Fictional companies are often used in

film A film, also known as a movie or motion picture, is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, emotions, or atmosphere through the use of moving images that are generally, sinc ...

television Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. Additionally, the term can refer to a physical television set rather than the medium of transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

video game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...

book A book is a structured presentation of recorded information, primarily verbal and graphical, through a medium. Originally physical, electronic books and audiobooks are now existent. Physical books are objects that contain printed material, ...

s and

comics a Media (communication), medium used to express ideas with images, often combined with text or other visual information. It typically the form of a sequence of Panel (comics), panels of images. Textual devices such as speech balloons, Glo ...

where

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive legal right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, ...

or the likely chance of being prosecuted exists from using the name of a real company. They may be used on television in countries where the use of real company names or trademarks is prohibited in dramatic presentations to avoid the possibility of

product placement Product placement, also known as embedded marketing, is a marketing technique where references to specific brands or products are incorporated into another work, such as a film or television program, with specific promotional intent. Much of t ...

. An example of a generic fictional company is the

Acme Corporation The Acme Corporation is a fictional company, fictional corporation that features prominently in the ''Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, Road Runner/Wile E. Coyote'' animated shorts as a running gag. The company manufactures outlandish product ...

. Often, when a fictional company is used, it will be a

parody A parody is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satire, satirical or irony, ironic imitation. Often its subject is an Originality, original work or some aspect of it (theme/content, author, style, e ...

of a real world counterpart, which would avoid any unwanted legal issues. In other cases, fictional brands have been carried across multiple series and even from movies to TV.

Oceanic Airlines Oceanic Airlines, and less frequently, Oceanic Airways, is the name of a fictional airline used in several films and television programs—typically works that feature plane crashes and other aviation disasters, with which a real airline would p ...

first appeared in the 1965 two-parter episode "

The Ditching The following is a list of episodes for '' Flipper'', a television series broadcast by NBC in the United States from 1964 to 1967. The series comprises 88 episodes, all in color Color (or colour in English in the Commonwealth of Nations, ...

" of the television series '' Flipper'', and has been seen in multiple series and films since including the 1996 film ''

Executive Decision ''Executive Decision'' is a 1996 American action thriller film directed by Stuart Baird (in his directorial debut) and written by Jim Thomas and John Thomas, who also produced the film with Joel Silver. It stars Kurt Russell, Steven Seagal, ...

'' and the 2004–2010 television series '' Lost''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fictional Companies

See also

References