When Iron Man 3 is released this spring, moviegoers eager to see the latest adventures of Robert Downey Jr's playboy superhero may catch a glimpse of a 110in giant TV screen made by Chinese consumer electronics company TCL. The film will also feature TCL phones and a scene where the Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard is blown to smithereens. The landmark, which hosts many a red-carpet premiere, has just been renamed TCL Chinese Theatre as part of a 10-year $5m (₤3.2m; 3.72m euro) deal. "TCL has attached great importance to the collaboration with Hollywood," said Li Dongsheng, TCL's chairman, when the product placement deal was announced in January. His company is one of a growing number of Chinese corporations using Hollywood's marketing machine to promote their products to a global audience. Others are hitching their wagon to European football teams or the National Basketball Association (NBA) in the United States. It is an expensive strategy but one they hope will turn Chinese consumer brands into household names that trip off the tongues of shoppers worldwide. Double whammy Hollywood is particularly appealing for Chinese brands because it allows them to raise their profile in the global marketplace but, equally, it plays well at home, says Patrick Frater, the chief executive of Film Business Asia. Often the Chinese brands and products featured in Hollywood movies are not available outside their home market. For example, in 2011's Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon, Shia LaBeouf wears a T-shirt made by Chinese clothing maker Metersbonwe and, in one scene, a character drinks a carton of Shuhua milk made by dairy group Yili. "I don't know whether this means anything to international audiences… but in a way that is not really the whole point," Mr Frater says. "The point is to establish to Chinese audiences that this is a big brand, big enough to be in Hollywood movies." The same factor is at play for soft drinks maker Wahaha, which, along with China Construction Bank, announced in January that it was sponsoring Premier League football team Manchester United. "I think it's one of the greatest soccer teams in history and it's wildly popular in China," says Lyndon Cao, who advises Chinese companies for advertising firm Ogilvy. "Chinese brands going global want to see some repercussions back home. They have their own agenda," says Mr Cao, who is based in New York. Some Western brands like BMW and Coca Cola have entered product placement deals with Chinese film directors, but navigating the the country's film industry can be tricky. Films released in China are subject to censorship as the makers of the latest James Bond film discovered when a key scene was deleted and dialogue altered in Skyfall for its China release earlier this month.