Apple’s Oscar Presence

The Oscars this year were one of the most memorable in recent memory. No, not from the perspective of a movie lover… The Kings Speech winning was nothing to phone home about. No, not from the perspective of an Oscar telecast aficionado… it was quite abysmal. But from an Apple watcher’s perspective? It was incredible.

Simply put, it’s amazing to see how far Apple has come in the past decade. A little over 10 years ago, Apple was on the brink of extinction and was saved out of legal pity by Microsoft. Now, Apple’s presence in the world is so influential and widespread that they barely even have to market. That basically get’s taken care of.

In this year’s telecast, Apple had one simple iPhone commercial. No big deal. But Apple was given the type of advertising that money can’t buy… association with America’s elite. In the actual broadcast, the co-host James Franco, “unable” to fix the projector behind him, realized the solution to his problem was to pull out his iPhone and say “there’s an app for that.” Apple’s slogan, made to demonstrate the wide range of life applications the phone has, has become more than a marketing ploy. It has become a fact of life. Apple doesn’t advertise at the Oscars… the Oscars advertises Apple.

Furthermore, a company advertised an app for Apple, and consequently ended up advertising the iPad… a fine example of co-branding. The funny part is that the power of Apple’s brand overshadowed the company that created the ad so dramatically that in the room of teenage boys I watched it with, nobody remembered who the ad was for. They all just thought it was an iPad commercial. Again, a company spends millions of dollars to promote their app and all people get out of it is that the iPad is cool.

The Apple brand is getting more powerful, widespread, and influential by the day. This year’s Oscars telecast is only a continuation of the trend. The question is, how far will it go in the future?

(oh, and who did one of the major thank you’s in Toy Story 3’s acceptance speech go to? Steve Jobs.)