It’s no secret that, over the years, Apple has included its products in well-known TV shows and movies in a way to spread awareness of coming devices. Now, a new report from Variety explained that the company is looking to increase its presence even further, with some shows even including direct connotations to Apple in the closing credits.
For example, Fox’s cop drama 9-1-1 includes Apple’s iPhone as the main smartphone for the majority of its characters with each episode ending with a “promotional consideration sponsered by Apple” message. According to Variety’s report, Apple has moved away from “surprising cameos” to taking directly credited roles in popular TV shows.
While the ad agency Omnicon Group – which buys ad time for Apple – denied having anything to do with the company’s appearances on 9-1-1, marketing professor P. K. Kannan noted that amid the growing prices of Apple products, placing them in the hands of celebrities would garner a great deal more interest than a regular TV ad.
Variety also pointed out that these promotional placements are “substantially cheaper” than regular 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.”
Only a few days before the original iPad launched back in 2010, an episode of ABC’s Modern Family revolved around a lead character’s quest to find one of the popular tablets. Five years later, the same sitcom dedicated an entire episode on the screen of Clare Dunphy’s MacBook and was shot using an iPhone 6 and iPad Air 2. Neither of these incidents included the same promotional disclosure message that has appeared on 9-1-1 and it’s well-known that Apple “didn’t pay a cent” for this appearance of its devices on the popular show.
One HBO spokesperson did explain that “products in shows are creative decisions, not product placements,” although Variety claimed that these decisions are still “aimed at selling tech.” Interestingly, a person close to the production of Showtime’s Homeland pointed out that the show keeps its main characters supplied with smartphones from Apple, Google, Blackberry, and Samsung while preventing showing these phones “in the hands of evil figures.”
With Apple planning to launch its own original TV shows, users can understandably expect the majority of characters to be using the company’s own devices. The debut of these shows is still uncertain but there is expected to be 12 shows confirmed for release on the streaming platform including shows by Steven Spielberg, Damien Chazelle, M Night Syamalan and more.