Don’t do what I did.

That’s the message Morgan Spurlock is sending to young documentarians who see The Greatest Movie Ever Sold. The film critiques the rampaging product placement in films and the growth of advertising generally.

Using his personal “playful-mindful” brand—defined for Spurlock by a brand consultant during the film—the 40-year-old tells the story of the growth of product placement, in part through documenting his own attempts to attract sponsorships to entirely finance his film. Pom Wonderful—which sells pomegranate juice—came onboard with a million-dollar contract, as did a number of other companies for lesser amounts.

To those perhaps drooling at his US$1.5-million budget, Spurlock reports that funding a film through product placements is just not worth it.

“What filmmakers don’t understand is the minute you start getting a corporate client involved, the minute you start getting a brand involved or a product placed in your film, there is not a 50-50 chance it’s going to impact the creation: there is a 100-percent chance it will impact the creation,” he told the Georgia Straight in a phone interview from Phoenix, Arizona.

Indeed, throughout The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, Spurlock winks and nudges as he drinks Pom during interviews, flashes his Merrell-supplied shoes, and pointedly eats Amy’s Kitchen pizzas. The experiment lightens up probing interviews with Noam Chomsky, Ralph Nader, Quentin Tarantino, and Brett Ratner, among others.

Documentaries, Spurlock said, are thriving because the public doesn’t trust print journalism anymore, given the concentration of media ownership and the obvious influence of advertisers. So docs must stay pure, he believes.

“I don’t think film schools should teach anything about product placement, personally,” said Spurlock, whose own 2004 blockbuster, Super Size Me, was made for just US$65,000. “I think film schools should teach craft; film schools should teach production. They should teach you how to raise money; they should teach you film history. They should start to prepare you for the world when you get out of film school, which I think is [more] about fundraising and pitching than it is about branding and getting companies onboard.”

The “do what I say, not what I do” message is repeated in the film with a nuanced discussion about personal branding. In an interview with OK Go’s Damian Kulash, the musician tries to differentiate between brand and identity. Brand, he says, is cheesy but identity is not. He doesn’t take it much further than this. Spurlock, too, successfully uses his playful-mindful stamp to attract like-minded sponsors to his film. Plus, his lighthearted on-camera persona lends the film its watchability. But the filmmaker doesn’t invite labels.

“I think the minute you start calling yourself a brand, you start thinking of yourself as a commodity, and I think as a human being I don’t like to think of myself as a commodity. I prefer to think of myself as something else.”

In an era of economic restraint, though, The Greatest Movie Ever Sold—a brand-sponsored film presented by a charming, playful-mindful character—risks turning the medium into the message. And despite his words, if Spurlock uses corporations and personal branding to his advantage, why shouldn’t everyone else?

Watch the trailer for The Greatest Movie Ever Sold.