New Report Looks Into Apple's Growing Promotional Presence Within Popular TV Shows

[MacRumors]

Over the years, Apple has included its products in well-known television shows and movies as a way to spread awareness and promote recent launches of its iPhones, iPads, and more. Variety today reported that the company is appearing to increase the presence of these promotional campaigns, with some TV shows including direct connections to the Cupertino company in the closing credits.

Fox's cop drama 9-1-1 includes multiple instances of Apple's iPhone as the main smartphone for its characters, and each episode ends with a "promotional consideration sponsored by Apple" message. According to the report, Apple has recently moved from simple "surprising cameos" to taking directly credited roles in popular TV shows as it does in 9-1-1.

Image from 9-1-1 via YouTube​

Ad agency the Omnicom Group -- which buys ad time for Apple -- denied having anything to do with purchasing the 9-1-1 appearances. Although Apple and Fox declined to officially comment, marketing professor P.K. Kannan noted that amid the growing prices of Apple products, placing iPhones and MacBooks in the hands of celebrities could garner more attention than a regular TV ad. It usually takes a little while before Apple's latest phones appear regularly in TV shows, and 9-1-1 appears to still be using pre-iPhone X devices.

"They need to sell their increasingly more expensive smartphones to keep their revenues flowing in," notes P.K. Kannan, a marketing professor at the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business. "Producers and marketers of hardware have a tough problem when they release new models - convincing the customers of their older models to upgrade to the new versions."

Getting a new iPhone "in the hands of a cool celebrity in a movie or music video or TV program is more likely to garner attention and interest rather than a straight and persuasive TV advertisement," says Kannan. "If done right, product placements can lead to more viral campaigns than other forms of ads. Apple is probably counting on this."

As Variety pointed out, Apple's promotional placements are also "substantially cheaper" than normal commercials.

The in-show placements aren't necessarily free - supplying product costs something - but they are substantially cheaper than traditional TV commercials. And that frees Apple up to spend heavily in more obvious ways. Among 2016 and 2017 TV programs, Apple spent the most on NBC's "Sunday Night Football," according to Kantar Media, a tracker of ad spending. Last season, the average cost of a 30-second ad in that show was $728,434, according to Variety's annual survey of primetime ad prices.

A few days before the original iPad launched in April 2010, an episode of ABC's Modern Family revolved around lead character Phil Dunphy's quest to find one of the new tablets on launch day. Five years later, the sitcom set an entire episode on the screen of Claire Dunphy's MacBook and was shot using an iPhone 6 and iPad Air 2. Neither instance included the promotional disclosure message that has appeared on 9-1-1, and Apple "didn't pay a cent" for its devices' integral parts in each story.

Although one HBO spokesperson explained that "products in shows are creative decisions, not product placements," Variety said that for many professionals in advertising and production circles, these decisions are still "aimed at selling tech." In an interesting aside, a person close to the production of Showtime's Homeland pointed out that the show tries to keep its main characters supplied with smartphones from Apple, Google, Blackberry, and Samsung, while preventing these same phones from appearing "in the hands of evil figures."

Apple is also planning to launch its own slate of original TV programs, where users can likely expect to see characters using many of the company's own products. Although the debut of the service is still uncertain, we're now up to about 12 shows confirmed to eventually launch on the streaming platform. These include shows from M. Night Shyamalan, Damien Chazelle, Steven Spielberg, and more.

Article Link: New Report Looks Into Apple's Growing Promotional Presence Within Popular TV Shows

 

[bitfactory]

I still can't believe they got rid of the glowing apple on their MacBooks - it's an iconic visual identifier in shows, etc...

The decision isn't as dumb as getting rid of MagSafe, but it's up there.

 

[mtneer]

Its interesting that Apple can find room in their margin to pay big bucks to celebrities to clutch their devices, but not for bumps in hardware.

 

[H3LL5P4WN]

Its interesting that Apple can find room in their margin to pay big bucks to celebrities to clutch their devices, but not for bumps in hardware.

Apple does indeed pay for bumps in the hardware. They're on every iPhone and iPad except for the SE and base model iPad.

(I disagree with your comment however.)

 

[ocnitsa]

They are becoming a cultural icon, like Chuck Taylor hightops...they add cache to characters and round them out in the way the cultural artifact has importance or understanding for the viewers...With PCs, they feel more like product placement...with Macs or iPhones, something else...imo.

I still can't believe they got rid of the glowing apple on their MacBooks - it's an iconic visual identifier in shows, etc...

The decision isn't as dumb as getting rid of MagSafe, but it's up there.

I agree.

 

[shamino]

Product placement is nothing new here, although maybe it's new for Apple?

One amusing case of this I remember was in the James Bond film, Golden Eye. Every computer that appeared in the movie had a larger-than-life IBM logo on it. I remember it being funny because almost all of the computers were owned by the bad guy. I was thinking "does IBM really want to be associated with someone trying to blow up the world?"

 

[citysnaps]

Its interesting that Apple can find room in their margin to pay big bucks to celebrities to clutch their devices, but not for bumps in hardware.

There's plenty of bucks to go around. Different departments, different budgets. I'm happy with the bumps in Apple hardware I own, though disappointed Intel has been asleep on CPU performance increases over recent years.

 

[JediZenMaster]

Its interesting that Apple can find room in their margin to pay big bucks to celebrities to clutch their devices, but not for bumps in hardware.

Patience is a pretty awesome thing to have.

 

[lunarworks]

Product placement is nothing new here, although maybe it's new for Apple?

One amusing case of this I remember was in the James Bond film, Golden Eye. Every computer that appeared in the movie had a larger-than-life IBM logo on it. I remember it being funny because almost all of the computers were owned by the bad guy. I was thinking "does IBM really want to be associated with someone trying to blow up the world?"

It's not new, someone just needed a topic for a "study".

Seinfeld had various Macs on his desk in his apartment, and a PowerBook uploaded a virus to the alien mothership in Independnce Day.

 

[joeblow7777]

Its interesting that Apple can find room in their margin to pay big bucks to celebrities to clutch their devices, but not for bumps in hardware.

As it says in the article, it actually costs them very little compared to conventional advertising, and sometimes they don’t pay at all!

 

[nwcs]

It’s another form of subliminal advertising. Nothing really new here. If people don’t realize they are being constantly manipulated by both advertisers and content providers then they are simply too naive.

 

[topgunn]

The closest I ever came to a 20th anniversary Mac.

 

[nightcap965]

Is someone just now noticing this? CBS's long-running NCIS franchise is a long ad for Microsoft products, especially their tablets. Hawaii 5-O ditto ditto. I loved one episode where they tried to introduce Bing as a verb.

 

[lightmyway]

I hate when shows use MacBooks and put a sticker over the Apple. Feels like stealing the designers’ product without giving credit.

 

[cast128]

This is nothing new. I have been seeing this for years and years. It is a staple of basic advertising for a well known brand.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier anyone??

 

[Turnpike]

Everytime I see an Apple product in a TV show I notice it. With or without the weird ways they try to cover the Apple logos. Whether it's a piece of tape, a sticker, or a clamshell case, I see it and think about it. And roll my eyes. LOL. I also notice if an iPhone is ridiculously outdated, too. I also notice if the screen is showing the phone as a dial pad, screen saver, on an actual call, or off completely. I think most Apple fans catch this kind of stuff.

 

[kazmac]

Product placement isn't new for Apple either. Apple were all over Captain America The Winter Soldier amongst many other popular movies (I happen to know that one because I've watched it a ridiculous amount of times and wrote a mini paper on some of the product placement in that movie).

 

[Turnpike]

I still can't believe they got rid of the glowing apple on their MacBooks - it's an iconic visual identifier in shows, etc...

The decision isn't as dumb as getting rid of MagSafe, but it's up there.

Agree! It's like McDonalds taking down the big yellow "M" from their signs. I can't believe people have made kits (for sale) to add a glowing logo to iPhones and there isn't one for the Macbook yet...

 

[Will.O.Bie]

Is someone just now noticing this? CBS's long-running NCIS franchise is a long ad for Microsoft products, especially their tablets. Hawaii 5-O ditto ditto. I loved one episode where they tried to introduce Bing as a verb.

The same with CW network...their shows are full of Surface products and Chevy vehicles. I don't mind the in-show advertising if this will limit the number of commercials they will show during an episode. Plus, with TiVos and other DVRs being in just about everyone's home nowadays and having the option to skip through commercials, ad agencies needed to adapt to the preference of a lot of people that they would skip through ads to get back to the show.

 

[Mousse]

Product placement is nothing new here, although maybe it's new for Apple?

They have had Macs in the background in TV shows and movies since the 80's at least. Judge Harry Stone (Night Court) has a Mac Plus in his office.

Today, every phone used by the heroes are iPhones.

If you wanna talk about product placement in a show. The show Viper is an 30 minute ad for the Dodge Viper.

 

[Mannaerts]

I still can't believe they got rid of the glowing apple on their MacBooks - it's an iconic visual identifier in shows, etc...

The decision isn't as dumb as getting rid of MagSafe, but it's up there.

 

[Quaking Bog]

I still can't believe they got rid of the glowing apple on their MacBooks - it's an iconic visual identifier in shows, etc...

The decision isn't as dumb as getting rid of MagSafe, but it's up there.

I was about to write the same thing then saw your comment as the first one. What better FREE advertising than walking into a Starbucks or restaurant or office and seeing a room full of glowing Apple logos? You can't even pay for advertising of that quality! The logos are still there now, but as more people transition to the newer MacBooks and MacBook Pros they will disappear. Hopefully Apple will pay attention to this. That decision was just lacking in common sense.

Currently they will need to place older MacBooks like in this image for proper publicity, similar to the store they recently opened with the roof styled like an older glowing Apple logo MacBook, not one of the newer ones.

I'm disappointed my 2016 MacBook Pro doesn't have MagSafe. On the plus side, the USB-C cable doesn't fit very tightly so tripping on the USB-C cable usually pulls it out rather than pulling the laptop to the ground, maybe that is why they dropped MagSafe. But, on the minus side, the USB-C port is TOO loose, and I find my external hard drives or adapters sometimes falling out if my MacBook Pro is even slightly bumped. Bring back MagSafe! Bring back the glowing Apple! And tighten up those USB-C ports, please!

 

[GeneralChang]

Anyone else remember seeing iBooks toward the end of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and wanting one just because the logo on the back lit up? Just me? m'kay.

 

[jonblatho]

I still can't believe they got rid of the glowing apple on their MacBooks - it's an iconic visual identifier in shows, etc...

The decision isn't as dumb as getting rid of MagSafe, but it's up there.

Letting light shine through the display is a far dumber decision. This was already an issue on certain later MacBook Air and Pro models. It’s not coming back.

 

[webbuzz]

I know of two handset brands that used to have 'styling offices' in Los Angeles. Not only were they involved in product placement in TV and movies, celebrities would stop in and receive the latest and greatest handset.

Good for Apple.