But it hasn't stopped there, and I can't tell who is pulling the strings...is it Apple, who has the clout and money to put their product into every media nook-and-cranny they can find? Or is it media itself, that can't get enough of touting Apple's products, featuring them in cameos and leading roles, and gushing all over themselves anytime they get a chance to pay homage? Or is this really a cultural phenomenon, worthy of all of the attention it's getting?
My personal magazine subscriptions have featured Steve Jobs on the cover of Time this week, the ipad on the cover of Wired, and even Businessweek hoisting up the tagline, "Yet another iPad article? Oh Yes".
But the most egregious iPad "iPandering" was reserved for television, where product placement has morphed slowly over the years into Product Synergy, and where companies and products have turned into integral parts, or even characters, in episode plots.
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Stephen Gets a Free iPad | ||||
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And while I fully expect this type of Apple-love from the likes of Stephen Colbert (who has been begging Apple for one for weeks to get an ipod), it was ABC's Modern Family that really tipped the scales.
A quite funny show in its own right, Modern Family stooped (or rose) to a strange, new marketing level by making the iPad a central part of the latest episode's plot. And while it's one thing to have an "Apple laptop here, or an iPod there"in a shot, the entire show revolved around the main character's desire to acquire an iPad on his birthday. The comedic situations were tied to searching out an iPad, waiting in line for it, and finally getting one...and blowing out a virtual "birthday cake" on it.
To be fair, the shows' father has been cast already as a "tech geek" and a character whose written arch would warrant that he would want an iPad. But by using him in a comedic way, and having him saying catch phrases like, "Get ready to begin the first day of the rest of your life", are we really laughing with this...or is Apple laughing at us.
One of the first examples I saw of this type of marketing was on a cartoon series called Aqua Teen Hunger Force...in which they created a whole episode around the company Boost Mobile, which is a cell phone provider. While the cartoon is irreverent and borders on actually making fun of the product, the message and the brand gets across...and even gets some "hip points" for being on a cool, adult cartoon show. In this early incarnation, the product has to be ready to get skewered by the show...is it worth it? Probably!
Aqua Teen Hunger Force / Boost Mobile from NX STUDIOS on Vimeo.
Another cartoon series to take this marketing style was Frisky Dingo, in a hilarious spoof of Regis and Kathy Lee, promoting the new Scion car...and continually interrupting the main antagonist with their shameless promotion. Scion was involved in this and greenlit everything that came with being a part of the Frisky Dingo style of comedy:
They even acknowledged it themselves on the cartoon:
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