Our last Not so subtle product placement post was actually a bit popular — which made me eternally happy that people wanted to read (or cared about) something I’ve been wanting to write for so long — so I figured that I might as well continue! Though I do have one concern which is that perhaps the title of this, shall we call it recurring column of sorts (?), is a tad bit long. So if you have any suggestions, please be sure to leave them below. I’m kind of happy with the name, however. And as always, if I missed a not so subtle product placement, please write it in the comments for everyone to know (I have yet to watch all the programming I normally do during the week so I know I probably missed something from even shows I avidly watch)!
And absolutely super importantly: if you are not up to date with the following shows, do not read what’s below as they contain spoilers. Go watch them, and then report back.
Bing and Windows Live Messenger on The Vampire Diaries
The setup:
In the second season finale of The CW’s (only hit) series, The Vampire Diaries, which aired this past Thursday, May 12th, 2011, the supernatural premise of the show went into overdrive. Thanks to Matt, Sheriff Forbes knows (once again) that the person she’s been trusting the most to get rid of vampires in her town is a vampire himself. The bubbling dynamic between Matt and the sheriff came to a conclusion a couple of weeks back when Forbes said she’d “take care of it.” And boy did she take care of it. Not! She was definitely, what people in “the biz” like to call, carrying the Idiot Ball.
(And by people in the biz I mean… couch potatoes who generally read way too many spoilers.)
Idiot Ball is what people call when a character is made out to be utterly and incomprehensibly stupid just to make the plot work. In this case, Sheriff Forbes shot at Damon, but since he’s a vampire he moved out of the way quickly and the person behind him — Elena’s brother Jeremy — was killed. The fact that a police officer would just shoot blindly like that, and the fact that someone who’s been chasing vampires and knows that their (and anyone’s!) first instinct is to run away from a gun pointed at them, and the fact that she wouldn’t look at who’s behind him (!!!) is never explained. But whatever, it moves the plot forward. Jeremy’s warlock girlfriend then revives him using a spell that her dead ancestors’ spirits tell her will cause some consequences they will need to face.
Where the product placement comes in:
After his resurrection, Jeremy takes to Bing to search stories of people that have come back from the dead. Though I’m surprised one name didn’t pop up… like, I don’t know… Jesus. While doing so he gets a call from his girlfriend Bonnie to video chat via Windows Live Messenger, where during the conversation he thanks her for, like, bringing him back to life or whatever. Because he couldn’t be bothered with telling her that when he resurrected. It’s just not the kind of conversation you have face-to-face.
How subtle, or not so subtle, is it?
The series has practically made Jeremy this guy who goes to the Internet whenever he’s having a problem… and let’s face it, that happens to a lot of us. So his searching about resurrections after he’s gone trough one is completely in character for him, and anyone else for that matter. But this video call thing? Has anyone ever said, “Let’s video chat. I call you on Windows Live?” I’ve never heard that. It’s always Skype — and Microsoft just recently bought them! I mean, really. Heck, even ooVoo gets its named dropped much more frequently.
I also love how both of their desktops are exactly alike and they each have only one icon it: Windows Live Messenger. It’s not enough that it’s pinned to their taskbar. I also like that they used full names for their Windows Live display name. No sarcasm there, I like that. I hate it when people have some weird pseudonym I can’t decipher. Also, it looks like Jeremy’s using Internet Explorer 9 (unlike the IE 7 on Gossip Girl from the last NSSPP post). Kudos, Diaries team!
But as to its subtleties, I think I’d give the Bing thing a completely honest A. As I mentioned, this really is a show where the Internet and Bing searches are everyone’s friend. The video call thing did go a bit far for me… but there was no mention of it. If you didn’t know what Windows Live Messenger is, then you would have never known that it was even product placement. You probably thought it was some generic video chat thingamabob that the graphics team designed because they couldn’t get the rights to Skype. And you’d be wrong. For that, I think it’s got to be a solid B, right? (Then again, isn’t the point to advertise your product? This is a pickle.)
