Uses of product placement

On the DVD commentary to the three films of the trilogy, Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale commented on the different uses of product placement in the film. The first was that in which an agent for the studio would make a bargain with an advertiser to feature products in return for a fee, without any control by the director. Zemeckis noted that Universal Studios had recently created a product placement department that would contract with different advertisers to put an item in the film. Bob Gale commented later that "The lesson I learned on this and the subsequent sequels is I never do product placement, ever, anymore... I never take money anymore. It's like you've got another creative person." Zemeckis added, "You have another producer." [1].

The product placement department had made a deal with the California Raisin Board, accepting $50,000 to place a reference to raisins in the film. Since raisins do not photograph well, the placement was on a bench upon which Red the Bum was seen sleeping when Marty returned from 1955. "When the California Raisin Board saw it," recounted Gale, "they were livid," and the money was refunded. [2]

Another form of placement, under the control of the producers, relied upon specific brands and logos to make the film more realistic. Zemeckis commented that "In terms of creating the image of the past, one of the ways you create the past is through brand names. We made a conscious effort to find products that had a different logo in the past. It used to be, in [movies of] the 60s or the 70s, a car would pull into a gas station, and there would be no name on the gas station. That's ridiculous. Somebody owns that gas station." [3]

For the first film, businesses whose logos had been different in 1955 than in 1985 were sought out. Although bids were made for Shell Oil and Coca-Cola to be seen in the film, the producers chose Texaco and Pepsi respectively, because their logos had been noticeably different in 1955. Zemeckis comments that "A Coke bottle in the 50s and a Coke bottle in the 80s were the same," [4] Likewise, in painting a picture of what 2015 might be like, the producers sought futuristic products in return for placement. For the third film, which took place in 1885, references to brand names were fewer, although not entirely non-existent.

http://backtothefuture.wikia.com/wiki/Product_placement