“Last night’s episode of ‘Modern Family’ was essentially a half-hour-long plug for the iPad, days before it hits the stores. The episode revolved around Phil’s desperate wish for an iPad for his birthday, and Claire’s repeatedly failed attempts to get him one,” Matthew Gilbert reports for The Boston Globe.
MacDailyNews Note: SPOILER ALERT: Here’s a clip, if you don’t mind being spoiled:
Direct link to video via YouTube here.
Gilbert reports, “The episode worked beautifully. Phil is a dorky gadget-head, and it made perfect sense that he’d be lusting after the newest Apple phenomenon. This wasn’t the kind of TV product placement that has obviously been imposed onto the story for money; it was a natural extension of the character and the show’s ‘modern’ themes. When Phil said, “The iPad comes out on my actual birthday! It’s like Steve Jobs and God got together and said, ‘We love you, Phil,’ it was true to the humor of ‘Modern Family.’ So was his line, ‘Next week! That’s like the worst thing you can say to an early adopter.’ I’d actually believe it if someone told me that the writers — and not the producers or the network or Apple — initially came up with the iPad plotline.”
Read more in the full article here.
The full “Modern Family” episode (“Game Changer”) is available online via ABC here.
MacDailyNews Take: Marketing students, watch and learn. The Apple machine is firing on all cylinders this week. It’s quite a sight to behold!
[UPDATE: 10:45am EDT: Changed “around” to “on” in headline as per “Logic Police.”]
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Me in LA” and “Jay in DC” for the heads up.]
