Has Apple got placing it's products particularly Mac and laptops as it seems they are everywhere in films and TV programs these days? I was in a coffee shop yesterday where it seemed everyone was using a laptop and I don't think I spotted one with a Apple logo yet I was watching the the new BBC drama McMafia and in the space of a few seconds two people were shown to be using Apple laptops or whatever they are called. So have Apple got product placement pretty much sown up because their products are all to visible on TV and film?
Apple stuff is fairly good looking, simple logo, bla-di-bla, Apple probably don't even need to request for product placement, it's possibly/probably done for "free."
To me the lid of a laptop is a lid of a laptop even though Apple does have bright logo so find this explanation not credible as why should it matter what the lid looks like on a device being used?
It absolutely isn't done for free. Product integration (PI) is huge business and heavily regulated. (UK programmes which include product integration have to show a "P" symbol at the start and every eye catch.) You can tell if it's done for free: there'll be something stuck over the company logo to hide or disguise it, because companies are super protective about their trademarks and logos. Look at daytime TV: the quite-clearly-iPads the presenters use on This Morning have a big sticker over the back saying THIS MORNING specifically so you can't see the Apple logo. If you can see the logo? If a character says they're going to Bing something? Yeah, money's changed hands. Have you any idea how much cash Cisco paid to have its IP telephony products used by the CT team in 24, and in The Office, CSI:NY, Heroes, House, Eureka, Transformers, frickin' Iron Man? More than you or I will make in a decade. See also: General Motors' deal to have all the main Autobot heros in Michael Bay's execrable Transformers films turn into their vehicles. All. The. Monies.
Yeah, it used to be verboten but now so long as you throw the little symbol up you're fine. Ofcom's rules are 'ere: you can PI in films, series, entertainment shows, and sports programmes, but not the news or kids' programmes. You're also not allowed PI for tobacco products, medication, alcoholic drinks, gambling products, high-fat, high-salt, and high-sugar foodstuffs, and baby milk. Thus you might see product placement for, say, Subway's new low-fat meal range, but you won't see it for KFC's new Ultra Grease Bucket. Oh, and you can't PI anything which you're not allowed to advertise normally - so no kickbacks from Glock for giving your lead a G17 Long Slide.
You'll also find Apple stuff tend to be preferred by media types - so they think everybody only uses them, and so everyone suddenly has one on TV. I've seen them on TV sitting in the White house, in NHS hospitals, and other places that are cash strapped and so wouldn't even think of buying them, and wouldn't be compatible. Apple played the long game by promoting them as top media production tools, they knew they could get free advertising if they got them to be the product of choice on TV.
I've never actually noticed the "P", even though I was aware of it's use. I'm tempted to believe they hide it in unseen pixels, rather like the data for Teletext.
Apple don't do as much pi as people think. Even with the logos removed to comply with various pi/advertising rules, an iMac is still very recognisably an iMac. Apple know this and know they're getting advertising for free, all because the prop dept thinks iMac's look good on camera. Source - used to work for them
Rebuttal: I'm literally watching Series 4 of Brooklyn Nine-Nine with lunch, and what do I see in the credits? "Promotional Consideration Supplied by Apple." Modern Family: "Products Provided by Apple." The Office: "Promotional Consideration Furnished by Apple" (then HP, then Apple again.) Hannibal: "Promotional Consideration Furnished by Apple." Jimmy Fallon's Late Night: "Promotional Consideration by Apple." (Then when he moved to The Tonight Show the Apple logo got covered up.) Now, a 2006 Washinton Post article which for some reason isn't loading any more but is still available on The Wayback Machine quotes Apple as saying it "does not pay for product placement," but it certainly provides "consideration" - and, to quote the piece, 'Apple was one of the first technology companies to hire someone in Los Angeles to get Mac products prominently displayed in hot TV shows and movies, said Tim Bajarin, principal analyst at Creative Strategies, a high-tech research and consulting firm. [...] "It's not an accident," Bajarin said. "This is something Apple works at. Apple has the longest history of doing this." [...] A study released by the firm [PQ Media] last year found that 64 percent of products placed in films or TV shows are not paid for, but rather arranged through some kind of barter in which the show provides exposure in exchange for products or services.' Other shows named in the piece: Sex and the City (lead character Carrie Bradshaw uses a Powerbook), 24 (the heroes use Apple products while the baddies use Windows machines). Not a single one of these was chosen because "Apple products look nice;" Apple actively went out of its way to have them in there, offering unspecified "consideration" for same. Yeah, and only for programmes made in the UK - you can show US films and programmes without flashing the P.
I didn't say they don;t do any, but they don;t do as much as people think they do. Certainly compared to 'sponsored in part by Microsoft' [basically 95% of everything CBS make].
See my more detailed edit: Apple literally has people whose only job is to organise PI. If you see an Apple logo in a film or show, Apple made that happen. Every time.
That only applies to the UK, H&K paid a lot of money to have Jack Bauer go from using a Sig to a USP from season 3 of 24 onwards. Walther paid for James Bond to stop using a PPK and draw attention to the fact in Tomorrow Never Dies, quite how they got away with that in a British made film is anyone's guess.
Aye, Ofcom is a UK regulator so has no say in what happens outside the UK. As for TND, no clue - not sure where Ofcom stands on internationally distributed films rather than TV stuff. EDIT: Looks like TND was produced by the UK-based Eon Productions but distributed by MGM, United Artists, and United International Pictures, none of which are UK-based - which might be why they could do that.
