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Fury Friday: Gratuitous product placement mid-TV programme

Fury Friday: I’ll be jumping on the soapbox each Friday and letting rip into the things of the week that have annoyed the living daylights out of me. This week: gratuitous product placement.
Written by Zack Whittaker, Contributor

Every Friday, I’ll be jumping on the soapbox and letting rip into the things of the week that have annoyed the living daylights out of me. Think of a dumbed down version of Peter Griffin’s ‘Grind my Gears

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Microsoft have done it again. Just as I was getting to the crucial and pivotal part of the series 'Bones', out of nowhere they spoiled the entire episode by once again plugging one of their products mid-scene. This time it was the turn of Windows Phone 7.

In the week that Windows Phone 7 has only been sold on a rumoured 40,000 handsets on the launch day not only puts the device and Microsoft to shame, but also once again elevates the iPhone and 'traditional' BlackBerry handsets higher on the pedestal. Even Android handsets are activating in the 200,000 region per day, and that platform is the brainchild of Google.

Google - for crying out loud, Google! They can just about pull off search but sod all else, but even Android is doing better than Windows Phone 7.

This short video will show exactly what I mean. The fact that the actors - who by the way are excellent, don't get me wrong, act in such a blasé fashion towards the device as if they use it every day and are just apathetic to it hasn't exactly helped things. Granted, had they broken away from the script, smashed the fourth wall with a theatrical sledgehammer and started to spiel a list of the latest features of the device; that would have been far worse.

Now you tell me, America, does that not just make you want to punch a small kitten in the face with pure, unrelenting anger?

What are they going to plug next; the KIN devices, resurrected only today on a half-arsed network? For those who enjoy the delights of Dr. Temperance Brennan, can you really imagine her, a world-leading forensic anthropologist, albeit fictional, using a device geared towards the Generation Y? No, because that would be like a heart surgeon sharpening their skills by playing 'Operation'.

I don't mind seeing a billboard plastered with your phone, your operating system, or even your entrails, if I'm honest. I don't mind seeing your adverts in a newspaper, on the web or on the television, so long as they are not embedded 'surreptitiously' in the middle of a bloody programme. It murders the ambience.

Colonel Mustard, with a Windows Phone 7, in the middle of a television programme with a candlestick. Microsoft, you've just Cluedo'd your new mobile operating system into an early grave as far as I am concerned.

Grrrawr.

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