It's the kind of good publicity Apple couldn't buy—ABC's terrific new comedy Modern Family made the quest to buy a launch-day iPad the main plot of last week's episode.

Three lines into the opening scene, the plot becomes clear—and the unabashed iPad praise begins in earnest (Steve Jobs and God are also linked). Gadget hound and all-around "cool dad" Phil wants an iPad for his birthday; his wife Claire is skeptical, but open to learning more!

Phil: "The iPad comes out on my actual birthday. It's like Steve Jobs and God got together to say, 'We love you, Phil.'"



Claire: "What's so great about that doo-hickey, anyhow?"



Phil: "Doo-hickey, Ellie May? It's a movie theater, a library, and a music store all rolled into one awesome... pad."

That little dig at the iPad's name is as close as the episode comes to criticism of the "magical" device. By the show's last scene, Phil has secured his iPad after trials and tribulations, and he sits on his couch rubbing his fingers across the glossy screen. "I love you," he whispers. Claire, who walks in behind him, mistakenly thinks he is referring to her. Ha-ha?

Phil blows out the candles on his "cake"

Product placement and its discontents



Did we say that Apple couldn't buy this kind of publicity? The truth is that it can, and did.

Viewers would know this only by watching the credits. Near the end of the credit roll, a quick note flashes up on the screen: "Products provided by Apple."

Perhaps the Modern Family writers are just huge Apple fanboys. In past episodes, MacBook Pros and iMacs do litter the background scenery, but there are no dialogue references to them, no linkage of Jobs and God, and no plot point centered on buying Apple hardware. Oh, and there's a final indignity—when Apple doesn't contribute to the production, all Apple hardware gets a nasty grey sticker slapped right over the iconic Apple logo.

Don't pay, and the apple goes away

Apple clearly rolled out the full-court PR push for the iPad. Fawning, almost cringe-worthy coverage of the device appeared to be the goal. Apple got what it wanted through exceptionally tight control over prerelease hardware units for reviewers, with its gifts of iPads to people like Steven Colbert, and by doling out access to Jobs (his partner, God, was apparently too busy with Easter prep to do interviews). UK renaissance man Stephen Fry—whom we love—indulged in one of the most shameless pro-Apple rants ever to sully the pages of Time magazine, and it was all done "at Apple's invitation."

Then there's Modern Family. Sure, it was product placement, and yes, everyone knows it happens. Shows like The Office regularly feature shots of the Hewlett-Packard logo, and that's no accident. But this was something more, pitching a real product that you could really go out and buy that very weekend; it was something that might have seemed more usual decades ago, but it stands out today.

Shows used to be completely underwritten by sponsors in a way we don't see so obviously anymore. We've written about the history of product placement, and how the 1949 TV show Man Against Crime was bankrolled by Camel cigarettes. What's the problem with that? It's the free market at work!

Yes, it is, and Camel instructed the shows producers in how cigarettes should be depicted.

Many years after the series faded from popular memory, TV historian Erik Barnouw found an old mimeographed set of instructions from MAC's producers on how to deal with various themes, including cigarette smoking. He summarized the document in his classic tome Tube of Plenty: The Evolution of American Television. Because smoking was integral to the show, it had to be managed. First and foremost, the instructions told the program's writers which characters could not puff on coffin nails. "Do not have the heavy or any disreputable person smoking a cigarette," the memo warned. "Do not associate the smoking of cigarettes with undesirable scenes or situations, plot-wise." Actors should smoke cigarettes gracefully, the instructions continued, without even a hint of agitation. No character should ever smoke one to "calm his nerves," it dictated. Other verbotens: arson should not take place on Man Against Crime. This might remind viewers of the fire risks posed by cigarettes. And no one could cough on the program, obviously.

Camel's people had "already heard rumors about impending research that would suggest cigarettes, when used as instructed, kill people," so the show was told to portray doctors in "the most commendable light," to keep from irritating them.

This sort of thing had been a staple of radio, and continued for years on TV (there's a reason they're called "soap operas"). By the dawn of our century, product placement had retreated a bit. Used in the background of shows like American Idol, products like Coke were still present, especially in "reality"-style shows. In scripted dramas, which still employed teams of writers who (sometimes) felt bad about all this shilling, the way forward was to ironically acknowledge the placement, mocking the practice while at the same time benefitting from it. One could see this approach on hip, quirky shows like Arrested Development and 30 Rock.

Arrested Development enjoys Burger King (and a side of winking irony)

But Modern Family reminds us what TV can become when a promising show is taken over wholesale by advertisers. Not everyone likes the reminder.

Consumer groups have argued for years about tougher standards for disclosure. Back in 1989, for instance, the Center for Science in the Public Interest told the FCC that it should require "a conspicuous disclosure every time a paid product placement is depicted." Simply slapping a corporate name into the end credits was said to be inadequate.

In 2008, the FCC returned to this issue with its embedded advertising proceeding. In public comments, groups like Commercial Alert asked for the same thing: "simultaneous disclosure" of embedded placements. "Product placement advertisements should be disclosed at the time they occur," the group wrote, "with the word 'advertisement' appearing on screen during the airing of a product placement."

This would probably kill the market for placement, especially in scripted drama, but Commercial Alert said that such notices were crucial. To skeptics who argued that most people know a product placement when they see one, Commercial Alert responded that it is just not true. The advertising industry likes embedded ads, they charged, precisely because TV viewers don't mentally filter them out like commercials. Placements often portray what consumers see as an "authentic use of a product."

Such placements rely by definition on "deception," said the group.

The downside of DVRs



Technology was one of the forces that brought us this 30 minute iPad commercial—specifically, the DVR. Back in 2002, an FCC report recognized that DVRs would put pressure on broadcasters as viewers started skipping commercials.

"If, as expected, integrated PVRs become popular, broadcasters must find additional revenue streams," said the report, "Proactive advertising companies, for example, are already looking at future opportunities within sponsorship and product placement. Increasingly, marketers are shouldering production expenses in return for benefits or rewards that may include product placement, sponsorships, and in some cases, sweepstakes.... One reason television and cable networks are chasing such partnerships is to help offset rising production costs in a weak advertising environment. These networks are eager to capitalize on the fastgrowing demand from marketers to push beyond the limits of traditional commercials."

Produce a sucky, skip-worthy ad and pay through the nose; produce something that grabs DVR viewers and get a big discount.

Translation: if people skip ads, we'll make the ads unskippable!

This wasn't a problem for libertarian-leaning think tanks like the Progress and Freedom Foundation. In 2008, the group submitted comments to the FCC arguing that "the 'harm' posited by the Notice is an imaginative fiction—a fiction driven entirely by the paternalistic view that an enlightened few, who happen to be ensconced on the 8th floor of a federal building in Southwest DC, see the truth while the public at large is made up of mindless sheep being duped at every turn by advertisers. In fact, of course, those who hold this view are themselves victims of the so-called 'third-person effect': 'People tend to think that other people are fooled by what they themselves understand perfectly.' A rich literature exists on the myriad ways in which the third-person effect has predicated calls for speech controls and media regulation."

"In fact, of course..."! But this isn't at all obvious to groups like Commercial Alert, which complain that most viewers don't watch end credits, don't notice the "promotional consideration" disclosure, and may not be aware of many subtle product placements embedded in their TV shows. One might expect that such critics would actually be pleased by Modern Family's approach, which in eschewing subtlety leaves not doubt in the viewer's mind that the show has been sponsored.

In any event, the FCC still has interest in this area. Next week, the agency hosts an public seminar by Duke professor Kenneth Wilbur called "Effects of Advertising and Product Placement On Television Audiences." What will Wilbur say? It's not a surprise; his new research paper makes it clear.

Wilbur's idea is to keep the current 30-second ad format but make it more efficient. Right now, such ads shed DVR viewers, who reach immediately for the 30-second skip button. Wilbur did research quantifying this audience loss and suggests that the best strategy is for networks to reward advertisers who put out better ads, rather than charging everyone a similar rate to advertise on a particular show.

"For example, an ad creative could be vetted by an online consumer panel or inserted into network programming online (e.g., on Hulu.com), and observed viewer reactions would be used to measure viewer response to the ad," he writes. "Given enough consumers in the panel and a standard approach toward testing creatives, a formula could be devised to adjust the advertiser’s price. The attraction of this idea is that it would give advertisers an increased incentive to produce engaging advertising, and could possibly correct the currently unpriced externality in which an ad’s audience loss harms subsequent advertisers in the commercial break."

Produce a sucky, skip-worthy ad and pay through the nose; produce something that grabs DVR viewers and get a big discount.

Even if successful, such approaches won't kill product placement, which has existed for as long as television has. But anything which keeps placement to a discreet minimum and allows TV shows to maintain some semblance of editorial integrity sounds like a better approach to us than a return to the bad old days of advertiser-controlled content.

Listing image by ABC