``We would never have put the car in the movie without the marketing.''

Several other car companies vied for the privilege of being in the 007 film. But BMW won out because its promotional campaign was ``the most together and the most aggressive,'' Sortito said.

BMW and MGM/UA declined to say how much was spent on the campaign.

Sortito said a tie-in promotion is more valuable to the studio than a product placement fee. The campaign can fill movie seats that could potentially generate much more revenue than a typical fee of between $5,000 and $50,000.

In return, the corporate partner gets visibility, attention and potentially a bump in sales.

The Thanksgiving 1995 release of ``GoldenEye'' generated so much interest for the Z3 roadster that by the time the cars hit the market in spring of 1996, its first year's production was sold out, said Tom McGurn, general manager of corporate relations at BMW.

Viewers of ``GoldenEye'' also may recall that the roadster was not featured in many scenes. That's exactly how the car company wanted it.

``Our whole strategy was to have a sneak preview of the car,'' McGurn said.

In movies, the company's product gets multiple exposure once the film is released overseas, on video, on cable, as a movie on TV and featured in World Wide Web sites, said Devery Holmes, senior vice president at Norm Marshall and Associates.

If a major star uses the product, she said, it's also an implied endorsement.

That irks Ed Mierzwinski, consumer program director at the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, a consumer and environmental advocacy group.

``I don't think consumers are aware that marketers pay to have movie stars use their products,'' he said. ``I think there should be more disclosure of it.''

He particularly objects to the use of tobacco products in movies that target or include the youth in an audience.

Internal memos from Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. had shown that it spent an extraordinarily high amount - $1 million - to place its cigarettes in movies including ``Where the Boys Are,'' ``Rocky IV'' and ``Rhinestone Cowboy.''

``Hollywood should be providing better role models than it does now,'' Mierzwinski said.

Jean Kilbourne, a documentary filmmaker in Boston who has studied commercialism in the media, said children in particular are susceptible to images portrayed in TV and movies.

``When it's not clear that it is a commercial, people are less defensive (to the ads), especially young people,'' she said.

The Federal Communications Commission requires that television shows disclose their list of sponsors if there's more than a passing reference made to particular products or services. But movies aren't under the same restriction.

``The public should know by whom it's being persuaded,'' said Edythe Wise, assistant chief of enforcement at the FCC.

Product placement can, however, have a potential downside for corporate sponsors - and that's where promotion companies are especially vigilant.

Swick rejected using a Saab in a movie where a woman is attacked in the car. And in the Angie Dickinson TV movie, ``Prime Target,'' Swick insisted on three things in a scene where a Saab was to be blown up: No one would be inside, the movie should show a bomb being placed in the car, and someone should be shown detonating it.

``This kind of visibility can be negative as well as positive,'' she said.

In one ``Seinfeld'' episode, Jerry's BMW was driven by a smelly valet whose aroma stayed with the car. Swick said she would not let her client's car be used in such a situation.

Norm Marshall and BMW weren't so squeamish.

``It's a comedy. It's not realistic,'' said Donna Schmidt, who handles the BMW account for Norm Marshall.

Added McGurn: ``You've got to have a sense of humor.''

While BMW doesn't want scenes showing criminal activities being committed in its cars, it doesn't mind an occasional bad guy driving it.

In ``The Fugitive,'' the doctor who ordered the murder of Harrison Ford's wife drove a Beemer. But when the scene was shown, the movie still hadn't disclosed that the doctor was a bad guy. That came at the end of the film, with nary a BMW in sight.

Sometimes just supplying a product can be challenging.

The Century City public relations and promotion firm of Rogers & Cowan had a tall task when the makers of ``True Lies'' wanted Arnold Schwarzenegger to hang from the facade letters of a Marriott hotel.

``You don't really keep an extra stock of six-foot high letters,'' said Bill Buckley, senior vice president of entertainment marketing for Rogers & Cowan.

As for prying them off an actual hotel, ``they're 20 to 30 stories up and they're put in when the hotel is built. You can't just snap them on and off.''

Coincidentally, a Chicago Marriott was putting up a new sign so the hotel chain was able to ship the old letters.

Getting corporate America to understand the urgency of Hollywood's needs also can be hard work.

Corporations work with more rigid schedules and budgets and costs have to be accounted for during certain times of the fiscal year. In making movies, needs change quickly, such as when a script is rewritten on the set.

And even if the product is supplied, there's still no guarantee it won't end up on the cutting room floor, Swick said.

To minim`ize that prospect, she prefers to place products in key scenes of a movie or television show.

At times, products even have to ``audition'' for a part.

For a future Warner Bros. movie, IBM flew in computers to be considered for the film. The director still has to decide whether it's the kind of image he wants for the movie, and that causes a mild case of the jitters for Buckley, whose firm represents Big Blue's Aptiva line.

``We're almost like concerned parents,'' he said. ``Is my product going to make it?''

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos

Photo: (1--Color) Linda Swick, president of Internationa l Promotions Inc. in North Hollywood, represents Saab, Stroh Brewery, Idahoan potatoes and other clients.

(2) International Promotions placed this Saab in an episode of ``Seinfeld.'' In the show, the car was stolen by a mad mechanic who led Seinfeld pals Kramer and Newman in a cross-country chase.

Bob Halvorsen/Daily News