Microsoft's TV product placement horror: CNN mistakes Surface tabs for iPAD stands Last month Microsoft announced a partnership with CNN for its mid-term election night coverage, with Redmond providing tech for the news anchors to use. Unfortunately, the anchors used their shiny Surface tablet to prop up or hide their Apple iPads. CNN commentators using Microsoft @surface tablets as iPad stand. Facepalm. …
Before Microsoft Bought it, Danger made a device called the Sidekick that was a T-Mobile exclusive.
Not only did they pay for regular promotion, but an entire episode of the Gilmore Girls was scripted around the daughter character convincing her dad to buy her one.
Everything is for sale these days it seems...
Worst was the final season or two of Warehouse 13, where they sold out for product placement for some car (I think it was a Toyota or a Ford, shows how well spent that money was) with obnoxiously in your face advertising. It was almost like they ran an actual 30 second commercial with two of the main characters in the car owned by one of them discussing its features while they drove somewhere. I'm not sure how the actors kept a straight face trying to make that conversation part of the episode!
@AC
It was a Ford. Personally, I didn't find the Ford product placement that intrusive. The only time it got 'in my face' was when they used some hands-free dialing feature, though I don't recall them actually discussing it.
It's all about creating a real world without breaking the suspension of disbelief. TV shows/movies with made up brands or that purposefully obscure them look odd and you end up paying more attention to those items, which detracts from whatever is going on.
But, of course, overly conspicuous placement is just as bad.
The worst, of course, is having people actually describing features and referring to/discussing the product.
"Worst was the final season or two of Warehouse 13, where they sold out for product placement for some car (I think it was a Toyota..."
It was of all cars, the bloody Prius.
My favorite bit was how they used the "built-in" sat nav to navigate within the Warehouse. Under the iron roof.
Then, they try to Evil Knevil style jump the Prius, with clear warnings you should not try this at home. Shame, that's pretty much all the car is good for. And remember everyone who downvotes for that comment needs a "Smug Alert!". If you don't know what I mean, look at South Park. If you don't know wha that is, the fact you drive a Prius is the least of your concerns, you need help.
"the fact you drive a Prius is the least of your concerns, you need help."
Why? I'm not a Prius owner but I'm curious about this hate against hybrids and Prius in particular.
I'm sure that there are cases where Prius makes much sence in economic terms in the long run.
It's a nondescript Toyota that probably is well put together and not prone to failure.
NB, South Park is sometimes fucking funny, I agree. And I hate product placement too.
I think the Prius dislike comes from a few areas. There are those who say that the production of all the hybrid technology with the batteries in particular causes more problems than it solves. There are those that say that a modern, fun to drive diesel engine can produce less carbon emissions over it's life. There are those who point out the previous two points and point to the hypocrisy of it.
For me personally, I don't hold much against them but they don't excite me at all, if you want a really revolutionary car with everything, look at the Tesla stuff. Can't wait for the car they target for everyone.
It's worth noting that other hybrids are achieving a lot better potential environmental credentials (depending on how electricity is generated) simply by letting their users plug them in.
Bones has also done this with a Toyota Prius.
A note about the power of marketing:
I don't mind the people who weigh the pros and cons and decide a particular product is worth paying top dollar for, my issue is with the mindless 'oooh shiny' brigade.
Thats where a lot of Apple hate comes from. Not that their products are bad (though pricey), but the shit eating grin on the face of the muggle who's bought the latest product on, or just after launch day. Especially if they upgraded from the only-incramentally-inferior previous model.
It makes the people who choose Apple products for more logical reasons (such as work, percieved build quality, resale value) look bad. Some Samsung fans have been gulty of this as well in recent years.
Horses for courses.
> Why? I'm not a Prius owner but I'm curious about this hate against hybrids and Prius in particular.
Mostly what HMB said above. I looked at the car years ago, and read on a review that the new version had improved fuel economy and could achieve just a tad over 5.5 litres per 100 km (this was a French review, I think). At that time, you could get 4.5 l/100km on a Diesel A3 (actual figure), 5.1 from a rather more spirited Seat Leon, and 5.5 from a BMW 530d, the first two of which are cars in the same class as the Prius in question, save that they're cheaper and achieve better mileage, which I thought was rather the point of an hybrid car.
It may have got better in the last few years, but this car put me off hybrids forever, justifiably or not.
<rant>
Because so many people get all wet in the pants about the prius, as if they are saving the fucking planet. They are far worse for the environment to produce than most cars, due to their complexity; they are not well built, causing multiple deaths [http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2013/01/18/toyota-settles-first-hundreds-wrongful-death-suits-involving-unintended/] and at least one massive recall [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-26148711]; and they are not even fuel economical when you get out of a thirty zone.
OK, so battery powered cars are not yet ready for mainstream use, by quite a long way, but if you have an electrically driven car with a relatively small battery (mostly for accelerating and kinetic energy recovery) kept topped up by an efficient internal combustion engine (running at an RPM that is not directly tied to the speed of the car) you have the best of both worlds: maximum torque at 0 RMP, no clutch, regenerative breaking and the power density of petrol/diesel.
The Prius marketing is all about its green credentials, and they are mostly bullshit. Every time I see a Prius, I assume the driver is more concerned about looking like they care about the environment than actually caring about the environment. Or they are an idiot. Or both.
</rant>
Do you own a Prius? I do... (it will be 4 years next month).
I can't speak to all of the carbon bollox, I really don't care about that. What I do care about is "does the Prius do what it says it will do"? My answer is: yes it does.
It gets 50+ MPG (that miles per gallon for you metric types).
re: reliabilty, so far, no problems (complexity not-withstanding).
re: only gets good mileage under 30 MPH (that's miles per hour for you metric types). that's complete bullshit. My daily commute is 32 miles ( 51.5 km) each way over rolling hills at 65 MPH almost the entire trip. I typically get 50.5 MPG (measured tank-to-tank fillup) for 9 months out of the year, the other 3 months I get less due the very cold temps during winter.
I once worked at a company (before I owned the Prius) that was working on extending the Prius' pure electric range and an engineer started complaining about how it doesn't really use the battery that much and I told him: "I really don't care how the Prius gets its mileage numbers - as long as it does. There could be a hamster in the engine compartment, for all I care".
FYI, the Prius' real-time fuel consumption display is overly optimistic by about 5%. To achieve a true 50 MPG, the gauge must be reading about 52.5 MPG (just in case you are ever riding in one and looking at it).
re: Diesel: I would love to have the high MPG diesels here, but at the time (2010), they didn't pass EPA tests and weren't allowed into the country - also the winter's here make that a little bit tougher to deal with. The Prius was a reasonable alternative. My next vehicle: maybe a nice diesel.
> I think it was a Toyota or a Ford, shows how well spent that money was
It could have been both actually, as product placement is also "regionalised". E.g., the main character may be extolling the virtues of ACME on the North American run of the film, Ajax on the Australian version, and Notefijes in the Spanish dubbing.
they sold out for product placement for some car
On the other hand I really liked the way they presented the BMW in "Tomorrow Never Dies". In the English version the car was talking in a "very German" female voice...
And then there was Dr. Kaufman - "Believe me Mr Bond, I could shoot you from Stuttgart und still create ze proper effect." I watched it in a cinema in Glasgow together with some German friends and we nearly died laughing. (Incidentally some of us came from the area of Stuttgart).
For some reason they left that out in the German version, however.
Unlike Microsoft Apple NEVER pays for product placement. This was revealed in testimony during the Apple/Samsung trial last year (http://www.minyanville.com/sectors/technology/articles/Has-Apple-Fallen-Out-of-Favor/2/8/2013/id/47976) They make equipment available to those who want to use it in a TV show or movie, that's all.
Microsoft is paying for placement, so CNN has to keep those Surfaces on the desk, but the on air personalities apparently don't want to use them. I guess their opinion rules the day based on what the pictures show. Ham fisted deals like this and Samsung and Blackberry's sponsorships that boomerang back on them when it turns out the paid celebrity shill uses an iPhone instead just make them look stupid.
Since Apple isn't ever paying for stuff like this, the worst that happens is they provide some hardware to a movie producer but the scenes with the Mac or whatever end up on the cutting room floor. They don't pay celebrities to tweet "I love my new iPhone" so they don't have to worry about everyone laughing if it turns out it was tweeted from a Windows Phone!
Given the number of MS tablets and phones I see in the real world, whenever I see them on TV I automatically think, "product placement."
I may be prejudiced, but I think the same if a shot lingers on a Dell logo too. I mean seriously, super-secret mega-bucks-funded spy agency and you're buying Dells?
I can't work out if you're being sarky or not. Of course every spy agency is going have stacks of Dells. What else are they going to use? Samsung chromebooks? Acer laptops? A 16 year-old kid might think Jack Bauer would look cool toting a twelve-pound Alienware gaming laptop, but a 13" Dell is more his style. The stacks of Dell hardware are probably the only realistic thing portrayed in programmes like 24.
I noticed the racks of Dell servers in the computer office in Numb3rs.
I also noticed the distinct lack of the sound of a hundred cooling fans.
It's also rather unusual for someone using a supercomputer to actually sit in the room with it as they work.
Unlike Microsoft Apple NEVER pays for product placement.
So you believe what some corporate shill is telling you ?
I'm guessing you believe the new iphone is really that much better than the old one too.
as the other poster said, how are you going to explain the gaff regarding Joan Rivers ?
Also gave up TV in the last century, the advertising annoyed me and the news made me depressed. I presume that it has never changed.
Well one thing has changed. If you have a PVR and never watch anything live the adverts are rarely seen. Although I've noticed some channels recently getting sneaky with break graphics which in combination with the crappy FF that Sky boxes offer means it's harder to spot the end of the break.
It's hilariously near-useless. The best way I could describe it is as follows: imagine living in a house, a lovely house with exquisite woodwork and perfect carpet, but where the ceilings were only five feet from the floor. It's like that.
Oh well, only 300 Canadian dollarettes. I do not regret the purchase, but I do regret Microsoft's design decision failures. They'd benefit from some adult supervision.
...it's so naff and clumsy, so I love it when it all goes wrong and the advertisers and marketers are shown up again and again as the stupid muppets we always knew them to be.
And Microsoft do seem particularly blessed with marketing idiots and crap products no-one wants. Priceless!
Product placement done right, or at least not offensively, can be quite good (and effective) - as I recall, Burn Notice had a bit of a thing for the Hyundai Genesis coupe thing (US market V8 coupe thingy - think of it as the UK market Hyundai Coupes bigger, louder brother) where they explained why having a good wodge of torque and rear wheel drive were useful in evasive driving.
It was obvious product placement, but in context it wasn't out of place/clunky as the actual information can apply to any pokey RWD car.
I suppose the litmus test is, would that line have been out of place had it been any other car and not the sponsored one, and does it break the suspension of disbelief etc?
No, not really - it'd still work if it was a tuned early 90s Mustang or a used ex-police Crown Vic they were talking about. That said, it made me take notice of the Genesis, and I've since learned it's apparently not a bad wee motor at all - so the product placement did it's job, and didn't make me want to stab the telly.
That's about the last time I saw product placement and didn't think 'gah' though.
Steven R
> rear wheel drive were useful in evasive driving.
RWD useful in evasive driving? It's been many years ago since I was put through an elementary evasive driving course but I can't really think how that could be an advantage, unless doing some fashionably cool drifting while evading the baddies counts.
When I saw the images of them using their iThings instead of the product placement Surface-Things I laughed for 5 minutes.
I would love to see another company make a product which gives you the kind of experience that makes it hard to put down or stop using it. Why is Apple the only company that can even approach doing that?
instead of further enriching the NFL bozos (and now the CNN ones), they might have more luck shifting customers away from Apple and/or newbies to tablets generally. Focus groups and other customer research are not cheap, but 400 mill could likely round up some college students around a keg of beer (or kids around pizza, or geezers like me around double-espressos and donuts) for a discussion of what sucks about Surface, what does not, how could it be better, and so on.
...but in a real life company it doesn't matter. What only matters is the opinion of some top ranking internal personal.
I mean imagine Microsoft would bring out something closer to what people wanted. Let's say a surface tablet which is just a laptop in tablet form, without any limitation on what operating system you could run on. People would either want to run Windows 7, some Linux or Android on them. None of those options is particularly attractive to Microsoft. Plus they probably wouldn't be able to shoehorn their app-store, which means a hope for constant stream of commissions, into it.
In real life companies it is often not possible to do what's sensible.
Only one of those options is any bloody use on a tablet, smartarse.
Even then it fails as a productivity device because "productive Android" is right up there with "honest politician".
Anyway, regarding the story, it might be hilarious if it were true, which it isn't. Nice red-top job, El Reg.
To be honest I think they'd be better off putting 400 million dollars toward subsidising the cost of the Surface Pro. Anecdotally at least there are a lot of people out there that want the Pro 2 or 3 but the cost is just too big a barrier. Take a hit with the profits but get them out in people's hands, make them visible instead of keeping them rotting in a warehouse.
There is no use pumping out new designs if no one in the real world has seen them.
The main reason you see so much Apple gear is in the realm of photography and audio/video production, Apple rule the roost.
If your a director/photographer and need a prop, you will often use what's on hand like a MacBook Air, or iPhone/iPad because they are lying around everywhere on every set and photoshoot I have been involved in for the last 16 years.
Apple don't need to pay for product placement, they simply need to provide the kit.
The people doing the production will naturally gravitate towards using Apple gear because they use the stuff all day long anyway!
In Australia, you don't see that much product placement, but it is growing - thanks in large part due to the awful "The Block" renovation show.
Most directors I know are not interested in product placement - it devalues their art.
They are of course happy to use something for free, but that really is not the same thing.
On a side note, I manage IT for creatives - video, photography, advertising etc...
100% of my clients use Apple desktops/laptop and around 95% use iPhones/iPads.
Whilst Samsung might own the phone market, you would never know it if you deal with creatives all day!
I always assumed that they were trying to come up with a "catchy" word that people would adopt as a generic term for searching the web ..
As in "I'll just Google it" - they wanted people to start saying "I'll Bing it" ..
They should have chosen a less shit word
They picked the name Bing because they wanted to be before Yahoo! in the phone book
MS product placement never works, because it always feels so forced and fake.
Classic example series 1 of elementary they all use a nondescript phone that kinda looks like an iPhone, but without any branding. It works quite well for the odd camera shot of a text message or answering a phone and it is barely noticeable you never give it a second thought.
Then in the second series something changes and a lot of the characters are now using Lumias and the Surface and it just feels unnatural and too unbelievable, but then I am British and we've resisted the urge for product placements for as long as we could hold out *sigh*. While it may make the show some money it could end up getting it cancelled if too many people switch off because they realise it is just one big advert. Here is a clip for Elementary classic example -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsiXfW75598
As for Parks and Recreation both Lumias and Windows 8 / Surface tablets have been creeping in a lot over the last two series to the point where they spend a lot of time focusing on their phones and there was even an episode built around one of the devices, which just reeked of marketing BS. No wonder that is finally being canned after the next series. Definitely ran out of ideas when it is essentially an MS advert with a comedy tacked on the end. Well the MS advert is the comedy, but another comedy tacked on the end
MS product placement never works, because it always feels so forced and fake
Yes, and that's because people have to be forced/bribed to use them. There are hardly any to be seen out in the real world (hence the desperate placements).
With Apple, people actually want to use them, and to be seen using them (not me however, I'm too geeky for Apple). MS just don't have that, never will, and the harder they strive for it - the further away they become.
You just couldn't make that up if you tried. You can only imagine Ballmer's projecting his gift for natural unintended satire beyond retirement.
Worse apparently when you do have a script; the Hawaii 5-0 clip was simply painful to watch; I wonder how long before product placement finally renders all TV and film essentially unwatchable.
No? Because somebody did.
http://www.windowscentral.com/cnn-analyst-labels-ipad-controversy-false-and-idiotic
Sorry fanbois.
He would say that wouldn't he when his paymasters are getting a nice wedge for using them, which in turn is paying some of his wages.
If he turned around and said "I don't know why they put that POS there the garish colours give me eye strain and windows 8 > windows 10 WTF is that about?" I don't think his feet would touch the floor on the way out.... Damage limitation
I hate the talking down of the Surface because it seems to be a very good piece of kit, and anything that competes with the iPad (and Air) has got to be good for all buyers. However I despair at Microsoft's ineptitude in this particular product placement: If the users are accustomed to using iPads, they'll carry on using them unless there is a compelling reason to change. Also I'd bet that Microsoft offered no assistance integrating the Surfaces to the IT infrastructure, nor was there time. I can just picture a crate of devices arriving, being hurriedly unpacked and PLACED.
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