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'Final Fantasy XV' tricked me into buying Cup Noodles
I should have been turned off by the commercial advertising casually strewn throughout Final Fantasy XV. Coleman logos are plainly visible when the game's heroes set up camp for the night. Billboards for Nissin Cup Noodles line the highways of Eos. It's product placement so obvious it's almost laughable -- and yet, I now have an eight-pack of instant ramen on my kitchen counter. What happened? A beautiful, devious combination of empathy and nostalgia.
Facebook opens up Messenger to ad bots
Right now, Facebook lets Messenger bots from brands like Expedia and HP help you make a purchase, but they can't try to sell you a new product. However, a policy change means those automated assistants will soon be able to send subscription messages, ads and promotions for services like makeup consultations. If you're worried about spam, Facebook emphasized that the user is in control. "All conversations between businesses and people must be initiated by the person receiving the messages, who can then mute or block the business at any time," wrote Product Manager Seth Rosenberg.
UK advert police explain to vloggers what an advert is
Vloggers, bloggers and social media celebs have captive, loyal audiences that make them prime partners for marketers. Like it or not, most new media stars dabble in advertising of one form or another -- you can't live on YouTube kickbacks alone now, can you? -- but it's not always easy to tell regular content from promotions. Not all product plugs are as blatant as Kim Kardashian's recent Instagram mishap, for instance. According to the UK's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), vloggers and kin have been seeking clear rules on what constitutes promotional content, and how it needs to be labelled. And to help them play by the rules, the ASA's Committees of Advertising Practice (CAP) has today published new "vlogging advertising guidance," also known as the "common sense handbook."
Samsung to provide courtside tech for the NBA in reported $100 million deal
If you're tired of product placements in your favorite dramatic series, you won't get any relief if you switch over to hoops instead. Samsung has confirmed that it just signed on to become the official NBA provider of televisions and tablets in a deal which the WSJ says is worth $100 million. That means fans will see close calls being reviewed by refs on Samsung tablets, for instance, while the NBA in turn will work with Samsung to create customized content for NBA League Pass. The deal comes on the heels of recent Samsung endorsements by LeBron James and Jay-Z , showing the Korean giant is willing to spread those profits around to up its brand cachet.
Apple product placement in Netflix's House of Cards
Placement of Apple products in TV shows and movies is usually a subtle way for the company to insert its product line into the psyche of the viewing public. Engadget's Sharif Sakr thinks that Apple and the people behind Netflix's streaming series House of Cards may have gone a bit too far with product placement. As Sakr notes, House of Cards is a "big deal," a streaming exclusive that is funded by Netflix and that doesn't have to be edited to fit into specific broadcast time slots or to add advertisement breaks. But he was stunned with just how blatant the product placement was. There was one scene in the show -- see the image at the top of this post -- in which there are nine Apple devices being used by two people. Subsequent shots show the main character (played by Kevin Spacey) talking to his wife, who is also using an iPhone. Cut to another angle, and we see that Spacey's character uses an iMac as his primary computer. While most product placements are subtle and almost unconsciously viewed, Safr notes that the excessive display of Apple products has destroyed the credibility of House of Cards for him. Do you watch House of Cards? If so, do you think that the overuse of Apple product placement has ruined the series for you? Let us know in the comments.
Editorial: Is that Kevin Spacey behind all those Apple products? (updated)
Up until this one specific camera shot, 31 minutes and 42 seconds into the sixth episode of House of Cards, it had all been going pretty well. The endearing evil of the series' anti-hero Francis Underwood (Kevin Spacey, there on the left) had carried me through the first five installments at a brisk pace, to the extent that even the most blatant Apple and Sony product placements had largely gone unnoticed. (Underwood: "Is that a PS Vita? I oughta get one of these for the car.") I happen to be from the UK, where paid product placements on TV shows were banned until 2011 and where we're particularly sensitive to such things, so I must have been engrossed. But then this desk shot happened. My disbelief stopped suspending and promptly clattered to the floor. It had nothing to do with Apple specifically, or even the principle of commercial gadget cameos. My paranoia runs deeper than that, and it has so far prevented me from going back to watch the rest of the series. Read on and I'll explain.
Apple movie/TV product placement is on the rise
Does it seem like every TV show or movie you've watched recently has a MacBook, iPad, or iPhone in it? There's a reason for that; the cool factor of Apple's product line is resulting in more placements of its products on the big and little screens. Bloomberg Businessweek reports that Apple product placements increased by 45 percent between 2009 and 2011, and that the familiar fruit logo showed up in 40 percent of movies atop the weekly box-office charts. While directors may be looking for the cool factor, Apple loves the placements for another reason -- they don't cost a penny. Unlike some other manufacturers, Apple refuses to pay for product placement, just riding on the success of its products to propel them into view in your favorite shows and movies. Apple currently has almost twice the product placement penetration of such well-known brands as Chevy and Ford. Apple products had an astonishing eight minutes of screen time in the latest installment of the Mission: Impossible movies, which would have an advertising value of about US$23 million. The total cost for Apple? Nothing. On-screen product placements have another benefit -- since the advent of DVRs, fewer viewers have the patience to sit through advertisements. When the products are included as part of the scenery or even as part of the story, viewers tend to talk about them on social networking sites, which in turn influences purchasing decisions. Fox's House -- and its many Apple product placements -- might be disappearing from TV after next week's episode, but the iPhones and MacBooks will live on in syndication for years.
Screen Grabs: Vampire Diaries uses Galaxy Note to scratch out sinister signals
Screen Grabs chronicles the uses (and misuses) of real-world gadgets in today's movies and TV. Send in your sightings (with screen grab!) to screengrabs at engadget dot com. The residents of Mystic Falls, Virginia are the most tech-savvy bunch of supernatural creatures we've ever seen. If Edward Cullen and Bella Swan bothered to email each other, then we'd have been spared the horrors of New Moon. Quite the opposite here, as The Vampire Diaries folks have their fingers close to the undead pulse of gadgets, with one character in last night's episode refusing to type a text message so they could write out their response with an S-Pen. Fans of the show that keep score should know that it currently stands two to Microsoft, two to Google and the fate of humanity all to play for.[Thanks, Mark]
Screen Grabs: Covert Affairs exposes secret Rogers service in Washington DC
Screen Grabs chronicles the uses (and misuses) of real-world gadgets in today's movies and TV. Send in your sightings (with screen grab!) to screengrabs at engadget dot com. Fans of USA's Covert Affairs know that Annie Walker's stomping ground is Washington DC, where she pretends to be a buyer for the Smithsonian. So, there are only two plausible explanations for her iPhone 4 being able to connect to Rogers Wireless Canadian network: Either she's got a nuclear powered antenna on that thing, or the company is running a south-of-the-border service for Government agencies. Some might point out that the show is filmed in Toronto for cost purposes and the art directors aren't too hot at spotting continuity errors, but we'd dismiss that as paranoid fantasy. [Thanks, Mike G]
Screen Grabs: Palm Pre-iPhone hybrid appears on Grimm, doesn't look half bad
Screen Grabs chronicles the uses (and misuses) of real-world gadgets in today's movies and TV. Send in your sightings (with screen grab!) to screengrabs at engadget dot com. Anyone who caught the series premiere of Grimm, NBC's new fairy-tale-and-crime-procedural would have seen another sort of unearthly fusion: a Palm Pre device ringing like an iPhone. The phone then switches to the typical webOS interface we've long admired, picking up reception on AT&T along the way. We're torn over whether they're using a Pre 2 or another Palm family member, though the screen looks too dinky for it to be the mythical Pre 3. But in a world of monster hunters and big bad wolves, we guess anything's possible. [Thanks, Ben]
Screen Grabs: Nokia X7 scores cameo in third Transformers movie, joined by N950 lookalike
Screen Grabs chronicles the uses (and misuses) of real-world gadgets in today's movies and TV. Send in your sightings (with screen grab!) to screengrabs at engadget dot com. Nokia's hookup with the new Transformers movie runs deep -- some of its international X7 launches have been themed around the Dark of the Moon three-quel that's just come out in cinemas -- so it's no surprise to see plenty of the company's handsets in the film itself. The metal-backed, 4-inch X7 gets the most screen time, quickly showing off Ovi Maps in 3D, but there's also a portrait QWERTY device which may be the recently launched E6 or an earlier model such as the E72. A lot of consternation has also arisen regarding a third Nokia handset glimpsed in Transformers 3, which could well be an N950 running MeeGo, though if you ask us, there's no way a MeeGo phone would take 157 minutes to save the world. We'd expect a double-tap to kill the baddies, an edge-to-edge swipe to get the girl, and a simple flicking gesture to turn the lights out. [Thanks, Nicholas]
Screen Grabs: The Mentalist takes the iPad to new heights
Screen Grabs chronicles the uses (and misuses) of real-world gadgets in today's movies and TV. Send in your sightings (with screen grab!) to screengrabs at engadget dot com. Well, it sure looks like The Mentalist went all out for its season finale, stacking not one, not two, but five iPads on top of each other in some sort of makeshift surveillance system (with an extra one the desk for good measure). Apparently, the show had a shocking twist ending when it was revealed that the surveillance cameras being monitored were actually in the Big Brother house. [Thanks, Tim]
Screen Grabs: futuristic Nokia smartphone answers the product placement call in Real Steel
Screen Grabs chronicles the uses (and misuses) of real-world gadgets in today's movies and TV. Send in your sightings (with screen grab!) to screengrabs at engadget dot com. In the futuristic world of the would-be summer blockbuster Real Steel, Rock 'em Sock 'em-esque robots have become participants in a very real sport and, it seems, Nokia is still going strong -- although you probably knew that if you've seen the latest Star Trek movie. In fact, this device bears more than a small resemblance to the one used by a young James T. Kirk, with it boasting the same translucent shell that encases what's still unmistakably a Nokia design. Head on past the break for the full trailer, and look for the phone to make an appearance around the 16 second mark -- although we wouldn't recommend taking this as a hint of what's to come for Windows Phone.
Apple TV / film product placement down, but still ahead of competition
Maybe it's because I am both a fan and a loyal customer, but I do tend to notice how often Apple products pop up everywhere as the de facto computers on TV and on the big screen. According to a report by AppleInsider, Apple doesn't even pay for that product placement, yet 30 percent of the top movies in 2010 prominently featured Apple products. This figure is down from 46 percent in 2009 and 50 percent in 2008, but that 30 percent is still higher than any other brand -- even with other computer brands trying to mimic Apple's placement strategy. Back in 2006 we discussed an article at The Washington Post about all the "free" product placement Apple received in TV shows and movies, so we know this has been going on for quite some time. We've recently talked about the iPad being the star of Modern Family and iPod product placement on The Office, and now CrunchGear has found a video of Apple's Greatest Cinematic Achievements over on Vimeo. At 7:24 long and including everything from 30 Rock, War Games and The Sopranos, it's a fun look at how Apple's products have been placed in film and TV over the years. Click Read More to check out the video of Apple's Greatest Cinematic Achievements. [via CrunchGear and AppleInsider]
Shocker! Apple product placements dominate Hollywood
Something you already knew to be true has just been confirmed by Omnicom's Interbrand brand consultancy division: Apple reigns supreme in Hollywood films. Interbrand's Brandchannel website dug deep into the fetid bowels of product placement to reveal Hollywood's preferences (paid or personal) in the 33 films that hit the US box office number one slot in 2010. Brandchannel identified 591 total brand or product appearances for an average of 17.9 placements per film, with Apple appearing in ten of the top films for a 30 percent share -- Nike, Chevrolet, and Ford each appeared in eight. Incidentally, Iron Man 2 won the dubious distinction of being cluttered with the most identifiable brands (64) in 2010. Apple is actually off from its peak of 50 percent of number one films in 2008 and 44 percent in 2009 as demonstrated in the chart after the break. But it's not for a lack of trying. Brandchannel contends that the competition for brand placement has simply intensified resulting in fewer appearances of Janoff's U+F8FF.
Product placement gets a logo of its own, turns the world inside out
So the UK is finally catching up with the fine money-grubbing nations of this world and allowing product placement in British-made TV programming, starting from next Monday, February 28th. Advertising embedded in internationally sourced films and shows has long been tolerated as a necessary evil within the Queen's realm, but now that the telecoms regulator Ofcom is opening up locally farmed TV content to the blight of commercialization, it's come up with a suitably austere logo to warn us of its dangers. Basically, any future episodes of Hollyoaks that may contain a "stray" Diet Coke or Nokia N8 within the frame will be preceded by the above P placed within a P, which will prep you for the pernicious potentiality that the programming you are perusing may provoke you into purchasing new property. Capiche?
Screen Grabs: Dell Streak recruited into NCIS:LA for some undercover duty, fights evil Adamo XPS
Screen Grabs chronicles the uses (and misuses) of real-world gadgets in today's movies and TV. Send in your sightings (with screen grab!) to screengrabs at engadget dt com. Dell's product placement deal with CBS apparently doesn't stipulate whether its gadgets will be used for good or evil, as illustrated by their cameo appearances on the network's NCIS:LA crime drama. In last night's episode, lead do-gooder Special Agent Callen is seen preparing a Streak tabletphone for some audio recording action before a meeting with the baddies -- who in turn whip out an Adamo XPS (yes, it's still alive!) to seal a deal for some ultra-advanced weaponry. Yep, it's a non-stop cliché extravaganza! [Thanks, James and Tarek]
Screen Grabs: Pretty Little Liars is TV's newest home to egregious product placement (video)
Scene: Impossibly mature high school "girls" mingling in front of a locker. Action! Bitter Barbie: "What are you doing? Is that a new phone?" Bland Barbie: "Yeah, I'm checking my Kin. I'll just write on Hannah's wall from here." End scene. Yes, ABC's new Pretty Little Liars show is the future of American television, where entertainment morphs into infotainment and bakes the minds of an entire generation into a lovely pie of corporate servitude. We blame TiVo. Oh, and just because Palm quit making creepy commercials doesn't mean that they've given up on promoting its Pre to women. Looks like Roger McNamee was right about that backside mirror's appeal. See what we mean in the PLL episode 3 embeds posted after the break. [Thanks, Dave]
Carrie Bradshaw: a Mac no longer
Say it ain't so, Carrie! Our friend Christina Warren reports over at Mashable that the second Sex and the City film is featuring product placements from Hewlett-Packard rather than from Apple, including an entire site dedicated to the movie. As Christina points out, Carrie's Mac was practically its own character in the original Sex and the City TV series. The episodes were bookended by Carrie typing away on her PowerBook (a Pismo was mostly used). The laptop was the focus of its own episode when the motherboard fried and Carrie's boyfriend at the time tried to replace it with the first generation iBook, referring to it as a "purse." At age 25, moving across the country from my family for the first time, Carrie and her PowerBook were both a comfort and a symbol of power to me. They represented the modern, independent female journalist and I wanted to be like her. Okay, so I could never have the hair or the figure, but I did scrape together $175 to buy a used G3 PowerBook off of Ebay. When I did my second cross-country move, this one solo, I recorded my journey on that PowerBook and was pleased with my inner Carrie. The move by Sex and the City's producers appears to be motivated by HP's aggressive product placement program, and I'm sure that a good chunk of money was saved by having Carrie leap to Windows rather than upgrade to a 27" iMac and the latest MacBook Pro. It really is a shame, and I know I'll wince a little inside when I go see the movie. For me, Carrie Bradshaw will always be a Mac girl.
iPad roundup: Letterman licking, Colbert chopping, MobileMe and Remote support
Let's get straight to the meat. The iPad was doing the talk show rounds last night, with heavy hitters David Letterman and Stephen Colbert one-upping each other on who can do the sillier thing with it. Letterman went with the old school "if you don't know what to do with it, lick it" routine, while his competitor brought out a more sophisticated salsa preparation act. Pick your favorite from the videos after the break. In more material news, Apple has announced that MobileMe now includes the iPad among its supported devices, while some eager souls over at MacStories have spotted that iTunes 9.1 now references an "iPad remote," which suggests the nearly 10-inch tablet will soon be able to function as one of the most luxurious channel changers around. And you thought you wouldn't find a use for it.
