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> If you see a designed object in a movie the brand owner will have paid to put it there. While paid product placement does exist and is widespread, this state
by mryan 11y ago
> If you see a designed object in a movie the brand owner will have paid to put it there.
While paid product placement does exist and is widespread, this statement isn't correct. There are many examples of organic product placement, where the set/costume designer uses a particular product without any financial incentive.
- simonh 11y agoIn fact for example Apple has confirmed repeatedly for many years that they don't pay for product placement.
- MagnumOpus 11y agoThey do pay, but they pay in hardware. They have dedicated staff to promote product placement and according to a Hollywood movie maker, "Apple won’t pay to have their products featured, but they are more than willing to hand out an endless amount of computers, iPads, and iPhones". It is actually a very unethical practice if you think about it in monetary terms. Rather than paying the film company above the table like ethical companies usually do, they outright bribe the prop department staff by giving each of them gifts worth thousands of dollars for preferential product placement.
- mikeash 11y agoThata a bit of a leap to go from "they hand out free hardware" to "they bribe staff with free hardware."
- scotty79 11y agoIf "they" means "for profit entity" those two statements are exactly the same in my ears.
- mikeash 11y agoThe difference is that the former means the free hardware likely goes to the production company and is not available for personal use. It's not a moral quibble, but a question of who owns the stuff and who gets to use it.
- DanBC 11y agoApple gives desirable stuff to the production company. Who gets the stuff when the filming has finished?
- mikeash 11y agoI imagine that the production company would keep it for their next project, or sell it to recover some money. Are you implying that this stuff is typically gifted to the employees instead?
- DanBC 11y agoYes, I'm saying that employees would keep it. Isn't that how hollywood accounting works?
- mikeash 11y agoI have no idea, but I would have thought companies would frown on expensive equipment walking out the door like that.
- scotty79 11y agoCompanies sell equipment they don't need to their employees at seriously reduced price.
- mikeash 11y agoWhy would they sell equipment below market price?
- snsr 11y agoYou seem to have a strange sense of morality. Looks like good marketing to me.
- scotty79 11y agoGood marketing and moral are completely orthogonal.
- briandear 11y agoThat's not any more unethical than Bacardi showing up at a bar and handing out Bacardi shirts for the staff and free rum to the patrons.
- knodi123 11y agosure it is. the macbook thing would be more analogous to a bar where only one or two drinks were available to customers, and the owners of the bar delegate the decision of which drinks to their bartenders, and bacardi promises tons of perks to the bartenders if bacardi rum is the only beverage available. I don't think it's actually a bad thing, but your analogy was weak. In your scenario, Apple gets much, much more of a benefit than bacardi would, and the bartenders get much less of a perk than the set dressers would.
- oldmanjay 11y agoIf I'm following your logic correctly, you believe it is less ethical for a company to benefit too much from a promotion, even if that promotion has no apparent ill effects. Did I mischaracterize your stance?
- knodi123 11y agono, it's less ethical the closer you get to the crime of bribery, "persuading someone to act in one's favor, typically illegally or dishonestly, by a gift of money or other inducement." Clearly this is not legally bribery. But giving out free bacardi and t-shirts at a bar is likely to provide less influence, and less resulting material gain, than giving macbooks to the guys who buy props.
- oldmanjay 11y agoYou said no, but the concluding sentence relies upon the distinction being the dollar amount of benefit gained. Is the (we'll stipulate) outsized benefit what brings it closer to bribery?
- woah 11y agoLet's be honest: the set, prop, and wardrobe designers want to use Apple anyway, because the devices are simply more attractive. The company just makes it easy for them.
- Thimothy 11y agoI guess it's coincidence then that Beats started appearing all over the place in movies and videoclips right around the time when Apple bought them (I remember searching for them when I became aware of their ubiquity and learning that Apple had just acquired them). Seriously, it's pretty obvious when the technology spot has been bought by whatever means, otherwise they use no-brand completely generic devices.
- tehwebguy 11y agoI've seen a few iMacs with the Apple logo covered in TV shows as well.
- Piskvorrr 11y agoMost likely a case of "so, Apple, you don't want to pay the TV just a little bit of money for product placement? Oh well, out come the stickers." Follow the money.
- tehwebguy 11y agoYeah I guess what I'm saying is that Apple can give people free shit all day but a director & producer will decide what goes in and what doesn't, not the prop department (as mentioned by others here)
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]