Slam Dunk

Conor Delaney redefined product placement success soon after he co-founded a high-end car dealership in Sarasota in 2006.

Delaney, who had just launched Celebrity Auto Group, sought to get his firm's name in front of a super-select clientele: NBA stars. A friend introduced Delaney to a music video director. The director agreed to display the firm's name on a license plate in a video for a few seconds in exchange for use of the cars. The arrangement was a big-time success.

“People still see those videos now and say they saw our cars, all these years later,” says Delaney, a London-born onetime professional tennis player. “It made the business look 400 times bigger.”