Have you spotted Microsoft Surface product placement on US TV Shows?

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nigelj

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#1060945 7-Jun-2014 16:18

To be honest, the fact that we a) notice these trend & b) are discussing it, mean that the advertisers have won :) Just saying. Honestly though, it's an easy way for production companies to reduce costs and if noone wants to pony up and sponsor a certain aspect of the show, they just cover up logos (notice all the Macbooks etc that have tackily covered up Apple logos?)

nathan

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#1060946 7-Jun-2014 16:23

Surface & Xbox on local show Step Dave on TV2 recently

mattwnz

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#1060977 7-Jun-2014 17:49

Not that I watch it, but I recall shortland street have, or used to have apple computers and apple logos everywhere. You do see a lot of TV shows with apple computers, but the apple logo is covered over. So these companies would pay to have their logo on the show. James Bond movies are often saturated with premium products such as Omega and BMW, as you can be like James bond if you own one of those..

lchiu7

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#1061014 7-Jun-2014 18:53

nigelj: To be honest, the fact that we a) notice these trend & b) are discussing it, mean that the advertisers have won :) Just saying. Honestly though, it's an easy way for production companies to reduce costs and if noone wants to pony up and sponsor a certain aspect of the show, they just cover up logos (notice all the Macbooks etc that have tackily covered up Apple logos?)

Nothing in those shows would persuade me to switch to Windows Phone, use Sky Drive or for that matter switch to an iPhone. But I don't think iPhones are product placements. They are just ubiquitous in the US.

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.

nigelj

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#1061018 7-Jun-2014 19:07

lchiu7:
nigelj: To be honest, the fact that we a) notice these trend & b) are discussing it, mean that the advertisers have won :) Just saying. Honestly though, it's an easy way for production companies to reduce costs and if noone wants to pony up and sponsor a certain aspect of the show, they just cover up logos (notice all the Macbooks etc that have tackily covered up Apple logos?)

Nothing in those shows would persuade me to switch to Windows Phone, use Sky Drive or for that matter switch to an iPhone. But I don't think iPhones are product placements. They are just ubiquitous in the US.

Note, I'm not saying everything is product placement, what you said is 100% true, but some of the more ludicrous product placement is:

* Every single person, including the nearly technically incompetent, having the latest model SGS phone (I'm looking at you Veronica Mars)
* When the product is mentioned in just about every episode in some un-subtle way (previously mentioned Subway in Chuck for instance is a classic)

Then there is the product placement in reality shows like The Amazing Race "You must use the "Ford Park Assist built into the car, when you arrive at the clue box" Team A "OMG the FORD Park Assist is soo awesome, lets use it again", as I said, the planned ones work because we notice it, and then we discuss it. Accidential ones are the viral bonuses that companies like Apple love, it's free advertising - which is why the sticker over the logo is a slap in the face "i.e. pony up or we won't advertise your product in our show".

old3eyes

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#1061020 7-Jun-2014 19:08

freitasm: These are listed as "promotional considerations" (Product Placement) at the end of the episodes and are paid advertising.

If you can read it when the NZ networks do the squashed credit thing..

Regards,

Old3eyes

raytaylor

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#1061045 7-Jun-2014 20:10

When I watch Parks & Rec, I get annoyed seeing windows 8 tile screens on the desktops everywhere in city hall.
It annoys me.

I think even Ron Swanson was using a win8 machine before he found the mint condition Underwood 5 in the dumpster out back.

Ray Taylor

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toyonut

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#1061183 8-Jun-2014 10:17

Bones has had some shockers, devoting a couple of minutes to talking about how she can take a photo and it uploads automatically to the skydrive so the lab can get it. Same with Toyota, they had a 2-3 minute scene with them in a toyota of some description, probably a prius, talking about how quiet it was and how well it drove.
NCIS has had the screens out and using skydrive this week. Even Gibbs has swapped out the old flip phone for a lumia, which is kind of sacrilege for that show as they have made so many jokes about him never updating his phone.
The Mentalist use Microsoft branded monitors in the office.
Makes a change from where everyone was using Macs and iPhones a while ago, I think even big bang theory has gone back to using alienware laptops and stopped talking about Siri.

On a side note, they could be using the surface 2, non pro, model which would mean it is not as heavy as some people are saying.

What happened to the good old days when everyone used what looked like an ugly custom linux with the largest on screen text boxes and fonts imaginable. Wonder if someone built a distro for hollywood just to make everything on screen visible.

Try Vultr using this link and get us both some credit:

http://www.vultr.com/?ref=7033587-3B

Bananabob

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#1061190 8-Jun-2014 10:32

I just had a thought. You know when these shows have a "bad guy" who uses tech, he uses some unidentifiable machine to do the hack. Is that going to change to MS? And what about how easy it is to clone those hard drives or gain access to the "good guys" computer. Is that computer going to be recognisable as someone's product? Because it ain't a good look.

nigelj

856 posts

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#1061195 8-Jun-2014 10:38

paulmilbank: Bones has had some shockers, devoting a couple of minutes to talking about how she can take a photo and it uploads automatically to the skydrive so the lab can get it. Same with Toyota, they had a 2-3 minute scene with them in a toyota of some description, probably a prius, talking about how quiet it was and how well it drove.
NCIS has had the screens out and using skydrive this week. Even Gibbs has swapped out the old flip phone for a lumia, which is kind of sacrilege for that show as they have made so many jokes about him never updating his phone.
The Mentalist use Microsoft branded monitors in the office.
Makes a change from where everyone was using Macs and iPhones a while ago, I think even big bang theory has gone back to using alienware laptops and stopped talking about Siri.

On a side note, they could be using the surface 2, non pro, model which would mean it is not as heavy as some people are saying.

What happened to the good old days when everyone used what looked like an ugly custom linux with the largest on screen text boxes and fonts imaginable. Wonder if someone built a distro for hollywood just to make everything on screen visible.

Don't confuse comedy effect (like the Siri jokes) for product placement, while you may be right about the Alienware/Dell usage as subtle product placement (Dell/Alienware and Cisco IP Phones I've noticed seem to get used a lot in TV shows as generic uncredited product placement) the Siri episode(s) were for comedy effect as part of the 'Raj is so desperate [he'd date a female voice on his iPhone]' story line. In fact, checking that episode it ended with "Siri and iPhone and registered trademarks of Apple Inc: no affiliation or endorsement is made or should be implied."

toyonut

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#1061220 8-Jun-2014 11:55

true, I think you are right about the siri jokes, they have used it quite a few times for comedy, probably in ways Apple wouldn't really want it to be used

Try Vultr using this link and get us both some credit:

http://www.vultr.com/?ref=7033587-3B

lchiu7

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#1061387 8-Jun-2014 18:09

paulmilbank: true, I think you are right about the siri jokes, they have used it quite a few times for comedy, probably in ways Apple wouldn't really want it to be used

Never mind an entire episode of Big Bang where Raj fell in love with Siri and wanted to track her down!

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.

Lizard1977

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#1061662 9-Jun-2014 10:29

Dingbatt: Add "Arrow" to the surface and windows 8 list.

I noticed this in the first season (continued into season 2). Product placement isn't new, but the way they used it in Arrow just seemed so hamfisted that it made me laugh out loud. Watching Felicity (the IT guru) pick up the Surface, and very deliberately swiping and using a picture code to unlock, before pausing on the Start Screen. It was a lot more blatant than I've seen before, to the point where I actually noticed it...

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