Justin Ko's Blog

Having seen some really great examples of product placement in media during today’s class, my awareness about the subtlety of this form of promotion has greatly increased. Starcraft 2 is my new addiction as mentioned early and I have been playing since the release of the game back in the summer. Just recently, I have become aware of all the subtle product placement in the game. Well, it is not really product placement but it is a really interesting take on how rampant product placement has become. When playing through the campaign, the Starcraft developers put in many Easter eggs to give the players a laugh. The most notable is the iPistol ad parody of the Apple iPod.

This is a testament to how popular and widespread the Apple brand and advertising has become. Without specifically mentioning Apple at all in the spoof ad, I as a consumer was able to immediately draw the connection between the iPistol and the iPod.  The style of the commercial is a direct imitation of the iPod commercials released over 5 years ago. Interestingly enough, the connection can still be drawn years after the first commercial was aired. The encoding of the Apple brand has been so well executed that the colours, tunes and the art style has become almost as strong as the brand itself.  At first I saw the advertisement as a great little cut-scene; however, through my growing knowledge about marketing, the advertisement has become so much more. It now appears that the iPistol Easter egg is a tribute to how ubiquitous Apple and product placement has become.