Apple product placement in Films/TV shows

[marcus]

The Orange parody cinema were once quite amusing, but having watched I Am Number Four last night which heavily featured Apple Macs and especially Iphones throughout, it feels like those Orange adverts are becoming true to life. I dont mind mild use of product placement, but with Apple its becoming a focal part of the medium and is anything but subtle.

Is the increasing presence of Apple product placement in movies and tv shows irritating any of as it is me?

[eastyy]

depends if its blatantly obvious and distracts from the story

seem to recall in a splinter cell game there was a chewing gum placement that stuck out like a sore thumb

[QualityChimp]

I loved this shoehorned-in scene from Blade Trinity:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rv0ZPj0JLQ4

[speedlolita]

[rmoxon]

Every single TV show or film I watch these days has an iphone or ipad in it, apple product placement is indeed inescapable, although it doesnt relaly bother me.

Product placement seems to have been part of american Tv and cinema throughout my entire lifetime, so its nothing new really.

On a side note, I also watched I Am Number Four the other day, and what a complete load of garbage it was too.

[abigsmurf]

Apple spend more on product placement than any other company iirc.

[QualityChimp]

[JP]

You do find their products in loads of films, from Apple's side it certainly seems to be doing what they want it to do and on the production company's side, some of the films that you may be unhappy about getting such treatment possibly wouldn't have existed without that sort of advertising.

Perhaps there are more of Apple's products but they have been doing this longer than any other company of their kind. They often handle the arrangement differently to other companies as they don't necessarily make cash payments for the placement, they instead exchange services or products with the company that's producing the film.

I'm not sure if anybody else here watches rugby but at the higher levels you'll often see four or five coaches doing real-time analysis of the games in the coaching box and they'll often be using MacBooks because Apple have gifted them a load of hardware and support.

Apple aren't necessarily official sponsors but they give people on TV stuff that they need to use when they just happen to be on TV. Because they aren't official sponsors they can then happily give gifts to every single team in the UK without any problems as they are gifts.

If you've ever visited any of the admin areas of many of the top rugby teams you'll also find that those offices will be lined wall to wall with Macs which they've more than likely been gifted by Apple.

This is a picture of the WRU's performance manager using products that they've more than likely been given, although the hardware is different, photos of the coaching box will show pretty much the same thing.


It's not that he's necessarily been told to advertise Apple in that way, he'll have more than likely been asked by the photographer to pretend that he was working and Apple automatically get six gifted Macs in the photo.

Apple themselves seem to offer support for companies who will create the software that Huw Wiltshire will use his work as they know if they ensure the best software for that purpose is on OSX and they gift the hardware to the people who may want to use it that it's going to be seen.

With film, if you have an interest in commercial film then you're going to have to endure commercialism.

The way that we watch films has changed since product placement first started in that due to streaming, PVRs and disc media we don't get as many commercial breaks being watched by people.

Casino Royale had some of the most obtrusive adverting that I've seen.


To be fair though, that film changed the way that product placement was handled in that they reduced the number of sponsors with products in the film which meant that the companies that were used got far more air time, with Sony being the most obvious beneficiary in this film.

The James Bond films are worth mentioning as next year's film is already receiving +$45 million for in film advertising which I seem to remember is more than twice the amount that Minority Report received as the highest income from product placement.

[rmoxon]

Speaking of James bond, the mobile phone I had couple of years ago was the one he uses in Quantum of Solace, I would have never actualy noticed but there were pictures of Daniel Craig plastered over the box when I bought it. So I guess product placement can actualy work both ways....

[JSR]

Anybody seen "I Love You, Man"? That one took it to a new extreme. One guy literally says "Did you get that quicktime I sent you?" A QUICKTIME? What the hell is a QUICKTIME? Whatever happened to video?

[Leon Retro]

I've noticed that a huge amount of American films and tv shows feature Dell monitors - with the Dell logo very prominent.

I have a Dell monitor - so maybe I was brainwashed? lol

[Family Fry]

Ahhh good ole product placements.

[dazzling_bubble]

Ahhh good ole product placements.

mmm I feel thirsty all of a sudden

[nakamura]

Can't say I ever notice.

[eastyy]

i fancy a pepsi.....