When Jon Holtzman was an Apple marketing manager in the early 1990s, the company had no inventory reserved for set decorators and prop masters. Filmmakers interested in using an Apple product had to wait for reporters to return review models and often got older devices. Holtzman successfully lobbied to make product placement as much of a priority as the editorial loan program and privileged access for employees’ friends and family. And that made the newest devices available to Hollywood. (via Apple, the Other Cult in Hollywood - Businessweek)
- In the 1990s, Apple’s PowerBook laptops included a company logo on the lid that faced the user sitting at the computer. When the lid was opened, the logo was upside down. Holtzman knew this was inconvenient to filmmakers and had stickers printed to cover the actual logo and have it appear correctly onscreen. A few years after Steve Jobs returned in 1997, he flipped the logo for good.
- Apple was struggling in those days, and then, as always, refused to pay for product placement, though the company did acquiesce to the occasional quid pro quo. In 1996 it secured a starring role for its PowerMac laptop in the first Mission: Impossible film in part by agreeing to promote the movie in its ads. The resulting TV spots were essentially clips from the movie with a few Apple logos mixed in. “We saved almost $500,000 in production costs—and got Brian De Palma to direct and Tom Cruise to act in it,” says Holtzman.
Posted May 31, 2012 at 3:25pm in apple product placement advertising marketing hollywood movies film industry
