A few days ago, I wrote about some shameless examples of terrible product placement ads in “Days of Our Lives.” Here’s an example of product placement being integrated a little more smoothly: in this scene from Monday night’s “Castle,” Nathan Fillion’s character advances the plot by using voice-cued Bing on his Windows Phone 7.
The OS has encountered similar heroism on FOX’s ‘Bones,’ where Dr. ‘Bones’ Brennan gets a text on her WP7 device during an interrogation. Before that, WP7 appeared on CBS’ ‘Hawaii Five-O,’ where a character actually told another to “Bing it,” when referring to a search. Microsoft is obviously trying to achieve a ubiquitous verb-form of their brand, as there is with Google (i.e. “Google it”). [Phone Arena]
While the product-whoring in the video above is obvious, I don’t find it too blatant (although, interestingly, Castle had previously used an iPhone on the show). As long as the product is used sensibly within the story’s structure, I don’t mind the occasional bit of advertising slipping into my television programs — after all, I’m practically encouraging the practice by fast-forwarding through commercials on my DVR. And I couldn’t be happier about it. Suck a moldy dildo, commercials.
What do you think about the product placement on one of your favorite shows, It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia?
I see eye to eye with you on most of your TV calls, but I haven’t found this show funny for some reason.
Anyway, the radio was playing clips of their Dave And Buster’s episode, and although I didn’t see the ep, it sounded pretty lame.
The only one’s I have problems with are the ads where they go out of their way to point the product label at the camera and then talk about how good it is. It’s the exposition on the product that rips you right out of the moment. Someone cool uses a cool product and doesn’t expound about it, that’s fine by me.
The Dave & Buster’s episode of “Always Sunny” was pretty funny, actually.
they do some whorish product placement for Ford on Bones, they’ll have the character start talking about how great the GPS system on the hybrid they’re driving is and then do a beauty shot of the car. Being the pinko commie liberal whose spent most of my 20s reading No Logo and Adbusters it makes me feel like I’m in some dystopian nightmare.
I’ve always hated Itchy and Scratchy’s shilling for Laramie. The nerve!
You forgot to mention the best part of that Castle episode- Fillion’s callback to Firefly:
Castle: **speaks Chinese**
Beckett: Semester abroad?
Castle: No, just a TV show I loved…
Did you catch the Firefly reference? Fillion’s character speaks Chinese and then says he picked it up from an old TV show he used to love.
“It’s a wonderful restaurant!” ;D
What the fuck is a radio?
yeah, but only Nathan Fillion could make me want to buy that damn phone. rats.