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by lawtalkinghuman
1073 days ago
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It is neither an endorsement nor an ad. It is a music video. Now, Nokia could have been paying her to use their phone during the music video - product placement is a thing, and you can see the brand logo in the shot. But I suspect if they were, Nokia's brand reps probably wouldn't have wanted a shot of a popular R&B singer trying to text from a spreadsheet and would have made sure the shot looked better to protect their brand. If it's not Nokia she's "endorsing", then presumably it's Excel. That fails on the basis that she probably wouldn't have been using Excel on the phone. As noted in jgc's blog post, it's likely the built-in spreadsheet software in Symbian. Either way, it isn't distinctly Excel - it's a generic spreadsheet app with no particular visual distinctiveness that would pick it out as Excel. People only say it's Excel because that's the spreadsheet they're most familiar with. (Incidentally, I'm all for ensuring celebrities who do paid endorsements are doing so responsibly. There ought to be some consequences for the public figures who used their fame to push cryptoscams including Tom Brady, Matt Damon, Jimmy Fallon, Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian etc. if only so it prompts their agents to think twice and do some due diligence in the future.) |
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I believe it is a fairly clear example of product placement, which is a form of advertisement. Like, when I see Andrew Garfield playing the role of Spiderman and having shots of him using Bing in those movies, there is no way I could consider it anything but product placement/ad.
Sure, there are less clear-cut edge cases in music, such as rappers namedropping luxury brands like LV, Ferrari, Rolex, etc., but at this point it is a part of the identity of the genre.
But overall, I think it is pretty obvious that when a brand/logo gets prominently featured in media such as movies, music videos, etc., it is for product placement purposes. And in cases when it isn't, taking it as a personal endorsement is kind of silly. For me, personal endorsement is cleanly defined as using and/or recommending products explicitly, outside of "fictional" media you produce (e.g., MKBHD reviewing tech products is not "fictional" media, so for him the endorsement would often come from within the media he produces).